Nordic Bakery - Soho Aug 2010

Where: The Nordic Bakery, Golden Square. I'm partial to a good breakfast. It's been said before.
This cool little Scandinavian place sits among the behemoths of the film universe in Soho's Golden Square. The square and the store are both packed solid with lunching film makers and local office workers on a weekday lunchtime, this drizzling Thursday morning sees them both empty.


The space is beautiful. Spare design, concrete walls and dark woods. Being a bit of a design nut, I absolutely love the regional furniture in here. Authentic, utilitarian and perfectly constructed. They're so (rightly) proud of it that it's listed on the menu like a local ingredient. After I sit down a regular walks in to prep for a meeting. With black cableknit sweater, thick horn rimmed specs and a stylish leather iPad case he was a true Scandinavian cliche, looking like he should have been in Oslo or Copenhagen.

The two terms, Nordic and Scandinavian are used interchangeably and refer to the five countries of the region; Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It's not as close a union as say the United Kingdom, but they have a Nordic Council, agree on most local affairs and are closer than most neighbours often are, though the other four do gossip about the Finns behind their back. Other than that, they share a cliched propensity for strong drink, a reputation for maudlin and the aforementioned beautiful, utilitarian design. Copenhagen restaurant Noma has risen to be crowned top restaurant in the world and their fine dining food scheme may be in renaissance, but Scandinavia isn't renowned for a foodie culture.


Most people will sum Nordic cuisine up as being broadly based around meatballs, pressed or pickled fish and vodka (with Dime bars included if you've been to Ikea recently). However a trip to the Nordic Bakery will also add the unassuming sounding cinnamon roll onto that list, and probably lead to a Homer Simpson drool moment too. The bakery offers a simple coffee (served in beautiful Aino Aalto glasses, design nerds) and sandwich menu with a variety of regional specialities. Gravadlax, luscious pressed salmon in a dill pickle served with dark nutty rye bread, boiled egg served with mustardy sharp pickled herring and Karelian Pies, a Finnish potato pasty in a rye crust. All perfect for sitting with in the sun on Golden Square and almost enough to make you forgive ABBA.

Breakfast here means only one thing for me though, the cinnamon bun or korvapuusti as it's known to the sugar hungry Finns. Each nation has a variant. 'Designed in Finland, made in London' states the menu. Presumably made in London because it would cost too much to ship the gigantic yeast dough rolls, laden with a moreish toothsticking sugar cinnamon syrup, from their native Finland. One of these and you're clear past lunch, two of these and you'd be clinically dead. Warmed and served with a short latte it's the perfect breakfast pick me up, thick, chewy and moreish - but almost more than this correspondent could cope with. Only a few steps away from the beautious Portuguese pastel de nata served at nearby Fernandez and Wells but a continent away in style. Both serve great coffee and a sugared breakfast treat in their own, culturally diverse way and one of the joys of Soho is that you can sample both on a regular basis. Just woe betide your waistline...