Bien Cuit Bread Now In West Village | New York

Warning: To avoid eating Bien Cuit's spectacular bread before you reach home, you may need to take deep huffs from the bag. Strange looks from subway commuters could ensue.

They can stare all they want because you're the one cradling the five boroughs' best bread.

And that small-batch bread is twice as easy to score, now that baker Zachary Golper has opened a new location in the West Village.

Pick up a loaf and follow the lead of such exacting restaurants as Gramercy Tavern, The Dutch, Marlow & Sons and Neta, each of which is a Bien Cuit loyalist.

Many of the celebrated items from the original Brooklyn location are available in the new space, including the pugliese ($5 for a half loaf, $10 for a whole), a 32-hour fermented dough loaded with roasted Yukon potatoes for incredible stretchiness, and the mammoth almond croissants ($4.25).

That same croissant dough is used as a dapper cap on the chicken and vegetarian potpies ($8), sold only at this location. Also unique to this spot are a Caesar salad studded with house-made croutons and a Bibb lettuce salad with leeks and radishes ($8).

All the baking, though, still happens in Brooklyn, so the new location lacks the intensely yeasty allure of its eastern brother.

We have a fix: Take a long drag from that bag. We won't judge.

Bien Cuit, 35 Christopher St. (at Waverly Pl.); 646-590-3341 or biencuit.com