We'd love to see you over Christmas and New Year if you're about in Harrogate. Just to let you know: we'll be open as usual apart from Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's Day when we'll all be taking a well-earned break and New Year's Eve when we'll be open slightly shorter hours 9am - 3pm 🎄

Big thank you to Sophies Choice for this wonderful write-up of her visit to Baltzersen's!

It’s a busy time of year and here at Baltzersen’s we have been thinking of ways to embrace hygge this Christmas to help us all appreciate this very special time, rather than just feeling stressed out by it. In our latest blog post we reveal our top tips for spreading some Scandi festive cheer during the holidays and beyond. Have you got any tips of your own for embracing hygge at Christmas? Let us know in the comments!

It wouldn't be Christmas at Baltzersen's without our gingerbread decorating workshops and it looks like we've got some super talented gingerbread decorators at our first workshop of the year tonight! If you'd like to come along and decorate your own gingerbread house with your family this week, we've got ONE table available on Tuesday night and ONE table available Wednesday night. The workshops all start at 5pm and cost £30, which includes a pre-constructed house, plus sweets, chocolate, and icing to decorate. To book give us a call on 01423 202 363.

Morning all. Some of you know about our half price takeout coffee available every day before 10am.......but then again lots of you don't. So give us a hand and tag someone or pass it on to someone that will be interested! We'd love to meet more people and introduce them to our style of coffee. Oh, and we're going to be making our coffee even better soon because we've asked Father Christmas for a special present - and we're hoping he's going to deliver asap!!!

With a couple of cancellations we now have three places available for Gingerbread Decorating next week, and we're going to give one of them away. **WIN a place for your family on Tue 19th December** To be in with a chance to win a table for up to 4 people and a house to decorate just LIKE this post and COMMENT what you love most about Christmas. ___________________________________________________________________________ If you’d like to book a table we've got ONE table left for Tuesday 19th December workshop and ONE table left for 20th December. Here's the booking form to fill out: https://baltzersens.typeform.com/to/QdDbGu The workshops all start at 5pm and cost £30, which includes a pre-constructed house, plus sweets, chocolate, and icing to decorate. Additional festive gingerbread shapes will be available at £5 for 4 pieces, with additional houses at £20. You can also pre-order food for the evening - the options are all listed in the form linked to above :) Find out more about our gingerbread decorating workshops over on our blog here: http://bit.ly/2z8gA9L

We wanted to say thank you to everyone who came down to our Saint Lucy's Night at Baltzersen's on Wednesday. It was the first time we'd organised any kind of Saint Lucy's Day celebrations, but seeing the cafe lit up with candles and full of people enjoying our homemade saffron buns and Norwegian mulled wine has definitely spurred us on to do something similar next year! It's not too late to read about the history of Saint Lucy's Day and why it's such an important celebration in the Scandinavian calendar. Just head over to our blog: http://bit.ly/2kxqEAu

As many of you will know, we're a huge advocate of local, independent businesses and have been running our "Spotlight" series on the blog for a while now. This week we went and had a chat with Martin and Lisa Johnson, owners of Lighthouse Lighting & Living, who recently relocated the business from Lancashire to Cold Bath Road in Harrogate. Find out why they decided to move the business and what products they have available in store in our latest blog post

So this is what our bakers will be doing this weekend in preparation for our gingerbread house decorating workshops next week! We’ve had one cancellation for our 20th December workshop and have a handful of tables available for Monday 18th December and Tuesday 19th December so book in asap if you and your family are interested in coming along. Here's the booking form to fill out: https://baltzersens.typeform.com/to/QdDbGu The workshops all start at 5pm and cost £30, which includes a pre-constructed house, plus sweets, chocolate, and icing to decorate. Additional festive gingerbread shapes will be available at £5 for 4 pieces, with additional houses at £20. You can also pre-order food for the evening - the options are all listed in the form linked to above :) Find out more about our gingerbread decorating workshops over on our blog here: http://bit.ly/2z8gA9L

Introducing our NEW belly pork open sandwich, with horseradish creme fraiche, sautéed kale, homemade stuffing, caramelised red onion purée, and crackling. Available from lunchtime today and throughout December!

Glad Lucia! Tonight's the night: candles and festive music at the ready! Join us in the cafe for saffron buns and mulled wine from 5pm - 7pm! Everyone's welcome, so feel free to bring the whole family - we've got Saint Lucy colouring sheets and crayons for smaller guests. See you this evening ☺️

We're celebrating Saint Lucy's Day in the cafe tomorrow night from 5pm, and you're all invited! In Scandinavia one of the biggest celebrations around Christmas time is Saint Lucy’s Day, or Sankta Lucia, on 13th December. This year, we've decided to have our very own Saint Lucy celebration in the cafe on Wednesday 13th December, starting at 5pm and finishing at around 7pm. We'll be decorating the cafe with candles for a cosy atmosphere, making Lussekatter (saffron buns) which are the sweet treats usually associated with the occasion, and there'll be glögg, of course! Proceeds from the saffron buns will go to Supporting Older People, a local charity that aims to alleviate loneliness and isolation amongst older people. We’ll remain open from 5pm and close around 7pm. It’s going to be a relaxed atmosphere and the whole family is welcome. We’ll light some candles, turn the music up a little louder than usual and settle in. We hope you’ll join us as we try to bring a little more hygge to Harrogate with a cosy, intimate celebration of Saint Lucy.