Please note, Nordic Bakery Covent Garden has now closed. Time Out Food editors, May 2018.
You can tell a lot about a bakery from its typeface, said nobody ever. Until Nordic Bakery came along, that is, and made Helvetica synonymous with cinnamon buns. Cool, clean and stripped back, the font is the essence of this café: the furniture’s minimalist, the walls are pale wood and, at this, its fourth London branch, they’ve put dark green tiling behind the counter to make you feel like you’re eating in a pine forest. It works. Nordic Bakery might be the calmest place in Covent Garden.
The food is just as authentic as the décor. An open sandwich of quality smoked salmon on black rye bread was simple Scandi perfection; as was the Karelian pie, a savoury, lightly salted concoction that tastes like a mash-up between a potato cake and a Müller Rice. A highlight? The beautifully dark, cocoa-filled ‘mud cake’.
Surprisingly, the cinnamon roll was disappointing. Nordic Bakery is famous for them, but it was, frankly, overly heavy and a little dry. Another thing that could upset your zen a bit is the price point: £4.90 for half an open sandwich? Eating here might be hygge but it’s not always worth the cash. Except, maybe, for that sandwich.