DANISH bakers Ole & Steen will open their new Westgate Centre store on Thursday.

The new bakery, with a striking frontage, is occupying a unit with an entrance on Castle Street.

The chain has branches across the capital and Oxford is its first branch outside London.

The all-day bakery opens at 9am every day and 8am on Saturday and the chain sells a wide variety of pastries, soups, stews and open sandwiches on rye bread.

Openings manager Camille Hansen said: “When we first started talking about launching Ole & Steen in the UK we always wanted to take the bakeries out of London and felt that Oxford would be a perfect first city to open.

“We’re very excited to be able to bring our food to such a fantastic and historic place.”

Brendan Hattam, general manager at Westgate Oxford, said: “We’re excited to welcome Ole & Steen.

“The all-day Danish bakery will fit in perfectly with our existing brands and we think our visitors will love the taste and smell of their delicious breads and pastries.”

Ole & Steen’s first bakery in the capital opened in Haymarket at the end of 2016.

In Denmark there are about 80 branches and they are called Lagkagehuset – Danish for ‘layer cake house’.

In the UK the chain is called Ole & Steen after its two founders, Ole Kristoffersen and Steen Skallebæk.

The Oxford branch is fully licensed and can seat 88 customers.