Nordic Bakery

I love it when people introduce me to their favourite food places, it is the best kind of recommendation. At my new job, one of the girls and I discovered a similar fondness for cake and pastries – passing the time discussing what kind of delicious concoction we are going to have next. H had been telling me about a Nordic Bakery she had gone to, which had amazing cinnamon buns. Needless to say, I was hooked instantly – imagining large, blond men standing around needing dough on a snow covered hillside (okay my imagination got away from me a little). Located at 14 Golden Square W1F 9JF, Soho, it is actually an uber-cool, modern little place – with dark wood, bench style seating.

As the sign says, they specialise in dark rye bread open sandwiches and sweet sweet cinnamon buns, they have some other little biscuity cake things too. I looked it up and apparently the rye crispbread or reissumies, are baked in Finland, frozen and flown over. How’s that for authenticity? (Obviously a hefty carbon footprint, but we’ll ignore that) Featuring traditional Scandinavian and Finnish ingredients such as egg and anchovy, smoked salmon and gravadlax – it made me feel like I was holidaying in Europe for the day.

As I am not a huge fan of pickles and anchovies, we decided to skip straight for a coffee and a bun – despite my protestations about having not having something ‘proper’ for lunch. We chose one of the aforementioned sweet sweet cinnamon buns and salivated over its golden stickiness. I love the way everything comes on a little tray, it’s like being on an airplane with really tasty food.

The bun was so delicious, cinnamony and sticky, it tasted incredible – very decadent. The syrup was soft and gooey inside and caramalised on the bottom, unlike any cinnamon bun I had every tasted. The clever Nordic people also keep the basket of buns covered and with a heat plate underneath to maintain the moist, warm goodness.

Please excuse the blurryness of this last photo, clearly my camera was too overcome with cake envy to focus properly – it’s the mechanical equivalent of drooling. Anyway, that is the Nordic Bakery in Soho, definitely worth a visit.

The verdict: It will set you back about £2 for the bun and £1 “something” for the coffee. Quite reasonable for the area. I will be back!