The Best Bakeries in San Jose, by the Record
The best bakeries in San Jose, by the professional record: San Francisco Chronicle and Sunset have both weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. CA Bakehouse comes out on top, and the record runs deepest in Campbell and Los Gatos.
Tai Zhan and The Midwife and the Baker hold the next two places. San Francisco Chronicle shows up on more of this list than any other guide, with Sunset next.
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Pandan Basque cheesecakes in a San Jose strip mall, which is a sentence that doesn't get old. CA Bakehouse is a takeout-only bakery working Southeast Asian flavors into croissants, milk breads, egg tarts, and whole cheesecakes you have to preorder. The banh bo, a soft honeycomb cake, sits alongside coconut-stuffed pandan milk bread that has no business being this good for the price. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best bakeries.
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Rank 1. Tai Zhan
Hong Kong-Style Bakery
A plant-based Hong Kong-style bakery open just one day a week, Tai Zhan draws on the baking culture of old-style cha chaan tengs to turn out pineapple buns, coconut cream buns, and laminated pastries made with avocado and coconut oils rather than butter. The croissants and kouign amann hold their crackle the way the real thing should. Pre-orders open mid-week; walk-ins are welcome on Saturdays, assuming you arrive before the serious shoppers do.
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A bakery in Mountain View that bakes sesame rolls and Dutch crunch bread exclusively for the Rōzmary Kitchen popup, which sets up here on Fridays. The sandwiches are the draw: the Southern Peach pairs turkey and pimento cheese against sweet pickled peaches, and the Italian cured meat options are just as good. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best sandwich spots, which tracks.
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Rank 4. Manresa Bread
Bakery
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Rank 4. Manresa Bread
Bakery