Some of the best food in Copenhagen is not sitting in a dining room waiting for you. It is baked in one kitchen, sold to people who already know about it, and gone by the afternoon. That is the whole idea behind Word of Mouth, our new series: we find passionate people cooking what they love, and we show you how to get it.
This is the running list. We add an episode every time we find one, so bookmark it if you want to keep up.
What Word of Mouth is
Every other video we make is about a place you can walk into. This series is the opposite. Word of Mouth is for the food you have to know how to find: a pre-order on WhatsApp, a webshop that opens once a month, a bakery that only opens its doors two mornings a week, half an hour outside a train station on a Friday. One kitchen, one or two people doing the work, and no marketing budget. You have to know when and where, and that is the part we are here for.
It is the kind of food that normally spreads between friends and never makes it any further. The series exists to move it a bit further than that. One rule stays the same as everywhere else on this site: we only put it here if we have actually eaten it.
Episode 1: Rubia y Morena, Madrid cheesecake on Vesterbrogade
This is some of the creamiest cheesecake in Copenhagen, and you cannot walk in and buy it. Rubia y Morena bakes Spanish cheesecake out of a kitchen on Vesterbrogade in Vesterbro, and everything is pre-order.
The style is Madrid by way of the Basque cheesecake everyone knows: baked hot so the top toasts and cracks, pulled while the middle is still barely set. The difference here is the base. Instead of the usual bare-sided Basque cake, these are built on a sablé base that gives the whole thing something to bite against, and the centre is left so soft it is closer to a spoonable cream than a slice. They use organic ingredients from Danish producers and small suppliers where they can, and the flavour list moves with the seasons.
We tried three. La Clásica is the one to start with: three cheeses, brown toasted spots across the top, and a centre that stays cold so the whole scoop slides straight onto the spoon. La Morena is the chocolate one, made with Valrhona dark chocolate, setting a touch firmer and eating closer to a mousse without ever stopping being cheesecake. La Rubia is lemon, sharp on the first hit before the sugar rolls in behind it, and the one that disappears fastest after a heavy meal. There is a dulce de leche version and seasonal flavours like mango in summer, so ask what is being baked that week.
Sizes run 100 kr. for a small at three portions, 250 kr. for a medium at ten and 320 kr. for a big one at fourteen. Pre-order on WhatsApp at +45 93 96 25 23 or by DM on Instagram at @rubiamorenacakes, then collect at Vesterbrogade 95E, 1620 København V. Give them a day or two if you can, because it is one kitchen. This visit was sponsored.
Spanish · VesterbroRubia y MorenaVesterbrogade 95E, 1620 København V▶ Watch the video and read the reviewEpisode 2: Seoulmade, living kimchi from a Vesterbro kitchen
The best kimchi in Copenhagen is not sitting on a supermarket shelf. Seoulmade is Johanne, Korean name Moon Sun Ok, born in Korea and raised in Denmark, and she makes it by hand, one batch at a time. Everything is unpasteurised, which is the whole point: the fermentation is still running when it reaches you, so it fizzes on the tongue instead of tasting like a pickle.
We tried four things. Baechu kimchi is the classic napa cabbage, fresh zing, real crunch and deep chilli. Kkakdugi is the radish cousin, cut into cubes, with a snap the cabbage cannot match. The chili oil is loaded with peanuts, cashews and sesame, the heat low and slow. And the ssamjang, doenjang and gochujang together, is the one to try with fresh melon. Think parma ham and melon, but on steroids.
There is no shop and no delivery. The webshop at seoulmade.dk opens for a couple of weeks each month, and pickup happens on set dates in Vesterbro, so follow Seoulmade on Instagram and watch for the batch to open. This visit was sponsored.
Korean · VesterbroSeoulmadeKøbenhavn V▶ Watch the video and read the reviewEpisode 3: Biscotto, croissants on Islands Brygge two mornings a week
The first episode you can walk into, as long as you know when. Biscotto is a bakery on Thorshavnsgade in Islands Brygge, run by two people who bake through the night and sell until it runs out. Friday from eight, Saturday from nine, and closed at one at the latest.
The tiramisu croissant comes with a pipette of coffee reduction stuck in the top that you squeeze in yourself. The pistachio croissant is Bronte pistachio from the slopes of Etna, crushed on top with cream inside. There is a Dubai croissant, a chocolate croissant made with Friis Holm chocolate, a cinnamon swirl with Ceylon cinnamon and a vanilla cream infused with fig leaf, and two specials that change every week, like the strawberry spandauer we got. French butter and flour for the layers, and it shows.
Walk in, no booking, and go early. Private and B2B orders go to biscottodk@gmail.com. This visit was sponsored.
Bakery · AmagerBiscottoThorshavnsgade 18, 2300 København S▶ Watch the video and read the reviewEpisode 4: Tonari Bageri, Japanese bread picked up at Nørreport
Some of the best Japanese bread in Copenhagen has no shop. Tonari Bageri is Joey, who grew up with these breads in Singapore and started baking them herself when she could not find them here. Tonari means “next door” in Japanese, and the dream is a real bakery next door. For now it is pre-order, a few Fridays a month.
The classic shio pan is crisp, buttery and salty, and hollow in the middle where the butter melts away in the oven. The garlic cream cheese shio pan has a crunchy bottom and a creamy center, and the anko butter shio pan is filled with red bean paste they make themselves, a cold slab of butter and black sesame on top. The melon pan has a sugary cookie crust over soft, pillowy bread, the black sesame mochi cookie hides a piece of mochi in the middle, and the cakes, like the creamy matcha one we had, are made to order.
The order form drops on @tonari.bageri about a week before each pick-up, and pick-up is from 17:00 to 17:30 at Nørreport Station, outside McDonald’s. Cakes need five days’ notice and are picked up at Ryparken Station or delivered. Reheat the shio pan at 180 degrees for three minutes. This visit was sponsored.
Bakery · Japanese · Indre ByTonari BageriKøbenhavn K▶ Watch the video and read the reviewMore episodes on the way
Word of Mouth will keep going after the food that does not advertise itself: the bakers, the one-person kitchens, the things that sell out before lunch. We are filling this list slowly and on purpose, because these are one and two person kitchens and we would rather get them right than get them fast.
If you know somewhere that fits, tell us. That is literally how this works.
Everything else we have eaten is pinned on our map of Copenhagen, which only has one rule: every pin is somewhere Mikey has actually eaten. The full list lives at All eats.
But now… the real question is… where do we go next?