Original Coffee

Coffee, breakfast and baked goods across Copenhagen

Around 18 rooms across the capital carry the Original Coffee name, including one inside Tivoli Gardens, which makes this a Copenhagen coffee-bar group rather than a single café. It began in a small corner of the Illum department store in the city centre and grew out from there into a local network that still presents itself as a neighbourhood coffee bar rather than a chain.

The order set is straightforward but specific: caffe latte, hand brew, freshly brewed coffee, tea, organic baked goods, organic yoghurt with homemade granola and compote, overnight oats, sandwiches and breakfast plates. That mix is the reason the bars work as early as they do; the food is a real menu, not a pastry shelf beside the till. Tea holds a place on the same list, which matters more in a city that drinks coffee all day than it sounds.

A casual daytime stop, different in every neighbourhood

The use is everyday: coffee with a friend, a hand brew over a laptop, a cup taken away. Service is counter-led and quick, and the group does not repeat one identical interior everywhere. Each location has its own design and aesthetic, drawn from the part of the city it sits in and the people who live there. Regulars use the bars the way Copenhagen uses coffee bars generally, as a short stop between other things, and the rooms are built to absorb that traffic without turning into a queue.

The Istedgade room sits in the heart of Vesterbro among small shops and galleries, in relaxed surroundings. The rest of the range shows the same spread, from that first compact Illum corner to an Illum rooftop format and branches around Postbyen and Vesterbro.

Order the hand brew, then breakfast

For coffee, the clearest move is to start with the hand brew or a caffe latte. Original Coffee roasts its own specialty coffee in Carlsberg Byen, so the everyday bar menu has concrete Copenhagen roots rather than a wholesale relationship standing in for one.

Food is just as central. The bakery side comes from the group’s own organic bakery in Kødbyen, the Meat Packing District, so pair the coffee with something freshly baked, or make it a fuller breakfast with organic yoghurt, homemade granola and compote, overnight oats, a sandwich or a breakfast plate. The kitchen carries a bronze Organic Cuisine Label, which is the plainest sign that the organic line runs through the food as well as the coffee.