Justin’s Salt Bread, a brand new bakery in New York Metropolis, serves just one meals merchandise. Its namesake pastry is a golden-brown horn, glossy-topped and with a glitter of salt. It tears aside to show not the honeycomb inside of the best croissant, however wisps of bread round what some name salt bread’s signature “butter gap” — the results of wrapping enriched dough round a butter block, which successfully fries the bottom because it bakes. It creates a backside so crisp and brown that, simply taking a look at it, that basic TikTok knife-scrape instantly appears compelling.
Justin’s, which opened in late December, is presently the one brick-and-mortar bakery within the metropolis that makes a speciality of salt bread, and — not less than within the bakery’s early days — it takes a minimalist method. There aren’t any flavors or fillings right here, simply small cups of candy cream that may be added on the facet for dipping, to steadiness the salty bread. “I don’t need to do all the things,” says founder Justin Lim. “I need to do one factor and I need to be the perfect at one factor, and salt bread is my favourite bread.”
The entire world is, more and more, taking discover of salt bread. The development swept Asia first; it originated in Japan, the place it’s referred to as shio pan, and gained traction within the mid-2010s. The Japanese bakery Ache Maison is among the best-known sources of the fashion, as early as round 2014, and it’s the principle supply of inspiration for Justin’s, which cites the bakery on its packaging. From there, the development made its solution to Korea, the place it turned identified by the time period “salt bread,” and its recognition there grew within the early 2020s as bakeries like Jayeondo Salt Bread turned viral locations and taste-tests of ingenious takes on salt bread from Korean purveyors swept social media. Japan might need created it, however Korea popularized it.
House-cooking creators additionally contributed to the development’s success. Erin Lim of Erin’s Cozy Kitchen, who beforehand ran a salt-bread-focused cottage bakery in Austin, constantly will get views within the hundreds of thousands when she options salt bread in a video. Now, the bread is poised to comb america as a slew of salt-bread-centric bakeries open and current outlets work it onto their menus.
“I noticed the potential for salt bread to be just like the Asian model of a croissant.”
The comparability between salt bread and croissants appears unavoidable for bakers. And never simply in look alone: The dough doesn’t should be laminated like with croissants, however the pastry continues to be laborious since every roll should be formed by hand. “I noticed the potential for salt bread to be just like the Asian model of a croissant,” says Gemma Lee of Out of Ordi, a home-bakery-turned-brick-and-mortar store in Los Angeles. Whereas most social media-driven meals traits are fleeting, Lee noticed salt bread’s relative longevity in Korea as an indication that it could be price investing within the idea in america.
As with croissants, salt bread is now additionally topic to extra maximalist renditions: Out of Ordi provides variations topped with pollock roe mayo and seaweed, and full of corn-flavored cream. Out of Ordi positions its salt bread as “not a conventional Korean bread however relatively a classy adaptation that’s been embraced by Korean bakeries and meals lovers.” Salt bread’s success then — as one thing attributed to trendy Korean bakery tradition — represents the shifting nexus of culinary affect. In Korea, bakery tradition has seen a increase lately because the nation’s bread consumption will increase; bakeries are actually main drivers of nationwide tourism, in accordance with a latest report from the Korea Occasions.
“Folks aren’t simply importing a recipe; they’re importing the ‘Korean bakery temper.’”
Croissant, salt bread: The metaphor units itself up simply. On one hand is the outdated stalwart, France, inextricable from trendy delicacies as we all know it, although arguably now not on the forefront of trendsetting. Alternatively is Korea, which is actively reshaping world tradition in a number of mediums.
“‘If France as soon as symbolized refinement, Korea now symbolizes dynamic modernity,” Jungyoon Choi, a culinary researcher and Korea chair for the World’s 50 Finest Academy, wrote by way of e-mail. “Korea has turn into a robust cultural distribution system… Via Okay-content and cafe aesthetics, the Korean reinterpretation [of salt bread] — which is extra stylized and texture-forward than the [Japanese] authentic — travels quicker. Folks aren’t simply importing a recipe; they’re importing the ‘Korean bakery temper.’” As of 2023, Korean bakery exports like Paris Baguette noticed the best world success within the American market. Even the flattened croissant development a number of years again originated in Korea.
Current bakeries are feeling some strain to characteristic salt bread, too. Candy Rabbit Bakery in Chicago, which opened in 2023, began serving a salt-bread bagel earlier this month. “Initially, we tried to do shio pan itself,” says proprietor Andrew Cheng. Benefiting from the development was simple because the bakery already makes milk bread. However the bread’s croissant-like look confused clients who have been looking for out croissants. Bagels, which the bakery doesn’t in any other case provide, turned the answer, Cheng says. The bakery now provides plain salt-bread bagels and salt-bread bagels filled with garlic cream cheese — a nod to the viral Korean cream-cheese garlic bread. Equally, Dominique Ansel’s Papa D’Amour in NYC lately launched a salt-bread bagel.
In fact, additionally like croissants, salt bread is changing into a canvas for extra flavors. In San Francisco, Isaac Taitano is now identified for his salt bread, which he sells by his bakery Tano. Taitano didn’t initially plan to serve an array of salt bread — he additionally makes scones, cookies, and different pastries — however after an ube model that paid homage to his Guamanian roots discovered wild recognition, he started to experiment with different choices. Now, Tano provides salt bread filled with garlic cream cheese, kaya jam, and guava cream. He’s testing panko-crusted, Japanese-curry-filled salt bread and salt bread flavored with black sesame, and he welcomes his crew to contribute concepts from their very own cultures.
It’s a humorous trajectory for Taitano, contemplating that croissants are literally his specialty. However when planning the bakery, which presently operates contained in the espresso store Paper Son, Taitano’s startup prices didn’t permit for a dough sheeter to laminate massive quantities of croissant dough. Salt bread emerged instead because it didn’t require the identical tools.
Now, although, salt bread feels inseparable from Tano. Taitano is now within the means of increasing in a bigger house, the place he’ll have the room and the funds for a laminator. “I’ve all the time been tempted to take off the salt bread and simply go to croissants, however I really feel like salt bread actually made my model the best way it’s right now,” he says. “I believe once I do [make] croissants, I’ll preserve salt bread, too.”
And that looks like the way forward for the American bakery: salt bread and croissants, facet by facet.
