Ole & Steen

The cinnamon social is the pastry that explains Ole & Steen fastest: a wide, buttery cinnamon swirl baked to a Danish recipe and sold from a case that also holds cardamom buns, kanelsnurrer, layer cakes and dark rugbrød. The bakery takes its name from the first names of the two Danish bakers who started it, and its New York rooms now run from Union Square out to Tribeca, Midtown East, Bryant Park and the Upper East Side.

An all-day Danish bakery rather than a coffee bar

Ole & Steen works as a bakery first, with coffee alongside rather than at the centre. Danish pastries are the core of the case, baked through the day so the selection shifts between a morning stop and an afternoon one. The kitchen also covers savoury food for breakfast, brunch and lunch, so an order can be a coffee and a bun or something more substantial carried out in a bag. Lighter plates broaden the range beyond sweets, and gluten-free items are made for a category where flour otherwise dominates.

Counter service, bright rooms and space to stay

Ordering is at the counter: read the case, choose, pay, then take a table or a bag. The rooms are bright and Scandinavian in feel, with open pastry displays doing most of the decoration, and the larger branches run to two levels with enough seating for laptops and long meetings. That flexibility is the point. The same room serves a two-minute pastry run, a slow coffee with the newspaper and an afternoon work session, which is why the bakeries fill with office workers, residents and visitors at different hours of the same day.

Start with the cinnamon social, then work towards the rye

Order the cinnamon social first. It is the item the brand is best known for in New York and the clearest statement of what Danish baking does with butter, sugar and cinnamon. The cardamom bun is the more aromatic alternative, and kanelsnurrer gives the same cinnamon idea in a tighter swirl. Layer cakes are the sit-down choice when the visit is longer than a coffee. For something that is not sweet at all, ask for rugbrød, the dense Danish rye that anchors the savoury side of the counter and travels better than anything else in the case. Coffee is the natural partner throughout, but the baking is what to come for.