Danish Cookie Specialist Leckerbaer Opens First S'pore Outlet With $8 'Atas' Sundae

The quaint bakery was founded in 2014 by husband-and-wife team Gabi and Jakob Baer Mogensen, both pastry chefs who had worked at Michelin-starred Scandinavian restaurants. They were persuaded to open an overseas outlet by Vijay Pillai, the man behind F&B company Caerus Holding, which brought famous brands like Lady M and Pablo Cheese Tart to Singapore.

Photo: Leckerbaer

While the original folksy Copenhagen cafe invokes the famed Danish hygge charm (the Danes’ concept of a sense of cosiness and well-being), the local outlet is a bit more urban and less charming. The open-concept cafe sits in the middle of Isetan Scotts, which is currently undergoing renovations (we occasionally heard construction workers banging away while we ate cookies and sipped on tea).

We expect the open seating to be distracting, with shoppers milling around, but the whole mall is pretty deserted. Not bad if you want a peaceful spot to enjoy a cuppa and cookies with friends. The cookies and pastries are baked at a central kitchen, so don’t expect a buttery aroma to be wafting through Isetan’s beauty counters.

Like its Danish counterpart, Leckerbaer Singapore offers eight rotating types of zhng-ed småkagers baked with Danish butter (fun fact: Denmark’s butter cookies are rich and yummy as they’ve a high-fat, low-water content). Each Leckerbaer Småkager costs $2.80 a la carte, and $22/$32/$40 for a box of eight, 12, and 16 respectively. There’s also a selection of small bakes like a Blondie ($7) with passionfruit and white chocolate pearls, tarts like Lemon & Sea Buckthorn Tart ($7), light savoury bites including Peas & Avocado Tart ($11) and ice cream such as a Summer Sundae ($8). You can also order lemonades, coffee and tea, the latter brewed with tea leaves from Los Angeles organic tea shop Art of Tea (try the refreshing White Coconut Creme, $6.50 a pot).

There are eight flavours available, including Banana, Chocolate, Passionfruit, Lemon, Milk, Vanilla, Raspberry and Caramel. Our favourite is the Lemon, which has white choc-dipped Danish butter cookies hugging a layer of piquant lemon curd. We also like the Banana, which is topped with a fragrant piece of banana-infused sponge cake dusted with tart berry sugar, and the fun Chocolate, which comes with caramelly chocolate cake, blackcurrant curd and a cocoa nib-topped choc shard. The Passionfruit småkager​​​​​​​ with passionfruit curd, which looked and sounded promising, is sadly underwhelming. And about the Danish cookies: we adore a good buttery one that’s almost like shortbread, but the interesting - though distracting - toppings and flavours here makes the OG cookie almost unrecognisable.

Leckerbaer also sells takeaway pre-packaged bags of Butter Cookies in four flavours, Vanilla ($7), Lychee Glazed ($8), Passion Glazed ($8) and Blackcurrant Glazed ($8). We tried the Lychee flavour and didn’t much like the too-sweet glaze and the rather dry cookie that’s not quite buttery enough.

Oddly enough, we find the savoury items here tastier than the bite-sized småkagers. The Danish butter tart shell is piled with gruyere cheese, parma ham and delicate pearl onions, all topped with a mountain of locally-sourced microgreens. Also good: the Peas & Avocado Tart ($11) with a oozy poached egg and wispy, flaky shell baked with Danish butter. While pricey, these dainty palm-sized treats are hardly a full lunch, so fill up on your calories before you come here.

For dessert, order this Lemon & Sea Buckthorn Tart (sea buckthorns are the orange berries hyped for their health benefits). It comes with a mound of torched airy meringue, which adds a touch of sweetness to the tart lemon-sea buckthorn filling.

We were expecting a parfait-style confection, but what arrived was an elaborately-plated blackberry and blackcurrant sorbet surrounded by dainty bits of brownies, blueberry meringue, strawberry jelly, salted caramel drops and tuile. All pretty delish, and for $8, it feels more like a dessert we get at the end of a Michelin-starred fine-dining meal.

Now, what’s even more exciting is Leckerbaer’s neighbour Luke’s Lobster, which is brought in by the same parent company and will also have some dine-in seats. The hoarding is still up at press time, so watch this space for our report when it opens.

#01-K2 & #01-K3 Shaw House Isetan Scotts, 350 Orchard Rd, S238868. Tel: 6235-2069. Open daily 10am-9pm (last seating at 8.30pm). www.leckerbaer.sg.

PHOTOS: KELVIN CHIA