Hernández

With its grand opening celebrated only 3 days prior to our visit, this café could hardly be any newer. Located at the border of Sagene and Grünerløkka, only a few minutes walk away from Alexander Kiellands plass, Hernández has everything of a chill yet well-groomed neighbourhood bakery.

The interior is simple. The floor and ceiling is bare concrete. A couple small wooden benches with four small wooden tables, with four orthogonal bar stools facing the outside seating area.

Standing behind Hernández, named after himself, is pastry chef Diego from Barcelona. Trained as a professional baker back in Barcelona, Diego Hernández told us how happy he was for having finally realised his dream of opening up his own bakery after stints at Kumi, Sommerro, and the well-renowned delicatessen Pascal, among others.

Hernández started as the sole supplier of burnt basque cheesecakes to the specialty café Kuro in Grünerløkka, which we think is one of Oslo’s best basque cheesecakes (70 NOK) and extremely popular among the Kuro-regulars. The flavored variants, however, are only available on-location in the shop.

On our visit, it was the chocolate cheesecake that was on the menu and still available. It was a classic burnt basque cheesecake made with an additional light chocolate filling. A sprinkle of sea salt was applied on top, which has completely elevated the flavour, heightening the smooth and rich mouthfeel as well as the cheese fragrance.

At Hernández, one can also find coffee from Fuglen and tea from Spill the Tea to accompany the cheesecake. We ordered an iced matcha latte, made using matcha from the Berlin-based café and retailer “matchasome”. A little pricey at 75 NOK, it was a perfect summer drink and the slightly bitter matcha taste complimented perfectly with the cheesecake. All in all, we think Hernández is a must-visit if you are in the mood for some cheesecake other than the traditional style.

Update (Nov 1st, 2024)

Five months have gone by since our last visit to Hernández. Today, the shop has become one of the most popular bakeries/cafés on social media, and attracts swarms of visitors on a daily basis. If you follow their Instagram closely, you can see that, several times in a week, especially during the weekends, the shop sells out in the middle of the day.

In light of their popularity and the strong demand, we arrived at the shop on an early Saturday morning, shortly after it opened. Special flavour of the week was the cinnamon roll basque cheesecake. Also on the counter on display was their orginal flavour, now a classic must-try. We have already tried their chocolate and matcha flavoured cheesecakes; yet in comparison, we think the cinnamon roll one is the best of all. Smooth, rich yet not overpoweringly sweet, the cinnamon flavour brought out an extra depth to the lingering fragrance—warm, soothing and even a bit nostalgic, perfect for the autumn season.

As for drinks, we went for their matcha latte, one warm, one cold. As we mentioned before, Hernández sources its matcha from the Berlin-based supplier matchasome. After we tried matcha drinks at matchasome shops in Berlin, we were surprised to see that Hernández actually makes better matcha in comparison. In fact, Hernández served the best matcha drinks we have tried in Oslo—we both agree that we would come back to the shop for the matcha drinks alone.

Their matcha is of high quality, carefully whisked by hand with a bamboo “chasen” before mixed with oat milk—something the matchasome barista did in a sloppy fashion, which put a dent on the flavour. Matcha drinks at Hernández also gave an “adult” feeling—no syrup, no additional sugar, to mask the matcha’s faint bitterness. The iced matcha latte has a stronger umami aftertaste thanks to the ice cubes, whereas the warm one puts an extra focus on the tea flavour. Both are worth trying.

The last drink we tried was their seasonal special pumpkin syrup coffee latte. Mixed with their homemade pumpkin syrup, the latte boasts a strong gingerbread flavour, something that is bound to be popular in the Halloween season.

Diego also told us, now that he has hired a barista to take care of the shop, he could immediately start baking when they are low on cakes. This would definitely help alleviate the problem of selling out too early in the day. As time got close to noon, the shop started to get packed. On our way out, we could still see the old barbershop’s sign standing side by side with Hernández’s big red neon “H” in the window, something that reminded us of how the new came on top of the old, like layers of soil sediments, rings on a tree stump, substance that formed our memories of the city.

Originally posted on 2024-06-25