The Best Cafés in Norway
Founder Sandra Kristiansen invited Japanese roaster Ayae Maki Fredheim to launch Hibi Kaffe here in 2024; the bakery followed in 2025. The space is used during the day and becomes an award-winning restaurant in the evening. Sourdough bread, pastries, and hearty baguettes are served alongside espresso drinks.
Every chair, lamp, and table is for sale: designers behind the mid-century Scandinavian interior include Birger Dahl, Fredrik Kayser, and Kaj Franck. House-roasted Nordic coffee by day, cocktails by night. The 1963 coffee institution was relaunched in 2012, the same year it expanded to Tokyo.
Inside a timber house from 1806, three Risø brothers serve hand-brewed coffee and lunch dishes with Arctic ingredients. Co-founder Arne is a two-time Norwegian latte art champion and creates intricate designs in every cup. The buttery cinnamon rolls are usually sold out by noon.
A minimal café in Grünerløkka where the roastery takes centre stage. Co-owner Odd-Steinar Tøllefsen was a newspaper photographer until a trip to Naples sparked a passion for coffee in his forties. He won the World Brewers Cup in 2015 and often brews pour-overs behind the bar himself.
Roasting beans since 2012, this third-wave café helped launch specialty coffee in Trondheim. Founder Tony Jacobsen started in a six-square-metre space behind a hair salon; now he supplies several fine-dining restaurants in the region. The kanelboller and a single-origin filter make for a perfect pairing.
Three floors of natural light, designer furniture, and architecture books: Kokko is a coffee bar with an architecture studio on top. Owner Ole Marius Skjærseth roasts single-origin beans and supplies them even to the award-winning restaurant Re-Naa. Curated lighting and interior objects from around the world are for sale.
Norway’s largest and oldest specialty coffee roastery, founded in 1879, operates this concept store inside the Mathallen food court. Single-origin beans and signature blends are brewed as espresso or filter. A tasting bar lets connoisseurs sample different roasts side by side.
Leather banquettes, bentwood chairs and stucco details give this bakery (opened 1998 as the first of 21 locations across Oslo) a timeless, continental feel. After the dough rests overnight, the crusty loaves are ready to eat in the morning. The sandwiches make the most of the house bread.
Since 1996, Bergen’s oldest and smallest specialty coffee bar has served filter, espresso, and pour-over from a cobbled alley near the Fløibanen funicular. Four students founded it; the cosy atmosphere and Solberg & Hansen beans have kept locals returning for nearly thirty years.
Frédéric Aguerre missed proper French pastry, so in 2018 he opened this crêperie near Majorstuen tram, complete with French tiles and Parisian atmosphere. The galettes are made the strict Breton way with only buckwheat flour, salt, and water. The coffee comes from Lippe Kaffe.
The Italian-style espresso bar, opened in 1997, uses beans from owner Robert Thoresen’s Kaffa roastery. He won the first-ever World Barista Championship in 2000. The architect-designed interior features a large green mosaic behind the counter, contrasting with the many red details on coffee bags and equipment.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line the walls of this former fire station, now home to the House of Literature. The kitchen sources almost everything from the region of Trøndelag and varies between beans from Nordic and international roasters. Named after a character in Knut Hamsun’s novel “Growth of the Soil.”
Australian Talor Brown opened this playful donut shop after training at Tim Wendelboe and honing her craft in Melbourne. The brioche-style dough ferments for 18 hours before frying. Seasonal flavours like cardamom–brown butter and rhubarb–vanilla change weekly, served with house-roasted coffee.
A peculiar yellow house sits beside Kampen church, busy since it opened in January 2021. Built by a baker in 1878, the heritage-listed building is now home to some of Oslo’s finest cardamom buns. Laura Raubaite and Andrea Marambio bake with organic stone-ground flour from Holli Mølle.
Diana Elizondo, formerly head pastry chef at renowned Maaemo, crafts fantastic sweets: caramelised canelés, flaky croissants, apricot and elderflower tarts, and airy cinnamon buns with custard are proof of her fine-dining years. Brasserie and wine bar in the evening.
Inside a former cod liver oil factory and carpentry workshop, two pairs of brothers from Bergen opened this café-bar in 2017. They had stumbled upon the abandoned building on a climbing trip and pooled their savings to buy it. There are hotel rooms for those who cannot get enough of the sea view.
Since 1895, this konditori has graced the historic Kvadraturen quarter with Parisian elegance beneath a glass ceiling and painted frescoes. Pascal Dupuy, the ninth pâtissier to work here, took over in 1995. He is known for his fennel cake among other French classics.
Continuing the success of the coffee shop at Universitetsgata and in Asia, the team opened their own roastery in 2018. It is housed in a converted stable in Gamlebyen, and the star of the space is the petrol Probat roaster once owned by Tim Wendelboe. Stop by to try coffees straight from the source.
Bergen’s only specialty roastery runs a spacious café beside Nygårdsparken, where guests can watch beans turn on a Giesen drum. Owner Carl Johannessen started it as a hobby in 2009, and now he supplies cafés across the city. Every Thursday, an open tasting invites you to explore the flavour spectrum.
A pioneer above the Arctic Circle: this third-wave coffee shop opened in 1998, when Tromsø's coffee scene barely existed. Today, it has four locations. The shelves stock beans from Tim Wendelboe, Solberg & Hansen, and Kaffa. Among the buns, the brioche with berry filling stands out.