The Best Bakeries in the United States

A family-owned donut shop in the West Valley that keeps things classically in their lane: yeast, cake, apple fritters, bear claws, and a roster of filled options generous enough to cause real indecision. The vanilla cream version rolled in toasted coconut is a regular argument-settler. Smoothies and ice cream round out the menu for anyone who wandered in looking for something else and stayed for the donuts anyway.

A tiny donut shop tucked into a shopping center off Hayden, where the menu categories are literally named Classy, Fancy, and Schmancy, so expectations are appropriately calibrated. Yeast donuts, cake donuts, mochi donuts, fritters, and seasonal pastries all share the case, and the creme brulee donut gets a kitchen torch before it reaches you. Phoenix New Times put it on their list of the Valley's top dozen donut shops.

The kolaches here come from a family recipe that's been turning out round, fruit-filled Czech pastries in this 720-square-foot shop for generations. It's a counter-service bakery on Telephone Road where things move fast: trays come out of the oven and disappear before the display board gets warm. House-roasted coffee and fajita-stuffed croissants round out a menu that has grown without losing the grandmother's-kitchen feel it apparently started as.

The box says "We are not affiliated with other Rainbow Donuts" before you've even opened it, which tells you something about the regulars here. This North Phoenix donut shop runs a classic menu of yeast and cake donuts, maple bars, fritters, crullers, and cinnamon rolls, all leaning fluffy and fresh without the cloying sweetness that plagues lesser cases. The Tiger Tail, chocolate and vanilla dough twisted together and glazed, is the one to start with.

A sun-filled corner bakery in Jamaica Plain where the croissant menu changes often enough to keep regulars guessing. Third Cliff built its following at a farmers market cart before settling into its permanent spot, and the French pastry classics get unexpected company here, kimchi cheddar croissants alongside vegan cardamom morning buns. The espresso is taken seriously. Neighborhood coffee shop energy, pastry-destination ambitions.

This is an old-school Houston bakery with a display case that runs from rye and pumpernickel to Kaiser rolls, bagels, coffee cakes, and pecan pie. The recipes trace back to Poland by way of a family that's been at it for generations, which explains why the gingerbread men show up year-round instead of waiting for permission. Expect a line of regulars who already know their order and a cashier who's heard every question about the cookies.

An old-school Jewish bakery that's been a Houston institution for generations, Three Brothers turns out egg bread, rye, pumpernickel, bagels, Kaiser rolls, pecan pie, and gingerbread men year-round from its Braeswood location. The roots run deep, tracing back to Eastern European family recipes, and the counter still feels like it. Three other outposts have opened around the city, but this is where the habit starts.

Three Brothers is an old-school Houston bakery with a counter, a line, and a bakery case that does not believe in restraint. Rye, pumpernickel, and Kaiser rolls sit near coffee cakes, pecan pie, and gingerbread men that are available in any month, apparently because December has no monopoly. It's cheap, casual, and busy, the kind of place where you walk in for bread and walk out holding a box of cookies you can't quite explain.

This is an old-school Houston bakery with Eastern European roots, the kind of place where rye, pumpernickel, and Kaiser rolls share a case with coffee cakes and pecan pie. Gingerbread men are made year-round, which tells you the cookies have no concept of a calendar. It's a counter-service stop with a few tables, a bag-it-yourself pace, and a line that's mostly regulars who already know what they came for.

The kitchen crew is up at 3 a.m. so you don't have to be, which is the kind of arrangement that makes a bagel shop worth its reputation. Townie is a no-frills NY-style operation in Palm Springs turning out hand-rolled bagels, including a sourdough version and a daily gluten-free batch, plus black-and-white cookies and brownies. Call ahead, because the line in the desert sun is a real thing and a hat will only get you so far.

This is a family-run Vietnamese bakery and sandwich counter where the baguettes come out of the oven that same morning and end up wrapped around pâté, pickled vegetables, and lemongrass chicken. The Alameda cafe is the sunnier, tidier sibling to the original, with a few tables and a full coffee bar. It's cheap, quick, and perfect for lunch, assuming you can stop yourself from lecturing a stranger about bread.

Modu is a Highland Park bakery that started as a pandemic baking hobby and now has a bright, spare room that looks like Copenhagen was asked to keep it down. The Korean-leaning pastries sit in a glass case like museum pieces, which makes ordering feel faintly like an acquisition. Bring a few people and split several, since a cinnamon roll, a mochi bar, and a tart each look too good to commit to alone.

Fruit tarts are the whole point at this Taiwanese bakery in Alhambra, where the crusts are milled from Tehachapi Sonora wheat and the fillings lean on local farms, including strawberries from Harry's Berries. The chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu and did time at Milo and Olive, and the drinks menu runs single-origin espresso, hojicha, and seasonal sparkling sodas alongside. A focused, careful little shop doing one thing with very deliberate ingredients.

Little Jaye is the bakery spinoff of West Seattle's Lady Jaye, a small, cheerful counter in Georgetown where the pastries lean playful and the line moves at a polite pace. The breakfast sandwich is the main event: a sausage patty smashed lacy at the edges, American cheese, runny egg, and a hash brown tucked in like a crispy lid. It has landed on a couple of local best-things-I-ate lists, including one for a potato chip crispy treat.

All Or Nothing is a bagel shop built around a wood-fired oven and a pun: "All" for everything, "Nothing" for plain, both sourdough. It began as a folding table and a pizza oven outside a drum shop and has since graduated to an Airstream. Order at the window, expect schmears made in-house, and watch a summer series hand the griddle to local food trucks. It has won Best New Bagel Spot and Best Chef Series from the Nashville Scene.

The sausage roll is flaky enough to leave evidence on your shirt, which is how you know this Gilbert strip-mall bakery is doing something right. The Great Gadsby turns out small-batch British baked goods, with French patisserie touches folded in, and the case runs to millionaire's shortbread, sticky toffee pudding, and custard trifles. Popular items sell out, so arriving early or ordering online is the move if you have a specific mission in mind.

A bakery and coffee café where a pastry chef known for laminated doughs and a coffee roaster behind some of the Valley's better seasonal lattes have joined forces, with a bread baker trained at San Francisco's Tartine rounding out the team. The collaboration covers a lot of ground, and the range of talent in one room means you can justify a second order before you've finished the first.

The Spring Fling cake, a zucchini bread layer frosted with cream cheese icing and piled with fresh fruit, was the calling card of a beloved Denver institution for decades. When that place closed, the head baker struck out on his own, and now his family-run bakery in west Denver keeps the recipe alive year-round. People fly in from out of state for that cake alone, which is either a testament to nostalgia or to zucchini bread's untapped potential.

Parlor Doughnuts builds its doughnuts from laminated dough, which gives them a tall, layered cross-section and a richness closer to a croissant than a cruller. The Denver outpost of this Indiana-born chain carries flavors like French toast and raspberry pistachio, all draped in icing and clearly not interested in restraint. A doughnut shop for people who find regular doughnuts a little too subtle.

Savarino's is a small Italian bakery in Columbia, Tennessee, where the cannoli, sfogliatelle, and bomboloni come out of a family operation that started in a Walmart shopping center and now sells to the public only on Fridays and Saturdays. Plan accordingly, because showing up on a Tuesday gets you a locked door and a lesson in wholesale. Nashville Scene named it the Best Reason to Go to Columbia, which is a narrow field, but still.