Mocca Oslo

Cortado, espresso tonic and a skillingsbolle: the Briskeby counter at Mocca has run on that combination since 2000, when the coffee bar and micro-roastery opened as the second half of the Java & Mocca story. Its founder, Robert Thoresen, came to coffee after architecture studies in the early 1990s and time in San Francisco, wanting an early-opening neighbourhood café built around good coffee. Java opened on St. Hanshaugen in 1997; Mocca followed on Briskeby three years later.

Roasting history behind the bar

Coffee is the draw, and the house treats it as a raw material that needs care, skill and hospitable service. Roasting started in the corner of the café and outgrew it, becoming Kaffa in 2005, and the beans on the bar still come from that side of the business, with long relationships to many of the same producers. Thoresen won the first World Barista Championship, held in Monte Carlo in 2000, which is part of why Oslo’s specialty scene traces back through this room.

Brewing runs from batch brew to syphon and V60, so the bar can serve a fast black coffee or a slower single cup. Named orders include the cortado, double espresso, cappuccino, espresso tonic and a Brazilian filter. Food is pastry-led rather than kitchen-led: cinnamon rolls, skillingsboller and whatever else is in the case.

A small Briskeby room

Mocca is small, refined and neighbourhood-oriented rather than expansive. The founding idea was a beautiful local meeting place, and the room still runs on that: window seats that go quickly, warm surroundings, low music and a compact floor shaped by the counter, the pastry case and limited seating. Staff are part of the appeal, and the company describes itself as a people business as much as a coffee one.

Order the cortado, then something sweet

Start with the cortado, the clearest of Mocca’s named orders, or the espresso tonic for a brighter cold drink. A double espresso or cappuccino covers the espresso-bar side, while batch brew, V60 and syphon connect more directly to the roasting history and the Kaffa supply. If filter is the aim, the Brazilian is the specific one to ask for.

Then take a skillingsbolle. The Norwegian cinnamon bun is the pastry most often singled out here, and it is the right partner for a black coffee; a cinnamon roll does the same job. That combination is the whole argument for the place: a small bar with a roastery behind it, in a residential corner of Oslo, doing a short list of things repeatedly.