Kouign-Amann From Bouchon Bakery

Even if your pronunciation of "mille-feuille" is, well, mellifluous, and you say "croissant" with all of the appropriately softened consonants, you're still going to run into a linguistic stumbling block at the newly opened Bouchon Bakery.

Kouign-amann (pictured; $4) is the tiny outpost's difficult-to-pronounce specialty. The odd name is not French but Breton, the ancient Celtic language of Brittany, and the words translate to "butter cake."

At Bouchon, the cakes are personal-size rather than being served as slices from a larger round. The bakery is keeping the recipe a tightly guarded secret–apparently only two chefs know it–so we can't confirm that it's Breton butter being used. But whatever its provenance, the salted butter in the flaky, stratified layers, and the finishing touch of a deeply caramelized crust, take the kouign-amann into its own realm of sweet-salty wonder.

There are plenty of other Viennoiserie options too, including the Francophile favorite pain au chocolat ($3.50) and American classics like crumb cake ($4.50) and sticky buns ($3.25). We also encountered a delectable daily special that involved chocolate, almond paste and chestnut paste stacked inside a croissant-dough casing.

Bouchon Bakery, 235 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills; 310-271-9910 or bouchonbakery.com