Where To Get The Absolute Best Bread In The US

Remember when bread was just the stuff in your lunchbox that held your bologna and cheese together? If your childhood bread experience revolved around extra-soft, flavorless slices of white Wonder Bread, you may have made it all the way to adulthood before tasting actual bread. You can't really buy proper bread in the bread aisle at your local supermarket, though you might be able to find a poor facsimile of it in the bakery section — as long as you're lucky and get it right when it comes out of the oven.

If you want real bread, you either have to bake it yourself or visit one of the precious few bakeries in America that make bread the way our great-great-grandparents did. But separating the excellent from the so-so is tough unless you go out of your way to buy a loaf from each bakery in every big city in the country. We're making it easy for you with this list of the very best breadmakers from coast to coast. If you love a warm, crusty French boule or rustic Italian bread, take some notes and hit up the best spots next time you're in one of these neighborhoods.

One of the reasons why Bread Alone has such an amazing menu is because — as the name implies — it doesn't do anything else (well, pastries, but those can at least be loosely grouped into the bread category). With multiple New York state locations, this bakery only works with organic flours sourced from local growers, and everything is made by hand. The team has ambitious ideals and according to the website, they don't just focus on baking delicious bread but also aim to "create prosperity for our people, and minimize further harm to the planet." 

That's a great place to start, but it means nothing if you don't also have an appetizing and eclectic menu. Sure most bakeries sell sourdough, but Bread Alone goes beyond with several different kinds including French, whole wheat, and San Francisco style. If you're craving something a bit different, they also offer a peasant boule, olive ciabatta, and a 12 grain and seed baguette. If you just need something for making above-average sandwiches (no bologna allowed), Bread Alone also has a selection of bagged, sliced bread and Nordic einkorn and rye. For anyone just stopping by on their way through town, it's going to be kind of hard to pick just one.

According to the Berkshire Eagle, the riverside village of Housatonic was once designated a "slum or blight" by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community, a label that certainly needs reassessing. Aside from having affordable housing, the town also boasts a number of highly-rated eateries and a bread lover's dream at the Berkshire Mountain Bakery.

If you want to stick with what you know, the bakery has basic baguettes, ciabattas, and a couple of different San Francisco style loaves. But it also makes some really unique recipes, like cherry pecan artisanal bread, cheese and herb or dark chocolate mini ciabattas, potato onion bread, and a customer favorite that goes by the name bread & chocolate.

Another fun offering at this bakery is the pizza crust. Not everyone knows how to make dough from scratch, but we can all figure out how to pile toppings on. If you're craving a homemade pizza, you can stop by this artisan bakery and buy a thin white, wheat, or spelt crust, throw whatever you want on top, and have pizza exactly how you like it right out of your own oven.

Back on the East Coast in the big city of Providence in the tiny state of Rhode Island, Seven Stars Bakery sells handcrafted sandwiches made with its own fresh-baked bread. The bakery takes pride in its stone milled, whole grain, locally sourced, organic flour and the fact that the Food Network named it one of the best bakeries in America in 2020. Seven Stars' sourdough starters are more than 20 years old (in bread, that's a good thing) and they have six different types of pre-ferments that give the bread its flavor and texture.

The bakery has a robust menu that includes standard baguettes, rustic country sourdough rounds, and French rye, but it also branches off into more unique offerings like Vermont cheddar sourdough, epi (fashioned to look like a stalk of wheat), and sesame spelt. You can pick up a whole loaf to enjoy at home or order a sandwich or salad. For a quick snack, grab a hot coffee and one of the tempting pastries such as a buttery flaky kouign amann or a muffin. 

Back to the west coast now, Ken's Artisan Bakery opened its doors in Portland in 2001 and has since been featured in big-name publications like Travel + Leisure and the LA Times, the latter despite it not even being located in LA. Ken's Artisan's menu includes a short list of options including country blonde, basic baguette, ciabatta, and walnut bread. The bakery also makes a variety of different croissants, with fillings like goat cheese and leeks, ham and cheese, and several fruit-based or chocolate varieties if you prefer something sweeter.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Ken's is open for lunch so you can try the bread in sandwich form and then grab a hazelnut butter cookie for dessert. If you'd rather just pick something up while you're grocery shopping, you can also find Ken's bread for sale at a couple of local markets. And if you're more in the mood for pizza, Ken's also operates a Portland pizzeria with equally stellar reviews. If you want to learn how to make Ken's bread or pizza at home you can purchase one of two books authored by owner-baker Ken Forkish.

The New York Times called breadmaker Zachary Golper's signature bread "bulbous and heat-bludgeoned," but who cares. There's no such thing as an artisan breadmaker who values visual perfection over flavor. In fact, the more rugged the boule, the more it reflects the long, breadmaking history that informs almost every one of the bakers on this list.

At Golper's Brooklyn bakery Bien Cuit, you'll find baguettes, demi baguettes, pain au lait buns, campagnes (traditional French sourdough), and rye ficelles, among others. Many of the breads are vegan and although some of the cookies and treats are marked gluten-free, the bakery hasn't stooped to making a gluten-free bread yet (maybe because there's not really any such thing as delicious gluten-free bread).

According to Bien Cuit's website, the bakery prides itself on small batch mixing, so bakers can give personal attention to every single loaf. It also uses a technique called slow fermentation, which means it takes between 16 and a whopping 68 hours to make a single loaf of bread. If you're wondering how Bien Cuit does this, well, you're in luck. Owner-baker Golper has also authored a book that lets you know exactly how to make Bien Cuit-style bread in your home kitchen.

In early 2020, Los Angeles Times wrote that Milo & Olive had "the best breakfast breads in Los Angeles," but this Santa Monica bakery does more than just breakfast. It's also a full-service restaurant serving a range of pasta, pizza, snacks, soup, and salad.

At the time of this writing, Milo & Olive only had two savory bread loaves on its menu: a country loaf and a ciabatta. These two breads are excellent, but most people come to Milo & Olive for the cinnamon sugar brioche, chocolate marble pistachio loaf, or lemon poppyseed bread — the kind of carby snacks you crave with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. So if you ever find yourself watching the sun come up in the beachfront city of Santa Monica, you can have something sweet for breakfast and grab a ciabatta to eat on the beach at lunchtime. The coffee onsite is excellent too, served with Clover organic milk or housemade coconut milk.

The name of this place implies a lot of variety, and Iggy's Bread of the World does have a big menu with everything from brioche and focaccia to ancient grain and country style. The name is really more of a promise than a description, though. You won't find a map of different breads from around the world, instead, you'll find bread made "for all people," which is Iggy's pledge to its customers: Serving affordable basic bread such as country sourdough and whole wheat along with fancier types of bread that are still within a doable price range for most customers. Also, the bread is delicious, so why even bother with supermarket selections anymore.

According to Boston.com, Iggy's was focused mostly on wholesale until the COVID-19 pandemic eliminated most of these sales To make up for the lost revenue, Iggy's started delivering bread to locked-down families, and its retail business became a runaway success. Today, you can also buy Iggy's bread at the local farmers market, or you can get it on-site at Iggy's Fawcett Street location in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sullivan Street Bakery is a New York City favorite, but you can also find it down in Miami, in case you're not into the New York vibe. According to Miami Herald, the bakery is owned by James Beard Award winner Jim Lahey, who first opened the Soho location in 1994. In the Big Apple, you can also find Sullivan Street Bakeries in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, because what could be cooler than baking bread in Hell's Kitchen.

Sullivan Street's website is a little stingy with its menu — you can't order online or check out the offerings before you head over — but its wholesale products include some really unique breads like a disco Romana, a flatbread called pizza bianca, and some rustic-looking filones, ciabattas, and sourdoughs with fancy names like cruccolo and candela. And if you want to try your hand at making James Beard Award quality bread at home, there are also a few cookbooks: one featuring Sullivan Street recipes, one for pizza, and another one promising no-work, no-knead recipes. Sounds good to us.