The 16 Best Bakeries In Los Angeles, Ranked

Even though Los Angeles has long been known for its general aversion to all things carbohydrate, this city (which the New York Times once called "gluten's Heart of Darkness") has a hidden love affair, and that affair is dusted with flour. Some of the best bakeries in the country are in Los Angeles and the proximity to incredible local farms mean that bakers often showcase the best the state has to offer in tasty, flaky treats. 

This is by no means an exhaustive ranking of all bakeries in Los Angeles. We would need to compile a list of thousands of bakeries to truly rank them all. Instead, this is a ranking of some of the most popular and notable bakeries around the city. Some serve plates of food as well as pastries, some have both bread and patisserie, and some focus on one type of specialty. You can't really go wrong with any of the bakeries on this list, but if you find yourself seeking something truly sensational, let this ranking be your guide.

Chad Robertson's bread and Elisabeth Prueitt's pastries changed the game when the couple opened the doors of the original Tartine in San Francisco, a city already overrun with great sourdough. Since then, the brand has expanded to three locations in the Bay Area, five in Los Angeles, and six in Seoul. Even though you can now buy loaves of Tartine bread at Whole Foods grocery stores around Los Angeles, that hasn't translated to a slip in quality. The breads are just as tangy and crusty as ever. 

An expansion of this scale does sometimes translate to some loss of heart, and a quick glance at the reviews for the Silver Lake location shows that not everyone is having a stellar experience (even though most admit that the bread remains as good as ever). While the service may be a bit lackluster, the pastries and bread retain the same deliciousness, and OG classics like the lemon cream tart keep us coming back.

Depending on what neighborhood you're in, shops selling fluffy Mexican pan dulces and conchas could be on every block or few and far between. La Monarca opened its first location in 2006 with a simple mission: Bring traditional Mexican pastries to otherwise barren corners of L.A. and give back to the community while doing it. The business-minded owners have grown the chain to include twelve locations around the city and are quickly expanding the empire to include shippable boxed and bagged items like cafe de olla and Mexican wedding cookies.

The most popular items at the bakery are the mini conchas and taquitos, rolled puff pastry stuffed with guava and cheese or dulce de leche. In a city full of croissants that cost $5 (or more), it's refreshing to find one so good for just $1.75. The place can tend to feel a little sterile and devoid of that touch of homey warmth you can find at non-chain panaderias, but you might have to make a long trek to find one of those.

Huckleberry Bakery and Cafe is part of a family of Los Angeles restaurants, run by the same owners who helm Birdie G's, Tallula's, and Rustic Canyon. Huckleberry has a full-service cafe that serves market-driven breakfast and lunch plates until 3 p.m. daily, but it's the pastry case packed with treats that draws crowds looking to stuff their faces with flaky goodness. There is a surprising breadth of options, from layered viennoiserie to homemade chocolate caramel candy bars to ultra-light brioche doughnuts.

The prices are definitely steep, especially in the cafe, but that tends to come with the territory (and neighborhood). Still, an $18 breakfast burrito, even if it's stuffed with Vermont cheddar cheese and organic scrambled eggs, can be a turn-off to many would-be customers. Your best bet is to grab a couple of pastries and maybe a coffee before heading somewhere else for a full breakfast.

Pastry goddess Nicole Rucker knows her way around a rolling pin. The decadent pies she serves at Fat + Flour are nothing short of heavenly. Her menu changes seasonally and highlights local produce. In winter you'll see options like lemon blood orange meringue or passion fruit tangerine and summer brings pies full of stone fruit and berries. In addition to the pies, there are a few stacks of cookies (our favorites are the bourbon chocolate pecan and lemon lavender) and brownies.

The only thing that keeps us from frequenting this establishment more is the location inside Grand Central Market in downtown L.A., where parking is notoriously difficult, to say the least. Keep an eye on the bakery's Instagram, where Rucker sometimes announces pop-ups and events where she will be slinging pies out of her adorable truck. You can also grab a slice of her killer key lime pie at Found Oyster in East Hollywood.

Bub and Grandma's started out as a wholesale bread bakery with a stall at the Hollywood Farmer's Market. Word quickly spread around the city about the quality and flavor of the loaves, so much so that restaurants began specifying that they were serving this particular bread on their menus. The hype around Bub and Grandma's bread led to a sold-out bread stall nearly every Sunday, and eventually a fully-fledged brick-and-mortar restaurant opened in Glassell Park.

The new concept offers breakfast and lunch plates, along with pastries, coffee, and the famous bread. It occupies a bright and open space, with booths for dining in and a counter to watch the cooks roll out sandwiches and salads. Every bite served here is undoubtedly delicious, though the service can be slow and awkward while the restaurant gets its legs under it. If the take-out line is long, head inside and order for sit-down service, then ask for it to go. You'll often be out the door twice as fast.

The menu is small and the lines are long, but that doesn't change the fact that the bread and pastries at Proof Bakery are some of the best in the city. This employee-owned bakery is located in Atwater Village in a space that has housed a bakery of some kind since the 1960s, so patisserie is practically baked into the floorboards. In addition to pastries and bread, Proof has a daily rotation of sandwiches, both vegan and not, piled high with seasonal toppings.

Even though everything tastes amazing, we have to dock points for a lack of creativity in some of the menu offerings. While the croissants are technically perfect, there isn't really a reason to stand in line for these particular ones when more than a dozen other bakeries on the Eastside of L.A. have nearly identical versions. Plus, we've cruised by in the afternoon only to find the case bare of everything but a few pre-packaged cookies enough times to prioritize other spots.

Stepping into Just What I Kneaded, the 100% vegan bakery by Justine Hernandez, we are reminded of the whimsical and fun atmosphere that all bakeries should possess. The baby-pink walls cast a warm and inviting glow over the whole space, beckoning customers from around the city (and not just those waiting for their sandwich at nearby Wax Paper). It's a little tough to rank a vegan bakery among other bakeries that are completely unrestricted in their use of butter and cream, but Just What I Kneaded consistently draws vegan and non-vegan patrons alike, which speaks to the quality of these pastries.

The items on the menu and in the pastry case might make you do a double-take, wondering if they are truly made from all plant-based ingredients. The herbed biscuit sandwich with chipotle mayo, JUST Egg, melty Gouda, and a sausage patty is one of those, as well as the fresh fruit galettes with ultra-flaky layers.

Los Angeles is a city where cuisines meld and merge to produce something entirely new. Founders Nick Montgomery and Akira Akuto opened Konbi with a desire to combine French and Japanese cooking styles paired with seasonal California produce. The two cuisines (both known globally for a serious commitment to gastronomy) blend harmoniously and make Konbi a truly standout bakery. The original location on Sunset now offers a present traditional Japanese breakfast to round out the whole experience.

While the pastries are sensational, it's the unbelievably light and fluffy milk bread used for the egg salad sandwich that rocketed this cafe to viral stardom and spurred Los Angeles residents to line up around the block. Egg salad sandwich sold out for the day? "Settle" for a twice-baked croissant stuffed with rhubarb jam and sesame frangipane or a brown butter citrus pound cake. The croissants are solid, but nothing you couldn't get at a dozen other bakeries around town. 

The shop may be small, the website non-functioning, and the hours minimal, but that doesn't stop us from returning to Gemini Bakehouse in Silver Lake whenever we're in the neighborhood (and it happens to be Friday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Run by husband-and-wife owners Conor and Hannah Smith, little Gemini Bakehouse is big on heart, family, and community.

While there are a few regulars, the daily offerings change frequently and are often based on seasonal availability. A small shop not beholden to a set menu frees up room for endless creativity. The downside? Sometimes if you miss a special item, it's gone for the foreseeable future. All-time favorites have been the soft oatmeal cream pie filled with fluffy vanilla buttercream and salted caramel, the sourdough strawberry shortcake doughnut, and the French onion Danish. The bread is not to be missed, either, and the crunchy loaves of sourdough helped solidify Gemini Bakehouse as an essential bakery in Los Angeles.

There's a reason that of all the bakeries in L.A., it's Porto's Bakery boxes you will see people sending through the TSA scanner at LAX. Porto's is a Los Angeles institution, a Cuban bakery and cafe that has been family owned and operated since opening. The menu has changed over time to reflect the customer base, but a solid core of traditional Cuban dishes and pastries has always been the main draw.

The pastry racks are lined with a truly overwhelming amount of options (over 100 different items most days). Guava strudel, pineapple empanadas, churro croissants, ham croquettes, fried potato balls stuffed with spiced ground meat — there's a bit of everything and all of it is awesome. There is no other bakery in town that has Cuban pastries that are this good, which is why you'll see a line snaking down the block at any one of the six Southland locations any day of the week.

Lodge Bread Company has been churning out some of the best sourdough in the city since 2015 when they opened the original location in Culver City with a focus on "whole-grain sourdough bread making and milling flour." Since then, two more locations have emerged in Pico and Woodland Hills but the passion and dedication to craft remains the same. 

While each spot does have a full menu of breakfast and lunch options, the bread and pastries are the main draw. One of the offerings is a sourdough cinnamon roll as big as a pomelo that routinely makes the rounds on various social media channels. Several cookies and laminated pastries also fill the shelves, as well as a selection of four or five different types of sourdough, depending on the day. Our advice? Come for a hearty breakfast and grab a loaf of spectacular bread for dinner on the way out.

The moment we first walked into the Superba Food + Bread location in Hollywood, we felt a little like someone had been reading our diary. How else would someone know how to take all the elements we most desire in both a bakery and restaurant and turn them into one incredible concept that fits the mood no matter what time of day? At Superba, you can drop by for a quick Danish and coffee, linger over a silky pasta with a chilled glass of white wine, or pick up provisions for a happy hour spread at home.

While the sit-down restaurant at Superba is amazing and not to be missed, the bakery case always manages to catch our eye with its appetizing treats and loaves of crusty bread. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about the types of pastries but sometimes it's better to be simple yet solid than to try to push the envelope and miss the mark.

What started as a stall at the Grand Central Market quickly grew to two additional bakeries and a diner in the former 101 Coffee Shop space. While we (and countless other Angelenos) were more than happy to make the trek to Clark Street Bread in Echo Park to get a bite of Zack Hall's amazing creations, the new locations mean that this bakery can now be a go-to spot no matter which side of town you live on.

The appeal of Clark Street Bread is hardly a surprise, as both the pastries and breads are utter perfection. The extensive bread list ranges from classic tangy sourdough to raisin walnut to Danish rye. Many of the pastries have a nod to Nordic heritage, and Swedish buns flavored with cinnamon or cardamom are on constant rotation. If you wander in for a visit, try the saffron pistachio croissant. You won't find this incredible treat at any other bakery in town.

There's a reason why République was recently named in the top five best restaurants in the city by the Los Angeles Times, even after almost 10 years in business. In a town (and era) where trendy restaurants come and go just to be replaced by the next hip concept, enduring favorites remain popular due to truly outstanding service and quality. Both are true for République, a restaurant and bakery where one truly cannot go wrong when ordering.

From the early morning hours to the mid-afternoon, pastries fill the case with options that range from traditional to boundary-pushing. Perfectly flaky kouign-amanns, creamy cannelés de Bourdeaux, and fluffy layer cakes showcase a mastery of the classics, while intriguing inventions like a black sesame eclair or a coconut yuzu doughnut reveal the true creativity of pastry chef and part-owner Margarita Manzke. Come early for the full selection, as options start to thin as the day runs on.

On an unassuming corner of Los Angeles' East Hollywood neighborhood, a bakery and cafe emerged, ready to rival this city's long-standing favorites. Friends and Family is open every day until the mid-afternoon, making it the perfect stop for a bite of breakfast or a lunchtime treat. The sheer scale and variety in the pastry case is astonishing and no doubt has something for everyone, which is precisely what puts this bakery at the top of our list.

A quick scroll through their Instagram comments will show messages of love from some of the city's best bakers, a true sign of excellence. The items in the pastry case revolve seasonally, but you can expect original and fun options like corn cannelés, fig financiers, pistachio croissants, savory jalapeno cornbread, buckwheat banana bread, and custardy quiches filled with fresh farmer's market produce. There's a full menu of egg dishes, sandwiches, and salads if you find yourself a bit hungrier.

If there is a blueprint for the perfectly effortless Southern California all-day cafe, Gjusta surely drew it. Yes, you may wait an hour before you can actually enter the inside of the establishment (and who knows how long after before you actually get your food), but it will be worth it in the end no matter what you order. In a town like Los Angeles where everyone is dialed into the best restaurants and apparently no one has to work at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, a place without a line is typically a red flag.

Gjusta has a bit of everything, and absolutely everything is worth trying. The loaves of crusty bread are some of the best in the city and pair particularly well with the case full of smoked and cured meats, which are offered freshly sliced. While Gjusta is so much more than a bakery, the baked goods are a huge draw and typically what keeps people coming back again and again.