Sourdough bakery in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen

Hart Bageri

Croissant Scraps Done Properly

4 of 5

Hart Bageri began with a British baker named Richard Hart, who had been head baker at Tartine in San Francisco, the bakery that made a generation of Americans take sourdough seriously. He came to Copenhagen and opened this place on Gammel Kongevej in Frederiksberg with René Redzepi of Noma as his partner. That pedigree could have produced something precious. It produced a bakery that fills bags.

The pastry that made the name is the cardamom bun, and the trick is thrift. It is built from leftover croissant dough with extra butter, so it caramelises at the edges like a kouign amann. Waste nothing, then make the waste the best thing in the case. The drømmekage, the Danish dream cake, gets the same treatment as a twice-baked croissant with coconut, brown sugar and caramel. There is a Basque cheesecake too, and the sourdough comes stacked in honeycomb rows behind the counter. The pastry list moves with the seasons, so ask what is new before you settle.

Hart now runs thirteen shops across the city, from Islands Brygge and Kødbyen to Holmen and Refshalevej, and you can order ahead online and pick up. Frederiksberg opens at half past seven on weekdays and eight at weekends. Get there early, take a cardamom bun and a coffee, and buy a city loaf for tomorrow. The bun will not survive the walk home.

Order this

The cardamom bun, Drømmekage, A city loaf to take home, Basque cheesecake

The damage

$$

Go

Early morning, before the cardamom buns run low

Find it

Gammel Kongevej 109, 1850 Frederiksberg, Denmark

Website

hartbageri.com