"Independent bakeries have boomed since the onset of the pandemic and this year they continued to proliferate around bakers' hyperspecific visions, as my colleague Bettina Makalintal has noted. The most compelling examples we scouted around the country this year - part of our regional research for Eater's Best New Restaurants in America in 2025 list, dropping next week - draw influences from personal histories and cultural foodways to create reflective interpretations of traditional and nontraditional pastries."
"At the intersections of these unique pie charts: sweet and savory renditions that feel endlessly inviting, like bao filled with Spam or Japanese potato salad alongside mango 'ulu bread and POG layer cake in Hawai'i, or flatbreads like malfouf safeha and potato fatayer that speak to a pastry chef's hometown in the occupied Golan Heights territory. The throughline remains personal narrative baking, which can shape the way a pastry tastes, the story it tells, and the impact it leaves."
"Though Nguyen's original Berlu restaurant focused on deft fine dining interpretations, the bakery revival has leaned into casual daytime dining with pastries such as its instantly iconic, finely corrugated pandan bánh bò nướng, whose muted color belies its intensely earthy flavor. The coconut egg custard tart, crowned with a shaggy layer of salted egg yolk, is among the high-impact savory options on a menu that also includes pork belly and shrimp bún with roasted chicken broth"
Independent bakeries expanded significantly since the pandemic and continued proliferating in 2025 around bakers' hyperspecific visions. Many bakeries draw from personal histories and cultural foodways to produce reflective interpretations of traditional and nontraditional pastries. Offerings combine sweet and savory elements, such as bao filled with Spam, Japanese potato salad paired with mango 'ulu bread, POG layer cake in Hawai'i, and flatbreads like malfouf safeha and potato fatayer rooted in a pastry chef's Golan Heights hometown. Personal narrative baking shapes flavor, storytelling, and emotional impact. Pastry chefs increasingly foreground identity and heritage in both casual daytime and fine-dining contexts, exemplified by Berlu bakery's Vietnamese diasporic pastries.
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