Impartial bakeries have boomed for the reason that onset of the pandemic and this yr they continued to proliferate round bakers’ hyperspecific visions, as my colleague Bettina Makalintal has famous. Essentially the most compelling examples we scouted across the nation this yr — a part of our regional analysis for Eater’s Greatest New Eating places in America in 2025 record, dropping subsequent week — draw influences from private histories and cultural foodways to create reflective interpretations of conventional and nontraditional pastries.
On the intersections of those distinctive pie charts: candy and savory renditions that really feel endlessly inviting, like bao crammed with Spam or Japanese potato salad alongside mango ‘ulu bread and POG layer cake in Hawai‘i, or flatbreads like malfouf safeha and potato fatayer that talk to a pastry chef’s hometown within the occupied Golan Heights territory. The throughline stays private narrative baking, which might form the way in which a pastry tastes, the story it tells, and the impression it leaves. Pastry cooks now fearlessly lay all of it out on the desk — then knead it into one thing nice. Under, discover a number of the bakeries we couldn’t cease pondering and speaking about in 2025.
Chef Vince Nguyen resurrected Berlu bakery and cafe in Portland, Oregon, in June 2025 after relocating to a brighter area, bringing with him its kaleidoscopic slate of Vietnamese diasporic dishes that the town has clamored for since Berlu first reworked right into a bakery pop-up in 2020. Although Nguyen’s authentic Berlu restaurant centered on deft positive eating interpretations, the bakery revival has leaned into informal daytime eating with pastries equivalent to its immediately iconic, finely corrugated pandan bánh bò nướng, whose muted coloration belies its intensely earthy taste. The coconut egg custard tart, topped with a shaggy layer of salted egg yolk, is among the many high-impact savory choices on a menu that additionally contains pork stomach and shrimp bún with roasted rooster broth and, as an erstwhile particular, a BEC bánh xèo, which takes a bacon-egg-and-cheese strategy to a Vietnamese crepe made with turmeric, coconut milk powder, and rice flour. Don’t sleep on the bánh khoai mì nướng, a play on pineapple upside-down cake that will get a heat hit of cardamom and a mochi-like texture from cassava and mungbean, or the even headier clove canelé, which makes an ideal pocket deal with to go. — NF
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
At Majdal Bakery in Philadelphia, proprietor Kenan Rabah presents safeha, fatayer, basbousa, and different treats that draw on his hometown of Majdal Shams within the Golan Heights, a area of Syria that has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Right here, he presents dishes inextricable from a historical past of political battle in new methods, introducing them to some Philadelphians and bringing again acquainted flavors to others. Rabah, who moved to the US in 2015 and beforehand baked on the metropolis’s Misplaced Bread Co., serves flatbreads with kashkawan cheese and halloumi, in addition to pockets of dough encasing sumac rooster, brightened with a dunk within the bakery’s tart secret sauce. Pear fenugreek basbousa is an train in stability, with labneh cremeaux rounding out the coarse texture and sweetness of syrup-soaked semolina cake, whereas tahini babka muffins evoke the nostalgia of nut butter sandwiches. With outdated footage of Rabah’s household and hometown lining the partitions, the small, vivid area immediately charms and welcomes its guests — in any case, the most effective bakeries at all times really feel a bit of like dwelling. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter
There’s no scarcity of excellent bakeries in Honolulu, however Mille Fête nonetheless makes its mark. Katherine Yang and Robynne Maii stability innovation and nostalgia in traditional pastries and fashionable reinventions, celebrating the legacy of Asian American bakeries and eating places in Honolulu’s Chinatown amid ongoing gentrification. Yang borrows from her Taiwanese heritage, bringing flaky, difficult-to-find pastries just like the Taiwanese taiyang, or sunshine pastry, to the U.S., and mixing tropical, regionally grown fruits like calamansi into very delicate spritz cookies. Maii and Yang’s fame precedes them — tv persona Gail Simmons has even backed the woman-of-color-owned bakery. A muted, minimalist inside initially feels unassuming however cabinets crammed with roasted pineapple espresso muffins, kimchi Reuben hand pies, baked Spam bao with Chinese language mustard (a nod to Honolulu’s erstwhile, beloved Pineapple Room), and mango ‘ulu bread illustrate the group’s regard for native traditions and unconventional approaches, in addition to its ongoing love affair with all issues candy and divine. — Kayla Stewart, senior editor
Georgia Macon discovered a candy dwelling when she moved to Portland, Maine, from St. Louis in the course of the pandemic. The pastry chef shortly rose by means of the ranks inside Prentice Hospitality Group, which incorporates eating places just like the Good Desk and Twelve. After creating a neighborhood following for baked items on the latter, Macon and different pastry cooks from the lauded restaurant launched a meals truck — not a bakery — close to the restaurant, providing a spread of pastries impressed by Macon’s time in France, reminiscences of her grandmother, a reverence for Southern cooking, and a love for the baking traditions of her newfound New England dwelling. On the truck, which sits simply in entrance of the Portland Harbor, sweets run the gamut. An abundance of rolls stands out — cinnamon buns swirled with cream cheese, and spherical pastries sprinkled with sesame seeds and crammed with gently spiced sausages, a takeaway from Macon’s time in New Zealand. There’s additionally an entire choice of croissants each savory and candy: ham and Gruyere, turkey with provolone, pecan praline. Seasonal produce ensures the menu rotates recurrently, however pepper jelly, cornflake crispy treats, and a variety of different nostalgic baked items stay constants. — KS
Pastry chef Ellen Ramos attracts from her Northeast Los Angeles childhood, in addition to her household’s Salvadoran and Mexican roots, for her unmissable Highland Park bakery, Santa Canela. An El Sereno, California, native, Ramos felt impressed to provide extra private pastries after being inspired at native Los Angeles eating places the place she labored as pastry chef, together with Frogtown’s Loreto. Santa Canela, in consequence, feels distinctly Angeleno at the same time as it’d match aesthetically right into a tucked-away avenida in Mexico Metropolis. Discover orange blossom conchas, savory daytime fare equivalent to a behemoth kale and cured beef sandwich on recent focaccia, and Ramos’s signature dessert: an “LA”-shaped churro, which pairs fantastically with a restaurant de olla latte. Ramos brings her lifelong love of Los Angeles doughnuts to the bakery, too, with a champurrado maple doughnut bar on show within the smooth, sand-toned, minimalist area. The acute sense of favor, merged with Ramos’s private historical past, makes this slice of pastry nirvana really feel like the way forward for Los Angeles bakeries. — Mona Holmes, editor, Southern California/Southwest
