The LA Bakeries I Find Myself Returning To Over And Over Again

When I first got to LA 9 years ago I had to hunt to find good, flaky croissants. I had previously spent time in France, where I learned to appreciate a properly laminated pastry. They were everywhere — no one seemed to bother making pastries unless they were done well. Then, while living in Copenhagen, I was introduced to the fluffy and flaky heights a bakery could achieve with shops like Juno the Bakery, Hart Bakery, and Andersen & Maillard. Now LA is in the middle of a croissant revolution that's leading the way for an overall bakery boom.

Angelenos know good food and will line up for a high quality pastry, even though it's hard to justify an almond croissant for breakfast when to get to work you sit in your car instead of walking to the metro. Many of LA's top bakeries can hold their own anywhere in the world.

Narrowing down a list of great and unique LA bakeries to just 5 isn't easy. I had to leave off some favorites like Friends & Family, Bub and Grandmas, Baker's Bench, Lou the French on the Block, and Clark Street. LA is a large, sprawling city, so I admit I don't often find myself West of Hollywood which is reflected in my list. That's why lovers of Gjusta, Gusto, Lodge, and Copenhagen will most likely be upset with me. However, if you're visiting hip LA neighborhoods East of Hollywood like Highland Park or Echo Park, these bakeries are all within reach and worth a stop.

Proof is the most common response I get when I ask my friends "who has the best chocolate chip cookie in LA?" While I'm still planning my chocolate chip cookie-off to finalize my opinion, I have to agree that the bakery's simple, classic version is one of the best in the city. 

The worker-owned cooperative does more than just top-tier cookies, the croissant is one of my favorites in LA. It's a true flaky, buttery version of the French pastry. The seasonal fillings like pistachio cherry and za'atar with cheese have loyal fans who eagerly await their returns. The cakes are beautiful, delicate, and delicious. You can always find new, standout flavors for their cakes like Golden Chai, spiced with turmeric, cardamom, and cloves, or the Strawberry Malt. Whether it's corn, peach, or berries, if its season you can expect to find it used in delicious and unique ways here.

If you don't like lines go on a weekday morning when it's more manageable. However, if you have the time, the neighborhood shines on Sunday mornings when the farmer's market is out. Vendors pop up all along the street and people walk with bags full of farm fresh produce and flowers. All this provides a show of people to watch while you wait in the long line full of families and friends catching up.

My favorite cake in all of LA is the Coffee Crunch from Valerie. It's a perfectly fluffy sponge cake with whipped cream frosting, all completely covered with large chunks of honeycomb candy. The sweet, caramelly, bitter crunch balances the rest of the simple but excellent cake. It's a revival of the classic California recipe from the long-gone Blum's Bakery. The small black sesame mochi cake with shoyu caramel is uniquely sweet, nutty, and chewy. Another mini-cake highlight is the extravagant devil's food cake with Nutella buttercream, caramel sauce, and fleur de sel.

Valerie's petits fours are delicious little cakes enrobed in various chocolates. They are perfect to bring home for afternoon tea or to remind you to look out for when the bakery offers afternoon tea in its garden. They also make fine chocolates that are just right for Valentine's Day, birthdays, or any day you need some chocolate. Usually when I'm picking up a box of chocolates I find myself adding on a mini-cake for the drive home, so beware. The Echo Park location is a nice neighborhood shady spot to meetup, grab a coffee and sandwich, and finish off with a slice of basque cheesecake.

The team behind coffee powerhouses Kumquat, Loquat, and the new Quat LA created this temple of lamination to pair with coffee. The focus is on thinly layered pastries with lots of butter. The Kouign amman is my favorite no frills version in the city. They make a playful croissant pressé, which is a flattened croissant that's almost like a buttery cookie. It's a trend that took off in Korea and is starting to show up in shops throughout California. The filled cruffins and danishes are museum quality showpieces. 

Every line of lamination is exact. Each pastry looks like a wavy piece of contemporary architecture held up by a precise interior structure of gluten. The idea behind the bakery is to focus on one simple pastry, the croissant, and master it. Judging by the line on weekends and the delicate crumbs that cover my lap after every bite, they've succeeded. The line on weekdays tends to die down a bit after they open nowadays. You can also find a smaller selection of the pastries at their coffee shops around Northeast LA and Downtown.

My favorite singular kouign amman in LA can be found here at Santa Canela. The bakery's take on the classic French pastry adds sweet, rich, and bright cajeta — caramelized goat milk that originated in Celaya, Mexico. The sauce pairs well with the perfectly executed pastry. The bakery is also home to one of the best churros in LA. The dough is piped to look like the classic LA on Dodgers merchandise. It could easily just be Instagram fodder for tourists, but it is perfectly fried. The exterior is crisp and sweet with a light and fluffy texture inside. The case is often full of potato and soyrizo croissants, strawberry and chili jam donuts, a Salvadoran quesadilla (a kind of cheese-filled pound cake), and chantilly-filled conchas. Make sure you get a carajillo foam coffee to dip your concha into as you watch the hip neighborhood wake up from the collection of chairs out front. 

The pastry master behind the bakery is Chef Ellen Ramos. She's the Executive Pastry Chef for the Mexico City based restaurant group behind Loreto and the now closed LA Cha Cha Cha (which recently reopened in Miami). You can find her delicious desserts like the showstopping churro at the group's restaurants. A trip to Loreto is worth it for her carajillo cake alone.

This chocolate manufacturing company opened in 2019. The cafe opened in 2021 but didn't make its own pastries until a little after. After a deep dive into making the perfect croissant they now are widely considered to have the best chocolate croissant in LA. Understandably, they pay close attention to the chocolate batons used in each pastry, rotating through different origins. The owner, Haris Car, has personal ties to cacao farms around the world and pays above official fair trade levels for his chocolate.

The cafe is always full of families and friends chatting and people on laptops. Its seasonal flavors, like the pumpkin cheesecake spiral, disappear fast each day so you have to get in line early. I sadly tried and failed multiple times to make it to East Pasadena early enough to get one of the pumpkin flavors, but the original chocolate picked my spirits back up every time.