SELLANRAA

Coffee under the bookshelves in an old fire station

SELLANRAA works out of Trondheim’s old fire station, and the room it has made there is lined floor to ceiling with books, with large windows throwing light across the tables. It runs as a book bar, a café and an all-day kitchen at once, a wider brief than most coffee places take on, and the coffee still comes first. A fire station gives a café what most cafés have to fake: height, hard surfaces and doors wide enough that the room reads as public. The counter pours a rotating seasonal selection, so what is available changes through the year rather than sitting on a fixed list. Even the name is borrowed from Norwegian literature, which suits a café with this many shelves.

Chemex, espresso and the sourdough side

The Chemex hand-brew is the order that shows what the counter is doing with the current coffee: clean, unhurried and made to be tasted rather than swallowed on the move. It is a slow method, three or four minutes of pouring, which says something about how the room is expected to be used. Espresso drinks are the alternative when you want milk and speed. On the food side the strength is baking, with sourdough and pastries the natural things to put beside a cup. The European Coffee Trip Awards recognised the café in 2025, which places it in the Nordic specialty conversation rather than only the local one.

A room built for staying

Books change how people use a café, and that is the practical difference here: the shelves and the light make it a place to sit with something rather than to pass through, and the kitchen keeps going through lunch and into the evening so the visit does not have to end when the coffee does. Trondheim is a student city, and a place that serves coffee, lunch, dinner and a wall of books absorbs a whole day rather than an hour of it. For a first visit, take a Chemex of whatever the seasonal coffee is with something from the bakery, then decide from the shelves whether you are staying. If you go a second round, switch to an espresso drink so you have read the same coffee two ways.