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Danish bakeries in Denmark
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Bakeries and the Danish soul

I occasionally work with small children in Denmark, one of my many side gigs, and on a recent rainy afternoon, I taught a couple of boys how to play tic-tac-toe.

This simple game of putting marks in a 3 by 3 grid may seem dull to adults, but to a four year old who has never seen it before, it’s a revelation.

The strategy! The many ways you can win! It’s an ancient game that can still be fascinating to someone born in 2022.

Tic-tac-toe is played all over the world under various names – it’s noughts and crosses in Britain, it’s maru-batsu (“circle-cross”) in Japan.

And in Denmark, it is kryds og bolle, crosses and buns.

Buns, bolle, are the basis of a Danish breakfast.

Bolle not bølle

And remember to always say bolle, which means bread roll, and not bølle, which means bully.

That confused me for many years, as did slang term at bolle, which is a vulgar term for sex.

(Princess Isabella, the 19-year-old royal rebel, recently appeared at a music festival with a band t-shirt that said Bollede ham i går, I slept with him last night, with a big arrow pointing to the right.)

BMO is a bun with cheese

Anyway, the bread version of bolle is the basis for most Danes’ breakfast.

Danes are not fancy breakfast eaters. The first meal of the day is either a bolle with cheese, known in trendy terms as a BMO, or bolle med ost, or some oatmeal.

A visiting American recently asked me where he could go out for breakfast, since of course we Americans have elaborate breakfast restaurants, and the only place I could send him was Grød, a specialist oatmeal chain.

Getting breakfast from a bakery

Many Danes will get their breakfast from a bakery.

Perhaps a nice fresh loaf of sourdough for slicing, or one of the many types of bolle – maybe a rundstykke, or round piece, a nice crunchy wheat roll. They might get one of the newer types of bolle, like a müslibolle.

Or they might get Danish rye bread, rugbrød, that dense, delicious taste of Denmark every Dane misses most while living abroad.

On a Friday or a weekend, they might pick up a few sugary Danish pastries, known as wienerbrød, or Vienna bread. Cinnamon snails, kanalsnegle, or cardamon buns are popular with all ages.

Bakeries were dying

Fifteen or twenty years ago, bakeries in Denmark seemed to be dying.

They couldn’t find staff. Nobody, it was said, wanted to get up in the middle of the night and make bread.

The few bakeries that were left tended to have dirty windows and sour service and offer stale, dusty pastries.

Most Danes made their breakfast bolle at home or got frozen buns from the supermarket or gas station.

I remember a text about gas station buns at one of my early Danish language textbooks.

Destination bakeries

But the trend has turned, and bakers and bakeries are now some of the hottest businesses around.

People will wait in line outside the Juno bakery in Copenhagen, or Bakeria in Helsingør. These are destination bakeries.

And this is not just a big city phenomenon. There are craft bakeries all over Denmark. This year’s Best Bakery contest has 80 nominees from Aalborg to Rønde to Jyderup to Karrebæksminde.

Baking is macho in Denmark

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but the trend turned when baking became a rather macho enterprise in Denmark. Claus Meyer was the pioneer, with his Meyers Bageri.

Baking became a way for Danish men, who are generally gentle fellows, to show their creativity and skill. This is a culture that respects craft and handiwork, whether it is furniture making or beer brewing or silversmithing, or producing a beautiful bun.

An acquaintance of mine recently ran a baking course for teenagers, and all of the sign-ups were boys.

Fancy craft bakeries

Many of these men go on to create fancy craft bakeries, where a complex bun or piece of cake can cost an absurd amount.

These bakeries reflect the confidence and prosperity of Denmark at this time in history.

Thirty or forty years ago, this was not a country where people had a lot of disposable income. Now it is.

Buns are still an equalizer

Yet the Danish bolle, made with yeast and flour and water, is still an equalizer.

Everybody can afford the most simple version, which usually costs less than 20 crowns, and everyone with an oven can make them at home.

Even you, wherever you are.

They’re hard to mess up. You just have to give the dough enough time to rise.

That means that baking bolle is something someone of any age can enjoy, just like tic tac toe.

September 27, 2026 by
newcomers to copenhagen, made with Midjourney by Kay Xander Mellish
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

13 Quick Tips for Newcomers to Copenhagen

Since I’ve lived in Denmark for some time, it can be hard to get in the headspace of a newcomer.

But that was my assignment recently when I spoke to a couple of hundred new students at the University of Copenhagen, who had just arrived in Denmark the day before.

I thought that some of these tips might be useful to you, my podcast listeners.

So here we go, lightning round, word association style.

Get an ugly bicycle in Copenhagen

Bicycle. When you arrive in Copenhagen, get one quickly, and get an ugly one. Don’t get a fancy one that is exciting to thieves. Denmark has a bicycle culture, but it also has a big bicycle theft culture.

A good option is a second-hand bike, but get it someplace legit, because if you get it from some random online you might find yourself riding someone else’s stolen bike.

Biking gives you freedom, it can take you anywhere at any time in any season in Denmark. And if you don’t know how to ride a bike, the Danish Red Cross has free classes for adults.

Yes, you do have to pay for public transport in Denmark

Transport tickets. There are no fare gates on the Danish metro or bus or train. You’re just trusted to buy a ticket.

However, there are controllers that go around and check, and if you don’t have precisely the right ticket when they check you, you will get a big fine.

Don’t bother with a dramatic story about how you didn’t understand the ticket system because you’re an innocent child from a faraway land.

Don’t cry. It doesn’t work, I’ve tried.

Keep your dignity, pay the fine, and then if you think it’s unfair, email the transport company. You can often get the fine reduced, in particular if it’s your first fine.

First names only in Danish culture

First names only. In Denmark, everybody goes by their first name. That includes university professors, bosses, priests, schoolteachers, doctors, even the prime minister. Mette. Mette Frederiksen.

Nobody uses Mr or Mrs or Doctor titles.

This is also true for older people. You don’t have to address them as Ma’am or Sir or Aunty or any of the other forms of respect common in other cultures. Just their first names – it’s what they want.

Always be on time in Denmark

Time and trust: Being on time is a big part of building trust in Denmark. A 10am class really is a 10am class, a 2pm meeting really is a 2pm meeting, and even for social events you have to be on time.

If someone invites you for dinner at 7 you really have to be there at 7.00.00. Otherwise your food will be cold. None of this turning up fashionably late.

And if you say that you’re going to be someplace, you really do have to turn up, or the Danes will be heartbroken. They were counting on you.

Splitting the check on a date in Denmark

Dating. Dating in Denmark is very egalitarian. The check is usually split in half. If it’s a male female date, the man may offer to pay, the woman might say no, and that doesn’t mean the date is a flop. People just like to be equal.

In general, Danes can be prickly about someone else picking up the check in a restaurant, even with friends – they do not want to feel obligated. Usually everyone splits the bill.

The exception is your birthday, when you pay for everything.

How to party if you don’t drink alcohol in Denmark

Drinking. Not all of Danish social life still centers on alcohol, but a lot still does. If you don’t drink alcohol , I’d recommend going to parties and Friday bars anyway and having elderflower juice, hyldeblomst. It’s a local favorite, light and sweet with zero alcohol.

You can also have what they call danskvand, or Danish water, that’s just plain water with bubbles in it. Put in a lemon or lime, it looks like a cocktail, nobody’s going to ask you any questions.

If you do drink alcohol, beer is generally pretty cheap in Denmark, wine less so, and cocktails very expensive. It’s common for a group of friends to drink at home before they go out to save money. (The Danes call it warm, in other words, warming up to a night on the town.)

Saving money in Copenhagen

Saving money. Restaurants and cafés and takeout are all very expensive here, so you’ve got to learn to cook for yourself or you’ll go broke. Look for items in supermarkets with yellow labels. Yellow is the color of discounts in Denmark.

Supermarkets often cut the price on food the day before it goes out of date. If you eat meat, you can buy a lot of this discount about-to-expire meat, freeze it, and eat it whenever you like. (I also recommend the app To Good To Go which offers discounts on “surprise bags” of bakery products, sushi, and other about-to-expire food as an initiative to avoid food waste.)

One thing you cannot do here is negotiate a discount at the supermarket checkout, and yes, I have seen people try. Flea markets, yes, supermarkets no.

You’ll notice that many of the staff in supermarkets are under 18. That’s because employers are legally allowed to pay young people less.

Your doctor in Denmark

Your doctor. Every person in Denmark legally gets to choose a primary care doctor, this is the famous tax-funded universal care. The doctors are self-employed, they own their clinics, but they are paid by the government, you don’t pay to see them.

What you do have pay for is medicine. If you need a prescription, they’ll send it electronically to a central system and you can pick it up at any pharmacy in Denmark, the price is the same everywhere.

That said, Danish doctors are often reluctant to prescribe medicine, in particular sleeping medication and antibiotics. These are t ough to get.

When you need someone to talk to in Denmark

Mental health. It’s August, it’s the light times, now is the time to start finding friend groups and activities, because the dark times are on their way. You do not want to be sitting all alone in your room during the dark times – November, December, January, February.

If you’re in Denmark and feeling alone and desperate, and the wait to talk to your doctor or to a free public counselor is too long, you can always make an appointment with a Danish priest.

Now, don’t freak out. You don’t even have to be a Christian! In the Danish state church, the priests are often middle-aged women. They’re not going to wear a funny outfit or talk too much about Jesus. They’ll just listen to you.

If you really need someone to talk to, a Danish priest from the state church is available in every neighborhood in Denmark. It’s fast, and it’s free. Don’t wait.

(Find your local branch of the state church in Denmark here.)

Hanging out with the Danish Royal Family

The Danish Royal Family. They are not big celebrities like the British Royal Family, you will see them walking around, especially in Copenhagen. I remember when I first got here looking through the window of a hair salon and seeing the then-Queen getting her hair washed.

If you’re a young person like the people in my university audience, you might see Crown Prince Christian, the future king, out having a few beers. He’s 20, whatever, he likes beer. Same for his sister, who is 19 and currently in the Danish Army. When she gets a break she probably likes some beers as well.

If you’re single and heterosexual, keep in mind that Danish Royals always marry foreigners, never other Danes. The current King married a woman from Australia, his Mom married a Frenchman, his grandpa a Swede, his great-grandpa a German. So you have a chance.

Quiet, taxis, gifts in Denmark

Quiet. Denmark is a quiet country. You might be on a bus or a train FaceTiming with a friend at home and see a Dane looking at you in a disapproving way.

You might think it’s because you are a foreigner, and that could be true, but it could also be because you’re loud.

With the exception of those drunken Friday bars, this is a quiet country.

Listen to the traffic: there are almost no horns honking. Most Danish trains have a “silent car” where no one is allowed to talk or play music.

Danes like peacefulness. If you are loud, voice loud, music loud, TikTok on your phone with no earphones loud, any type of loud, you are going to get funny looks.

Taxis. Taxis aren’t as common here as they are in many other big cities, because public transport is reliable and clean and used by every social class. And taxis are expensive.

You can’t really call a taxi by raising your arm like you do in Hong Kong or New York City.

You have to go to a taxi stand or call a taxi to where you are, or use the local taxi app. And the local version of Uber is just another version of the local taxi app.

If you absolutely must use a taxi, perhaps if you have a lot of luggage, use the fixed price option in the app. This will help you avoid getting an unscheduled tour of the city.

Gifts. In many countries, gifts are a social cue and and important part of doing business, but not in Denmark.

You should never give your professor or your boss flowers or candy or any other kind of gift. They’ll be very uncomfortable if you do. They see it as a form of corruption, which is not OK in Denmark.

You also should not offer money to university administrators to get what you want, such as a better housing assignment, or to municipal officials or immigration staff to get them to bend the rules.

They will be angry if you do. This is not the Danish way.

August 28, 2026 by
Copenhagen vs. Berlin, by Kay Xander Mellish
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Copenhagen vs Berlin

When I checked into my hotel on a recent trip to Berlin, I was surprised to find a little shop next door called Hygge. It was a Danish theme store, right in the middle of the German capital city. It had soft pillows, candles, wooden figurines, and other home items designed to create a cozy Copenhagen atmosphere in the raw rough streets of Berlin.

Of course, it’s not uncommon for one city to have tiny tributes to a different city. After all, Copenhagen has a Berlin Bar, and a clothing store called New Yorker, and an Old Irish Pub. But it inspired me to compare the two cities, Copenhagen and Berlin, two national capitals which are relatively close – less than an hour’s flight – but very different in spirit.

Kay Xander Mellish young in Berlin

In my youth in Berlin

Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I used to live in Berlin, long before I lived in Copenhagen. This was when I was young and pretty, so quite some time ago, and at the time Berlin was a demilitarized zone, which meant that military draft notices could not be sent there.

That meant that a lot of young German men from around the country chose to live in Berlin as an alternative to joining the army, which meant that the male-to-female ratio at any party was very much in my favor.

Copenhagen vs Berlin

Berlin was fun and exciting then, and it’s fun and exciting now. It has much more of a nightlife scene than Copenhagen, being one of the capitals of techno music, and more of a classical culture scene too.

Berlin has eight symphony orchestras and three opera companies, in part because in the days when the wall was up and the city was split into West Berlin and East Berlin, there had to be an opera company on both sides, and symphony orchestras on both sides.

Berlin also has two zoos, one in the West and one in the East.

Copenhagen has one opera company, and one zoo.

Poet or punk

Berlin is just a bigger city, roughly twice the population, and it’s the capital of a bigger country. 84 million people in Germany versus 6 million people in Denmark. If you look at it that way, Copenhagen is culturally punching far above its weight.

Living in the two cities is very different. Copenhagen is a mostly clean, mostly safe, mostly well-run, mostly get up early in the morning and get to work type of city.

There’s not a lot of opportunity to opt out and be a poet or a punk, especially since reforms tightened the maximum term for unemployment payments to two years instead of four.

Long-term low-income lifestyles

Berlin, on the other hand, is more tolerant of long-term low-income lifestyles. There are a lot more government grants for artists. And until recently, Berlin also had much cheaper housing available than Copenhagen. That’s changing now.

And Berlin is not always clean and not always well-run. It’s a little scruffy. You’ll see overflowing trash cans, furniture dumped on the sidewalk, parks that aren’t very well-tended.

You’ll see many more rough sleepers in Berlin, people sleeping in train stations or under railway arches, or sometimes putting up a tent in a park. That’s rare in Copenhagen.

Traditional lunchtime foods

I was thinking about these contrasts as I waited in line at lunchtime at a trendy bratwurst stand in Berlin. Both the Danes and the Germans still seem to enjoy their traditional foods, especially at lunchtime.

You can’t beat a good piece of smørrebrød in Copenhagen.

Both Copenhagen and Berlin are modern cities strongly affected by their history. Copenhagen still has its medieval street plan, even if most of the brightly colored buildings are from the 1700s and 1800s. This helps give Copenhagen its fairy-tale feeling, its warmth, its hygge.

Berlin is not hyggelig. Its medieval street plan is long gone, and of course the city was devastated at the end of World War II. You can still find bullet holes from the Battle of Berlin in some buildings, like the old National Gallery in the center.

Big parts of the city were flattened, and the buildings that replaced some of the destruction weren’t very pretty. Parts of Berlin are actually ugly.

A friendly balance

As different as the two cities are, their residents are admirers of each other. Danes vacation in Berlin to get a taste of big city nightlife, Berliners often come to Copenhagen to enjoy the charm of Tivoli Gardens, and sometimes to get married. Copenhagen City Hall’s wedding rooms are beautiful, and there’s much less paperwork than there is in Germany.

Germans and Danes have been on the opposite side of several wars, but their two capitals, one secure, one a bit chaotic, now have a friendly balance.

They even name shops after each other.

July 26, 2026 by
Brok: The Danish Art of Petty Complaints
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Brok: The Danish art of petty complaints

We’re having a heat wave in Denmark now, and this is a country that is not really built for it. There’s very little air conditioning outside of movie theaters and shopping malls. Danish homes are built to keep heat in, not out.

So on a hot day, especially on a hot day when you can’t get away to the nearest body of water – you’re never too far from the coast in Denmark – can make you feel heavy and lazy, unwilling to cook anything to eat, unable to sleep at night.

These are the perfect conditions for brok.

Complaining as a social activity

Brok rhymes with clock, and it is a Danish word that describes the petty complaints that are common in one of the happiest countries in the world, and one of the richest.

It’s complaining as a social activity, usually about things that are more irritating than dangerous.

What is brok?

Brok is, “the noise from my neighbor’s battery-powered garden equipment is offensive and destroying my sunny Saturday morning.”

But the noise from my battery-powered garden equipment is just a part of taking care of nature.

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June 24, 2026 by
The Daisy Route in Denmark
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

July, Nature in Denmark, and following The Daisy Route: The Danish Year Part 7

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. Now a book about these Danish customs is available. It’s called The Danish Year: Twelve Months of Customs, Quirks, and Rhythms of Everyday Life in Denmark, and it’s exclusive to Amazon Kindle.

July is vacation month in Denmark, and it’s ironic that many Danes go elsewhere on vacation at just this time of year, when you have the best chance of good weather in Denmark. And I do mean chance – there is never any guarantee.

Some Danes go abroad, driving vacations to Southern Europe are popular. There’s a well-known cycle in which the summer weather is good one year, so everyone plans a vacation in Denmark the following year, and then the weather is awful, so everyone plans a foreign vacation the next year, and then the weather is good, and so on.

You can surf in Denmark

Staying in Denmark, even if you don’t own one of the famous Danish summer houses, can be a great choice. There’s a surprising amount of nature to experience in this small, flat, country that isn’t as densely populated as the UK, or the Netherlands, or even Germany.

You can surf in Denmark, along the windy west coast, and when you’re done explore the ever-changing sand dunes. Maybe visit the little lighthouse that is slowly being swallowed up by the sand.

Hike through ancient forests

In Denmark you can hike through ancient forests, and even sleep there in some of the public forest shelters. Most of the forest shelters are big wooden boxes with one side entirely open, but with a roof to protect you from the rain.

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July 1, 2025 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

The Danish Empire – without Greenland?

Denmark, as Danes like to tell you, is a little country. But it used to be a much bigger country, a bit of an empire.

Norway was once part of Denmark. Iceland was once part of Denmark. The southern half of Sweden and a bit of northern Germany used to be part of Denmark. What is now called the US Virgin Islands used to be part of Denmark.

And Denmark had colonies in Africa and India, which is why when you’ll go into many Danish supermarkets – even online supermarkets – you’ll see a section called Kolonial, or Colonial.

It features long-life products, like spices and nuts, that used to come from trading posts in the faraway Danish colonies.

Royals in folk costumes

Over time, through war losses and independence movements, the Danish Empire shrank…and today we’re going to talk about how it might shrink further.

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January 4, 2025 by
Stories about life in Denmark, Working in Denmark: Danish Business Culture

How to listen to the “How to Live in Denmark” podcast

The “How to Live in Denmark” podcast is available on a variety of platforms, and it’s 100% free wherever you choose to download it.




Little-known fact: This website originally started out as the transcripts for the How to Live in Denmark podcast, which has been running since 2013.

The transcripts became so popular that they were collected into a book, How to Live in Denmark, and then the basis for the my series of How to Live in Denmark events, which I offer all over Denmark and internationally as well.

When I noticed that the podcasts and blog posts about working in Denmark seemed to be the most useful, I collected them into another book, How to Work in Denmark, which is also available as a live How to Work in Denmark presentation.

But what if you just want to listen to the podcast?

In addition, many people have commented on the theme song that opens each episode of the podcast. It is the Danish national anthem, “Der er et yndigt land” (There is a lovely land) done in a surf-punk form by a freelance musician.

One international listener told me that he attended a match featuring the Danish national football team at Parken stadium in Copenhagen – and was very surprised to hear the match begin with the theme song from the “How to Live in Denmark” podcast!

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Kay Xander Mellish books

Buy Kay’s books about Denmark on Amazon, Saxo, Google Books, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Nook, or via our webshop.

June 15, 2024 by
Stories about life in Denmark, Travels in Denmark

How to Live in Denmark On the Road: Visiting Esbjerg, Ribe, Fanø

When I mentioned visiting Esbjerg for a few days off this spring, many of my friends in Copenhagen said – why? Esbjerg doesn’t have a reputation as a vacation spot, even though it’s the fifth-largest city in Denmark and the youngest big city.

My daughter, who is more clever than I am, told her Copenhagen friends that we were going to the “West Coast of Denmark” making it sound like we would be relaxing on one of the west coast beaches.

For Copenhagen snobs, Esbjerg is a fishing town, which it was 50 years ago but isn’t really anymore. It’s an oil and wind energy town, industrial but very modern.

Still, I think the city has a bit of an inferiority complex.

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May 19, 2021 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Welcome to Denmark: This comic drawing shows how Denmark has changed over the past 25 years

To celebrate the anniversary of the “How to Live in Denmark Podcast” – which launched in summer 2013 and has since racked up more than a million downloads – I wanted something special and memorable. This new Welcome to Denmark drawing is it.

I have long been a fan of Danish cartoonist Claus Deleuran’s 1992 image, “Danes, Danish, More Danish”, done for an exhibit at the Nikolaj Kunsthal, but had always been frustrated that it only seems to exist online small, low-res versions.

I thought it would be fun to recreate it – and as long as I was redrawing it – to reflect the Denmark of today.

Although I have drawn cartoons in the past, this particular image is not drawn by me. I commissioned Polish graphic artist Karolina Kara to help me to create it, explaining to her exactly how I wanted each of the characters to appear.

I also gave her photos to work with, such as a picture of the trademark “Copenhagen bench” the beer drinkers are sitting on in the foreground to the right.

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May 8, 2021 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Saving money in Denmark: How to get around for less

Along with food and housing, getting around is a big part of the cost of living in Denmark. In fact, the less you spend on rent, by living outside of the most expensive downtown zones, the more you’re likely to spend on transport.

And no matter what the tourist brochures suggest, you probably won’t go everywhere on a bike in Denmark. Bikes are great in downtown Aarhus or Copenhagen, or in a campus-type area like DTU in Lyngby.

But the further you get outside of urban areas, the more useful a car is. That’s why there are 2.5 million personal cars on the road in Denmark plus 0.5 million “business cars.” Three million cards on the road means roughly one for every two people.

Cars are brutally expensive in Denmark, and if you live far away from mass transport, you might be stuck buying one.

Otherwise, there are many ways to lower your cost of transport in Denmark by getting around for less, and it has a lot to do with how well you plan.

And the Danes are, in general, very good advance planners.

Incredibly cheap train tickets

My personal favorite way to cut the cost of transport in Denmark are the Orange train tickets you can get for incredibly cheap prices if you book in advance.

I was stunned to find that you can get from one side of Denmark to the other – from Copenhagen to Esbjerg, to be precise – for only 99 kroner.

That’s cheaper than a 10-minute trip in a Copenhagen taxi. And it’s 3 1/2 hour journey.

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April 25, 2021 by