Where to eat breakfast near the Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid sits at the harbour edge of Østerbro, with Kastellet between the statue and the nearest station at Østerport. She is the most photographed thing in Copenhagen and the one visitors most often come away flat about, usually because of the hour they arrive at: the middle of the morning, in a crowd. Going early fixes most of that. It also means eating inland first, because none of the cafés worth a detour are on the waterfront itself.

The statue was unveiled in 1913, a bronze figure from Hans Christian Andersen's tale, seated on a rock a few metres off the path. The thing nobody warns you about is the scale: the Little Mermaid is small and set low, which is why photographs taken over three rows of shoulders never come out. First thing in the morning you can stand in front of her on your own, and the whole thing makes considerably more sense.

The walk from Østerport passes Kastellet, and you should let it take its time. The fortress is seventeenth-century, star-shaped, still in military use and still completely intact: grass ramparts you can walk the full circuit of, a moat around them, a windmill on the rampart and rows of barracks inside. Most visitors treat it as the thing between the station and the statue. It is the better of the two.

Østerbro is the neighbourhood behind all this, and it is where to eat before you go. Expect wide streets, prams, and a café rhythm that has nothing to do with the harbour tours. Baryl on Århusgade is the closest of the ones we cover, a five-minute walk from Kastellet, serving brunch and breakfast all day with coffee and a long list of vegetarian and vegan options. Further into the neighbourhood, Café Bopa stands on Bopa Plads, a square rather than a through-street, which makes it a place to sit rather than pass. Cafe Livingstone is on Sortedam Dossering at the lakes, on the opposite edge of the district. It offers a different morning altogether, and is the one to choose if you want water on the way in as well as at the end.

Århusgade carries on north, and crossing into Nordhavn changes the character of the morning entirely: a new harbour district of glass, concrete and open water built on the old container quays, with its own station. Wulff & Konstali is further along the same street at number 130. Original Coffee is out on Sandkaj, on the water. Andersen & Maillard has a branch in the district too. None of this is on the standard visitor route, which is most of its appeal. It is the newest part of Copenhagen and the part fewest people walk.

If you are coming up from a hotel in the middle of town rather than taking the train, the harbour-side approach passes Amalienborg, four matching rococo palaces facing each other across an octagonal square, with the green dome of the Marble Church closing the view behind it. Both are nearest the Metro at Marmorkirken. Designmuseum Danmark is on the same stretch, in an eighteenth-century hospital building, and is the obvious indoor half of the day if the weather turns. Breakfast on that route belongs to the city centre rather than to Østerbro, and coffee near the Round Tower covers that end of town.

Two practical notes. Opening times vary more between neighbouring cafés than you would expect, so check the page of the one you have settled on rather than assuming a street keeps one schedule. And weekend tables fill from mid-morning onwards, with the best-known rooms going first. On a day built around reaching the water early, that works in your favour rather than against you.

A footnote for anyone who came for the tale rather than the bronze: Hans Christian Andersen is buried in Assistens Cemetery in Nørrebro, a working graveyard that doubles as the neighbourhood's park. It is on the far side of the city from here, so give it its own morning.

Planning the rest? The Østerbro brunch guide covers the neighbourhood in full, the citywide brunch guide is where to start if you are still deciding which district gets your late morning, and the two-day weekend food itinerary builds both days around where you want to eat rather than what you want to see. The breakfast and coffee pages gather the early openers across the city.