Oslo’s best hidden courtyards, gardens and backyard bars

Few Oslo courtyards make quite such a dramatic reveal as Prindsen Hage. Hidden behind the façades of Storgata and Brugata, the space opens into a surprisingly expansive urban garden framed by old brick walls and historic buildings, designed by Christian Heinrich Grosch, one of the most important figures in 19th-century Norwegian architecture. Communal tables, greenery, strings of lights and areas for games give it a loose, almost festival-like character, while food stalls and bars keep the mood resolutely informal. What appeals to us most is the sheer scale of the place: after the compressed streets outside, finding this much open space concealed within a city block feels faintly improbable. Come with time to spare, choose a table beneath the lights and let Prindsen Hage do what Oslo’s best courtyards do so well – make the city temporarily disappear.

Storgata is hardly where you expect to find one of Oslo’s most inviting courtyards. Step through the entrance to Folk i Storgata, however, and the traffic and trams quickly recede behind old yellow-painted buildings, cobbles and rose bushes. Folk sits within Mangelsgården, part of the protected Prinds Christian Augusts Minde complex. The scale is generous rather than intimate, with long communal tables giving the place something of a Scandinavian beer garden feel, yet the historic surroundings keep it distinctly Oslo. Inside, vintage furniture and comfortably mismatched rooms continue the unpolished mood. We like Folk precisely because it doesn’t try too hard: come for a beer or glass of wine, claim a place at one of the wooden tables and allow an afternoon to turn into evening.

Not every hidden courtyard needs an open sky. At Amerikalinjen, originally designed by architects Andreas Bjercke and Georg Eliassen as the headquarters of the Norwegian America Line, Haven turns the hotel’s inner courtyard into a year-round winter garden, sheltered beneath a glass roof. Original yellow tiles lend warmth to the walls, while mature greenery, palms and carefully chosen furniture soften the building’s more formal historic character. There is something almost continental about sitting here, particularly when Oslo outside is doing its meteorological worst. We’d choose a low chair, order a cocktail and linger. Haven works less as somewhere to escape the city than as an unexpectedly serene room hidden right at its centre.