Frida, the much-anticipated bakery owned by the Babbo Collective brand chain, opened today. Located next to the brand’s Restaurant Bente in Torshov area, the bakery was originally set to open in August 2024, but was delayed because of “power supply issues” until mid-Feburary, said Alexandra Ek, one of the three main Babbo Collective owners.
We arrived at the shop at 07:40 in the morning, and there were already 5 people sitting at the tables waiting. The staff were scurrying around, trying to put a finishing touch on everything, and the kitchen eventually started serving at 8:00. Within 10 minutes, the shop was overflowing with people.
The interior was decorated in the classical Babbo Collective functional style: a coherent pale pastel-yellow colour running through both the walls and the tiled floor, dotted with natural wood-coloured furniture and a large amount of wooden countertops.
The coffee is made using beans from Babbo’s own Bib Roastery Chicken focaccia Stracciatella focaccia
For breakfast, we tried two of their Focaccia sandwiches (135 NOK each) accompanied by cappucino brewed with beans from their Bib Roastery (45 NOK with oat milk): one with chicken and basil, the other one with stracciatella and almond. The chicken one was our favourite, where the briny, slightly sour tanginess of the capers elevated the fresh chicken flavour to a different level. The one with stracciatella and almond, on the other hand, fell slightly flat, and the taste structure felt a bit thin.
Cardamom bun Danish fastelavnsbolle
This weekend happened to be the Fastelavn Sunday, a tradition associated with serving a sweet, creamy bun called fastelavnsbolle (in Norwegian), semla (in Swedish) and by many other names across the Nordic countries. The one served at Frida (50 NOK) had a chocolate coating, filled with vanilla cream and topped a large sprinkle of crushed cardamom seeds. It was made “in the traditional Danish grandma style”, the owner Alexandra Ek told us. As for the cardamom seeds, “that’s because I’m Swedish!” said Ek with a big smile.
On the opening day, everyone got a free cardamom bun (34 NOK on the menu) while stock lasted. This was so far the best cardamom bun we have had at Babbo. Slightly sweeter and bigger in size than those in the past, the new type had also a stronger cardamom flavour. We can easily imagine it costing double the price in other bakeries in the city.
Another surprise for those who came to their opening day is a coupon card that granted the lucky winner a whole year of free sourdough bread. During this weekend, a total of 100 such coupons (50 each day) have been randomly placed in the paper bags. To participate, you only need to buy a loaf of their bread (58 NOK).
While we were sitting and eating in the shop, power went off twice, suddenly lights off and music stopped, but soon came back. “There are still issues we have to fix, but we cannot turn off the oven, because we want to serve the pastries fresh, so we need to keep baking throughout the day,” Alexandra Ek said. This is the distinctive Babbo head-strong business style at full display: the show must go on, and there is always more solutions than problems.