This bakery is the stuff of dreams with its sensationally crispy pastry. It’s not an exaggeration to say that FREA Bakery is now our main incentive for visiting Berlin. The vegan pastry scene is now actually very good in Prague, but I believe that FREA Bakery is in a league of its own.

The star of the show is this cardamom croissant – look at that lamination! The fun shaping makes it easy to pull apart and gives it lots of fun, crispy egdes which contrast beautifully with the fluffy insides. The flavour of cardamom is quite delicate. The texture is simply sensational.

This beautiful concoction is a spandauer – essentially a pastry cup filled with sweet custard. It suffers from the classic problem with this kind of dish, that the custard is a bit too wet and makes parts of the pastry a bit soggy. I wish it was a bit more set. But still, it’s delicious!

Dr HH tried the marzipan twist which I was worried would be a bit too heavy and almondy, but was actually perfectly balanced. Again, the texture was spot on.

And here’s a throwback to our first visit in 2022, when the cardamom croissant looked a little less refined but was no less delicious. As well as the spandauer, we also got a chocolate hazelnut croissant on that visit, which was also really decadent and delightful.

Unfortunately I don’t think this spot takes reservations, so on both of our visits we’ve got there early and hoped for the best. You can get takeaway as well if you don’t want to risk it, but there is quite a bit of seating, particularly when the weather is good enough to sit outside. This place has become the first place on our Berlin itineraries now, and I’m already counting down to my next visit!