Vegan in Copenhagen: Naturbageriet bakery review

At the end of last month, I had the good fortune to end up in Copenhagen for a long weekend. Prepare yourself for a few Danish themed posts...

Apparently, in Denmark, there's no such thing as a Danish pastry: what we call a Danish pastry the Danes actually call 'Viennese bread'. 

At least, that's what I read in my handy Time Out guide to Copenhagen when I was on holiday in the Danish capital recently.

That's not to say the Danish don't make pastries. Oh no. Not only do they make pastries, they make pastries of all sorts of exciting types and hues -- and there's one bakery in town that even makes a load of them vegan.

Naturbageriet has two branches in Copenhagen - one near the Nørreport metro stop, and one near Copenhagen's central station (the latter is down a bit of seedy street where an abundance of sex shops and the charmingly named Spunk Bar reside. The former's in a nice bit of town, not far from the city's botanic gardens and assorted other green spaces.) 

In the interests of bringing you a fair review, I tried both. Yes, dear readers, I really do suffer on your behalf.

Oh yes, it was tough, but I tried pastries at both branches, and extensively too. We ate their rolls, biscuits, cakes, and things that looked just like Danish pastries, but were probably called something else. Apart from a bit of an over-reliance on cinnamon in the sweet stuff, they were all uniformly lovely.

Being Danish, and therefore better at speaking English than the English are, in both shops the man behind the counter was able to point out what was vegan and what wasn't. In both cases, about 80 percent of the shop's products were vegan, and a lot of it was gluten free too (although it's probably worth pointing out that in one instance, honey was considered vegan. The pastries have their ingredients listed on in the shop windows, so you can always double check if you've got a dictionary or dictionary app handy.)

The pastries had a bit of a wholemeal-y taste to them - that's not a criticism, just a taste difference that surprised me a bit. I normally like cakes that are bad for you, and taste like they are too!

Mind you, if you're feeling particularly absemious through either choice or necessity, there's even sugar free as well as gluten free options for all your cakey needs. I tried a sugar-free applecake, and was happy to discover it was still gorgeous and hearty for all that, with a stodgy cake base topped off with juicy baked apple slices.

My favourite of the several baked goodies I tried was the rum ball - so dark and soft and rich with rum I wanted to build a tent in it and stayed in there for days. 

The marcipanguf (what an awesome name! pictured below) came a close second - it was two sugary, biscuity layers with a slice of marzipan baked in the middle. I tried to eat it slowly. I couldn't. I scarfed it down like I thought someone had made it illegal.

Copenhagen isn't the vegan-friendliest capital city, but stop into a Naturbageriet, and you'll feel well loved.

Naturbageriet
29 Frederiksborggade and 98 Istegarde
Copenhagen
Denmark
33 14 62 26