Pastries
Pasties? Never wear ‘em anymore, I have a real job now…oh wait, I couldn’t read my own writing there for a moment. I mean pastRies. Yes, love them, eat them whenever possible, the more chocolate involved the better, they’re my favorite morning food on my way to my perfectly respectable day job where everyone wears clothes and lots of them. Here are a few of the best places in Portland to get some good old-fashioned, and not so old-fashioned, pastries.
Baker & Spice
Well hidden in a nondescript Hillsdale strip mall, Baker & Spice’s reputation draws fans in from near and far. I, for one, actually drove all the way there from my downtown apartment, and it’s no small feat to get me onto a freeway. But my friend Lisa Jacobs of Jacobs Creamery had gushed about their sour cream crumb cake, and Lisa knows her sour cream, so I figured I’d better go. Once inside this popular, relaxed little neighborhood bakery, I found a wall of freshly baked bread, and a pastry case filled with flaky chocolate, almond, and ham & gruyere croissants, beautiful seasonal fruit & cheese Danish, tender dried fruit-studded scones, savory galettes, chocolate bread pudding, bright lemon tartlets, blueberry buckle, apricot upside down cornmeal cake, ricotta tarts with cherry compote, chocolate crackle cookies and yumbly crumbly chocolate shortbread. It’s the perfect stop before or after a Sunday jaunt to the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market, if you’re looking for yet another excuse to drive to the ‘burbs.
- Location: 6330 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.244.7573
- Hours: Tue-Fri 6am-6pm * Sat 7am- 6pm • Sun 7am-3pm
Bakery Bar
Just to manage your expectations, you’ll find more bakery than bar at both Bakery Bar locations, but you won’t be complaining. Soothe your sober sorrows with a cinnamon pecan or chocolate toffee scone, a slice of moist apple-walnut brown butter streusel coffee cake or chocolate espresso bread, a carrot five spice cupcake with orange zest buttercream, a chocolate chunk-peanut toffee blondies, coconut cream puff, caramel pecan tart, or sour cream-cherry ice cream sandwich. And don’t leave without a dozen double chocolate, lemon-rosemary, Earl Grey or pecan sandies shortbread cookies, crisp little medallions of buttery wonder. Bar or no bar, I’m in heaven.
- Location: NE: 2935 NE Glisan St. * SE: 1028 SE Water Ave. Map it!
- Phone Number: NE 503.477.7779 * SE 503.546.8110
- Hours: NE: Tue-Fri 7am-4pm; Sat 7am-5pm; Sun 8am-3pm, closed Mon SE: Mon-Fri 7am-5pm; closed Sat & Sun
Black Sheep Bakery
I’ve got a soft heart and I fall in love easily. With food, not people. People love is scary! But even the flinty-heartedest scroogeygrinch would swoon over all-vegan Black Sheep Bakery’s moist, dense cranberry coffeecake. Or one of their big spicy sweet Gingerbread Peach muffins–just the thing to help you transition from the hot peach days of summer to the dark autumn nights that beckon your inner baker. Enjoy your fruit cobbler bar or almond apricot scone with an expertly made latte at one of Black Sheep’s two locations–their flagship café tucked away on a quiet stretch of NE 19th Avenue at NE Glisan, or the itsy bitsy Black Sheep Wee, which occupies the corner of the red and silver Activspace building at SE Main and SE 8th. Black Sheep makes more than just delectable vegan pastries, baked goods, soups, salads, and sandwiches–they also craft vegan truffles, peanut butter cups, and maple pecan turtles, made with chocolate so broodingly dark it’s positively Heathcliffian, which makes for an inky love that will leave me, and quite quickly, but I don’t care, for I’ve got three more in the bag.
- Location: 523 NE 19th Ave. Portland * 833 SE Main St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: NE 503.517.5762, SE 503.473.8534
- Hours: NE Mon-Fri 8am-4pm, Sat 10am-3pm, SE Mon-Fri 8am-4pm
Fleur de Lis
While we’re on the topic of pastries, which makes one think of love, which sometimes ever so fatefully leads to marriage–I was flipping past a jewelry ad the other day that showed a nice lady weeping over a truffle with a big shiny diamond ring poking out of its innards while her beaming ball ‘n chain-to-be sat there looking supremely satisfied. I’m a deep thinker, so this made me consider just how tacky I would find it if someone proposed to me by stuffing a big shiny diamond ring into a truffle or a martini, or worst of all, my 40-day dry aged ribeye. “Keep your marriage-obsessed mitts off my meat!” I would scream, which would probably ruin what they call “the moment.” But if The One stuck said ring into a Fleur de Lis croissant, all bets are on. Because nothing says I want to listen to your nonsense and no one else’s for all eternity like a decadently swirled and iced Fleur de Lis cinnamon roll, fragrant orange currant scone, or flaky-crusted plum crostata.
Ken’s Artisan Bakery
I spend a lot of time fantasizing about what it would be like to live in Paris, but when my cup of Stumptown coffee, the Sunday NY Times and I claim a seat at Ken’s big wood communal table and I tear a smoldering pain du chocolat from limb to limb, watching the warm chocolate ooze out from between the buttery fluttery layers of pastry, I’m thinking there’s no place like Portland. I tuck into my lemon meringue tartlet last, gently plucking off each golden meringue tip before biting through the thin butter crust into the sweetly tart and impossibly silky lemon cream. Before heading home, I’m sure to order a half dozen dusty pink rosewater macaroons, a slice of pear frangipane tart, a piece of opera cake, and a fresh loaf of walnut bread to go. Even if I had the chance to move to Paris, how could I ever leave Ken’s?!
Little T American Baker
Anchoring the NW corner of the modern new Clinton Condominiums building, Little T is all concrete and glass and metal and sleek modern design, it looks more like a Design Within Reach showroom at first glance, until you take a deep breath of air filled with the smell of baking bread and a peek into the stylishly austere pastry case, which is most definitely the property of a bakery, and an exceptional one at that. Soft chewy molasses cookies covered in giant sugar crystals, flaky ginger scones, deep dark brownies and Stumptown mocha chews, moist buttermilk crumb cake, fantastic chocolate praline croissants, silky lemon and chocolate tarts, and cupcakes that make you wish it was your birthday everyday so you’d have an excuse for eating 365 of them a year. With its contemporary good looks and exceptional edibles, Little T might just be the hippest and tastiest bakery around.
Nuvrei
“Happiness is a ham and cheese croissant,” promised the sandwich board sitting on the sidewalk outside Nuvrei. I happen to think happiness is a bottle of chilled cava, a swarthy Spaniard, and a lazy Spring afternoon in Barcelona, but I gamely followed the smell of sugar, spice and everything nice down the steep flight of stairs that leads to this tiny subterranean bakery on the corner of NW 10th & NW Flanders, in the heart of Portland’s trendy Pearl District. The retail area is not the stuff bright beautiful Parisian boulangeries are made of–Nuvrei bakes for many of Portland’s most discriminating establishments and caters too, so much of its precious square footage is devoted to, well, baking. However, a small display case on the counter offers up a tantalizing selection of some of the best pastries in Portland, maybe in the universe. My favorite might be the flourless, dairy-free Chocolate Chewy Cookie—the inky, chewy lovechild of a simple threesome: egg whites, sugar, and dark chocolate. It’s hard to pass up Nuvrei’s tender, crumbly fruit and nut-studded scones with their glossy sugar glaze, and you haven’t lived unless you’ve sliced into a fat loaf of golden brioche shot through with dark swirled veins of cinnamon and chewy currants. Then there are the croissants. Filled with almond paste and dusted with powdered sugar, dripping with dark chocolate, or harboring fat slices of black forest ham and creamy béchamel sauce and topped with a crunchy dusting of toasted gruyere shreds…who says you can’t buy happiness?
Pearl Bakery
I can’t not recommend anything you might find in/on a cake pedestal, plate, shelf, or bread basket in the Pearl Bakery—a few of my favorites being the chocolate panini, walnut levain, almond croissant, cinnamon crown, espresso walnut brownie, lemon crème fraiche cake, macarons, and huckleberry fromage blanc tart. On a warm summer morning, take an hour before work and order your coffee drink of choice and an almond croissant or piece of orange-rind studded gibassier bread, sit outside at one of Pearl Bakery’s sidewalk tables, and read or watch passerby—it’s one of life’s greatest little joys.
- Location: 102 NW 9th Ave. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.827.0910
- Hours: Mon-Fri 6:30am-5:30pm, Sat 7am-5pm, Sun 8am-3pm
Sweetpea Baking Company
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went into Sweet Pea Baking Company for the first time. A group of PETA members wearing lettuce leaf bikinis sitting in the corner drinking Stumptown lattes and eating sawdust muffins? Maybe. That just goes to illustrate my veganorance, because what I actually found was an attractive and modern bakery serving up a whole bunch of tasty vegan pastries, like brownies and raspberry almond linzer bars and snickerdoodles and chocolate chip scones and biscotti, as well as beautiful cupcakes and cakes–all of which appeared to be sawdust free, and many of which are gluten free too. They’ve also got sandwiches and soups and happy bowls (grains, beans, and greens with sauce), if you need a meal to go with your pastry. The coffee part of my erroneous fantasy was true enough, Sweet Pea serves up the whole spectrum of coffee drinks made with Stumptown, as well as a full selection of Townshend’s teas. Weekends are filled with special treats, like fresh doughnuts on Saturday mornings and a $10 all you can eat Southern-style Sunday brunch from 9am to noon, coffee included. I’m thinking it’s not such a tough life to be vegan.
