By Joshua Lurie
For dineLA.com
There’s clearly a demand for a well made muffin, pie or cookie in Los Angeles, but international influences have brought our city’s bakeries more, well, flavor. So set aside your croissant and devour a nammoura, beureg or Mont Blanc instead.
Arax Bakery (4871 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles)
An Armenian river inspired the name of Vrej Tolmajian’s East Hollywood bakery, which resides in a tightly packed strip mall and offers an even tighter menu of old family recipes. Big sellers include lahmajun, floppy, thin-crusted “pizzas” topped with ground beef and zesty tomato sauce; and triangular pastry pockets called beuregs, filled with cheese, potato, spinach or beef. A fluffy disc of spicy olive bread is slathered with spicy, olive-studded tomato-paste. Spinach & cheese bread is similar, but brushed with olive oil and topped with chopped spinach, onions and mozzarella-like Armenian cheese. The molive roll is a roll-up of minced olives and zatar, a Middle Eastern spice mixture that includes thyme, sumac and oregano. During Lent, Arax uses ground mushrooms instead of beef and adds a half-moon shaped beureg of tahini paste, chard and chickpeas. Arax also sells a sweet, pull-apart tahini disc that’s available well-done or lightly cooked, depending on how crispy you like your sesame bread.
- Arax Bakery, 4871 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, 323.666.7313
Hygge Bakery (1106 S. Hope St., Downtown Los Angeles)
Outside of Solvang, traditional Danish bakeries are fairly hard to find. Enter Denmark native Rasmus Lee and business partner Helen Le, who opened Hygge Bakery last June at the base of a glass-fronted South Park loft. Hygge [pronounced hoo-geh] is Denmark’s equivalent of La Dolce Vita, touting the good life. To achieve that end, Hygge fills racks with loaves of bread and a plethora of pastries. Recent additions include a soft tea bun filled with a trough of brown sugar; water kringle, an interlaced "cinnamon roll" with shaved almonds, streaks of chocolate and icing; and the Spandauer, flaky pastry dough that incorporates almond paste and shaved almonds that centers on a custard orb as bright as an egg yolk. There's even an oat-sugar cookie sandwich with vanilla cream in the middle and up top.
- Hygge Bakery, 1106 S. Hope St., Downtown, 213.746.2141,
www.hyggebakery.com
Maral’s Pastry (17654 Vanowen St., Van Nuys)
There are certainly bakeries with better visibility, but the back corner space owned by Maral Sarkhoshian and husband Hovsep is hard to beat for baklava and cookies. The couple sells flaky phyllo-based Armenian pastries by the pound, including cashew fingers, pistachio “bird’s nests” and pine nut cookies sprinkled with crushed pistachios. Maral’s also produces snail-shaped tahini cookies, honey-soaked semolina squares called nammoura, each topped with a single almond, and buttery pastry tunnels filled with rich date paste. The Sarkhoshians also make melt-in-your mouth discs of pistachio-studded barazek cookies, available in pistachio or chocolate.
- Maral’s Pastry, 17654 Vanowen St., Van Nuys, 818.705.8921
Patisserie Chantilly (2383 Lomita Blvd., Lomita)
For South Bay native Keiko Nojima, it took traveling around the world to realize she was more comfortable baking at home. A trip to Paris led to her introduction to the show white Chateau Chantilly, which inspired the sugar-folded French cream and her bakery’s name. She attended culinary school in San Francisco and worked at a bakery in Japan, which served as her base for exploration. She visited 50 Japanese bakeries and developed her "French pastries with Japanese flair.” Patisserie Chantilly houses only five tables. The contemporary space hosts shelves touting cakes, puddings and pound cakes. Prime options include choux aux sesame, an ethereal cream puff filled to order with black sesame cream, topped with black sesame seeds and dusted with soy powder. Mont Blanc is a “mountain” of chestnut cream filled with a layer of yellow cake and a whole chestnut, with a crushed almond base. Nojima also makes macarons with Japanese-inspired flavors like sesame and matcha.
- Patisserie Chantilly, 2383 Lomita Blvd., Lomita, 310.257.9454,
www.patisseriechantilly.com
Porto’s Bakery (315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale)
Raul and Rosa Porto opened their first Cuban shop back in 1974, and the Porto family continues to draw crowds to Glendale and Burbank. Glendale remains the flagship, featuring a serpentine line that builds roller coaster-level anticipation. To your right, you’ll find elaborate cakes, tarts and mousses. To your left, Porto’s features baked ham and cheese empanadas, ham croquetas and pudding-like tamales with pulled pork. Shelves host loaves of bread, which are used to produce pressed Cuban sandwiches. A central display case houses cinnamon rolls and cookies, but the most interesting offerings are uniquely Cuban pastries made with guava, cream cheese and dulce de leche. Top sellers are the flaky guava and cream cheese pastries. Dulce de leche kisses are encased in buttery cookie and dusted with powdered sugar. A 15,000-square-foot location will open in Downey later this year.
- Porto’s Bakery, 315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 818.956.5996; 3614 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, 818.846.9100,
www.portosbakery.com
Paulette Macarons (9466 Charleville Blvd., Beverly Hills)
French pastries are commonplace in Los Angeles, but not the classic macaron. Given that, in 2007, Parisian Paulette Koumetz and husband Gerard partnered with Plaza Athénée pastry chef Christophe Michalak on a small but sleek pastry shop, specializing in artistic, jewel-like macarons. The crisp-outside, pillowy-inside pastries appear on a molded white counter. Flavors change with the seasons. Popular options include pink pamplemousse with a layer of grapefruit ganache; Sweet Wedding Almond (dragée) filled with marzipan and topped with crushed almonds; almond ganache (marzipan) and came topped with crushed almonds; and purple hued Violet Cassis, with violet ganache and black currant jam. Buy them by the piece or sleeve.
- Paulette Macarons, 9466 Charleville Blvd., Beverly Hills, 310.275.0023,
www.paulettemacarons.com
Tip Top Sandwiches (8522 E. Valley Blvd., Rosemead)
Tip Top Sandwiches owner Loc Lee has drawn crowds in droves to his Little Saigon banh mi shop and bakery since 1988, so it was with great anticipation that he expanded to Rosemead earlier this year. The former auto dealership is now home to a bustling sandwich shop that bakes supple, torpedo-shaped baguettes and fills them with ingredients like BBQ chicken, shredded pork skin and sardines. A sprawling glass fronted display case houses primarily French-inspired baked goods and a sticky, six-chambered loaf flavored with mocha, rum, apple and pineapple. An incubator near the register showcases warm, flaky pate chaud, pastry pockets filled with ground chicken or peppery pork.
- Tip Top Sandwiches, 8522 E. Valley Blvd., Rosemead, 626.280.8883
Paulette Macarons, Beverly Hills
