Bread bakers are a strange lot, always waking hours before the roosters start cock-a-doodle-doing to slide their jiggly, sweetly sour loaves into ovens that have been warming all night. Baking is a career of passion, and I am immensely grateful for those who heed that calling. There is an infinite divide between artisanal, naturally leavened breads and what typically passes for bread at the large brand-name grocery stores these days, and because of that I haven’t bought a loaf of bread at my local supermarket in nearly 10 years. Once you’ve gone that route, there’s no turning back.
I’ve been eating a lot of bread and pastries lately, searching for the best European-style boulangerie (breads) and viennoiserie (croissants/pastries). These are the 10 best bakeries I could find.
1. Rye Goods
Chef Sara Lezama started baking and selling bread out of her garage several years ago, and that led to a food truck, which snowballed into an incredible retail bakery that opened on Via Lido last year. Despite the pandemic that was raging at the time (or maybe because of it), the bakery instantly drew huge crowds. By the time the doors opened each day at 8 a.m., a line of bleary-eyed customers already stretched down the block, everyone eager to get their hands on a loaf of old-fashioned sourdough made with heritage grains and an 18-year-old wild-yeast starter named Winona. The pastries are just as special: fruit turnovers and galettes, blackberry sticky buns, lemon curd morning buns. If you get there early enough, and the bakers are in the right mood, you might even be able to grab a fresh-from-the-oven sourdough pop tart glazed with fresh cherry icing. 3418 Via Lido, Newport Beach, 949-432-5550, ryegoods.com (New locations in the works for Tustin and Laguna Beach)
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2. Bread Artisan Bakery
Jonnie LoFranco and Yannick Guegan’s Bread Artisan Bakery doesn’t have a retail shop. Although in business since 2010, they sell mostly to chefs and restaurants (Marche Moderne, Mario’s Butcher Shop, Flippoly …). However, anyone can now order online, then pick up at the bakery in Santa Ana on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Their massive campagne miche is one of the greatest sourdough loaves available in California. The brioche is extraordinary as well. And if you’re having a cookout, you need some of their sesame-seed hamburger buns. 1943 E. Pomona St., Santa Ana, 855-282-7323, breadab.com
3. 61 Hundred Bread
It’s been fascinating to watch the evolution of chef Karlo Evaristo’s cottage baking business that began in 2019 when he started experimenting with sourdough at home and documenting the process on Instagram. It was always more trial than error, and after an exhaustive series of tweaks, he started selling the bread online in 2020. He’s currently building a retail bakery in Santa Ana, but it won’t be ready until next year. Meanwhile anyone can order online and retrieve everything from his kitchen in San Juan Capistrano. The breads are all impeccable, particularly the classic sourdough but also a version infused with blue corn masa. Evaristo’s kouign-amann are stunningly refined; these are the Hermès of kouign-amann. Also great: Japanese milk bread, sourdough dinner rolls and cruffins stuffed with ube cream. 61hundredbread.com
4. Moulin
If you’ve ever wondered just how big the French community is in Orange County, just go to Laurent Vrignaud’s Moulin in Newport Beach around 10 a.m. any day of the week. Every table is taken, and all that chatter you hear is everyone speaking French. This bakery rules the viennoiserie scene with an unmatched array of croissants, danishes, cinnamon buns, canelés, pan au chocolate, palmiers, madeleines, etc. But don’t overlook the baguettes (and that’s to say nothing of the patisserie, which is also prolific.) 1000 Bristol St. N., Newport Beach, 949-474-0920, moulin.com (satellite locations in Costa Mesa, Dana Point, Laguna Beach and San Clemente)
5. OC Baking Company
Dean Kim founded OC Baking Company nearly 20 years ago and sells primarily to restaurants and hotels (Broadway, The Ranch, Montage…). F or a long while if a restaurant in OC served truly excellent bread — sourdough, pretzel loaves, ciabatta, raisin bread, milk bread, classic baguettes, Parker House rolls — it probably came from here. After all those years, Kim has never opened a retail shop, but you can find his breads every Saturday at the Orange Home Grown Farmers Market. (Note: During the pandemic, the commercial bakery in Santa Ana opened its doors to the public on the last Friday of each month, inviting other fledgling food vendors to set up booths as well, but those pop-ups ended last week.) ocbakingco.com
6. Origin Baking Company
Brendan Wong launched his cottage bakeshop just over a year ago, frequently setting up a small display inside Toast restaurant in Costa Mesa where his intimate haul sells out quickly: kouign-amann, morning buns, monkey bread, and black sesame almond croissants as well as gorgeous loaves of sourdough and oat porridge bread. Limited production allows for extraordinary attention to detail. Follow his Instagram @origin_baking_co for pop-up dates and locations.
7. Blackmarket Bakery
Although a large part of Rachel Klemek’s business centers on sandwiches and custom cakes, this bakery/deli is also one of the best places to buy a loaf of freshly baked sandwich bread: classic sourdough, lemon-rosemary, sesame-seed, brioche or Dutch crunch (my favorite). The pastries are beautiful, but unless you arrive first thing in the morning the selection will be limited, which might be a good thing because it’s always hard choosing between the pecan sticky buns and the honey pistachio croissants. Eat whatever’s available. The Camp, 2937 Bristol St., Costa Mesa, 714-662-3095, blackmarketbakery.com
8. Giana Bakery & Provisions
When chef Danielle Kuhn opened Maison Cafe in Dana Point a few years ago, she served a lot of toast — really good rustic sourdough toast — made from loaves that she commissioned from Bread Artisan Bakery. Earlier this year, just up the street from Maison, she opened Giana, where she now bakes her own rustic sourdough, and it is absolutely outstanding. In the pastry case: berry danishes, huge croissants, vanilla-iced morning buns, kouign-amann and all manner of cookies. 34146 Pacific Coast Hwy., Dana Point, 949-503-1994, gianadanapoint.com
9. Crema Artisan Bakers
Tarit Tanjasiri launched Crema Cafe in Seal Beach in 2006 and later evolved the brand to include Crema Artisan Bakers, a commercial wholesale operation based in Irvine, where anyone can now place orders of any size online at least two days in advance and pick up directly from the Irvine bakery. The fruit Danish are superb, as are the cinnamon pull-aparts. As for bread, the brioche loaves are as good as any others on this list. 322 Main St., Seal Beach, 562-493-2501; online pickup location, 17815 Sky Park Circle, Irvine, 949-652-2537, cremaartisan.com
10. Moses Bread
Mosen Kwon’s brick-and-mortar bakery in Santa Ana is not a place where you go to browse for bread. The storefront is tiny. There’s barely enough room for two customers at a time, and you might find only a handful of loaves available for purchase at any given moment. You will notice, however, a dozen baskets filled with beautiful sourdough boules, baguettes, rustic loaves and bagels all marked “reserved.” Those are already spoken for. Most people order online days in advance, and many are weekly customers, like the guy who’s waiting in line behind me recently who says he’s been picking up two boules a week for years. 2405 N. Tustin Ave., Santa Ana, moses-bread.com
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