I don’t think a cup of coffee and a bun ever managed to depress me before. Nordic Bakery, this hyped and praised by Time Out and Zagat alike coffee shop, succeeded in doing so today just fine.

I thought I was probably the last Londoner standing not to have paid a visit. The place is taking bad aesthetics into another level. It is as an extra effort is made to present itself at its most ugly, basic way. From the dark tables, to the dirty floor to the wooden sauna-style wall – which is as last season interpretation of ‘Scandi’ as it is sticking a Parthenon image on the wall and calling a restaurant Greek. The sitting area was dark and miserable; I felt I was at some forgotten café I had to sit with my friends as a student island hopping waiting for our ferry. The only difference was that I was paying a glorious £6 for a cinnamon bun (tasty but a bit solid) and a cup of very weak tasteless coffee. And there wasn’t an exciting destination ahead either…

Now I haven’t visited all Nordic capitals but at least as far as Stockholm is concerned I can confirm that I was impressed by the quality and style of the coffee shops; I couldn’t find enough time during my break there to visit as many as possible.

But even if you do put the ambience factor aside – as it is totally subjective – you couldn’t possibly ignore other elements like the pile of boxes at one side of the sitting area or the dirty (public style) unisex toilet cramped just next to the kitchen and in between packs of flour. I am not exactly a restaurant hygiene expert but keeping flour packs stored on the floor next to the toilet or pouring flour in a dustbin used as a container (from my quick look into the kitchen’s activity) didn’t exactly seem safe hygiene practices to me.

Would I return? Definitely not. At the end of the day, how desperate for a cinnamon bun one can be ?

p.s: of course no wifi either…