AND now for something completely different – OK, just slightly different – and in a good way, if you like Nordic chic. We’re at the fag-end of Newlands on the south side of Glasgow, down by the old Weir Pumps factory, across the road in what looks like a former hot rolls takeaway shop.

There are now buddhas on the shelves, a very scandi-noir dark and moody frontage outside and lots of little elves feverishly chopping, stacking and artfully preparing. OK, they’re not really elves, but this Danish food gig looks extremely labour intensive, staff hustling and bustling and tweaking and teasing micro food on to micro squares of bread. Leo, who’s been waiting politely for me at that two-seater for at least 20 minutes, has received the shock news that the soup he had set his little heart on has just sold out. Uh-oh.

The very last bowl is leaving the kitchen right now. Look. The couple at the next table hoist their eyebrows in sympathy no doubt, thinking if only his fat friend had turned up when he was supposed to he’d be supping some right now. Never mind. At least he bagged us a table – they're in short supply – and kept it, I remind him as we scan the remaining choices for frokost, which if you have spent any time on The Bridge with Saga Noren you will know is lunch. Rather than negotiate those unfamiliar runic letters on the menu we simply block order all of the smorrerbrod, or open sandwiches on a thin piece of sourdough rye bread. There’s not that many of them. Oh, and one of those Danish gourmet hotdogs too.

The dawg arrives first, a split roll stacked with crispy onions, gherkins and remoulade. It's pleasant but impossible to eat without a knife and fork as one glance at the menu, now completely stained with sauce, will confirm. I don’t know if hot dogs should be impossible to eat with cutlery but maybe that’s the scandi way.

No such problem with the honsesalat, which like all other smorrerbrod arrives on a wooden board so perfectly arranged and presented with seeds and herbs and delicate blobs of sauce that it all looks like a work of art. Small maybe? Um, they do look small but the stacking is high, the rye bread deep, moist and densely flavoured. This chicken salad smorrerbrod has a single crisp rasher of bacon, a sprinkle of micro herbs and the smallest wavy leaf of lettuce on it. There’s maybe four mouthfuls in the whole thing, but what mouthfuls.

We half the rest and move on to the home-roasted beef – which doesn’t seem to have a Danish name – with more crispy onions and remoulade. On then again by way of an aeggemad of boiled egg, coldwater prawns, cheery tomato and cress. Cantering through them all. These sandwiches are far more than the sum of their parts; bursting with unexpected flavours and textures, everything brought back down to a cool, calm conclusion by the pleasant rye bread aftershock.

We recoiled initially from the kartoffelmad and its rows of tiny new potatoes atop the rye bread, mayo and chives and onions above that. This does not look like it’s going to be a pleasant experience. In fact? Far from being cold and clammy, the potatoes work well with the chives and mayo, a crunch coming from the onions.

This really is food as art and why so much time is taken constructing the sandwiches – and why they are gone in moments. Leo isn’t for the avocadomad, a half of avocado with Danish blue cheese and toasted seeds. It’s not my favourite, but there is a sharply pleasant bite from the cheese just before the creamy avocado takes hold.

I’d like a cinnamon bun to finish but alas the only ones they have are in bags so we have coffee and look up at the bookshelf where books by Abert Camus, John Steinbeck and John Irving sit. Too cool for school, this place. And well worth a visit.

Fylkir of Copenhagen

134 Newlands Road, Glasgow (0141 633 1722)

Menu: Smorrerbrod which is scandi-chic smorgasbrod to you mate, meaning lots of painstakingly prepared rye bread pleasures. 5/5

Atmosphere: Feels a bit like a hot roll shop. Comfortable but come for the food not the cosiness. 3/5

Service: Impossible to fault even though that soup was sold out. Relaxed, pleasant and chatty, and they have to be – it’s tiny in here. 4/5

Price: Seven quid for three smorrerbrod and when you see the work that goes into them I think you’ll agree they’re worth it. 5/5

Food: Somehow satisfying and yet lightly balanced. New flavours, appetising presentation – what’s not to like? 8/10

Total: 25/30