Bay Area bread has recently boomed in creativity. Here are 11 exhilarating new destinations - San Francisco Chronicle

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Buoyed by a surge in bread baking during the pandemic, Bay Area restaurants now abound with diners relishing the simple pleasure of gathering to break bread around the table. As restaurants welcome back patrons, the fervor for bread is requited by chefs adding baskets and griddles full of fresh, classic and inventive baked interpretations to their menus.

Bread was an essential part of the Bay Area food scene long before the pandemic — think Boudin’s enduring sourdough legacy or Tartine’s coveted country loaves — but as diners slowly emerge from a year of false restarts and stops, restaurateurs and pastry chefs are sparing no imagination (or butter) on elaborate new dishes where bread is the focus.

“I think people started appreciating bread more when they began baking during the pandemic,” said Marc Zimmerman, owner and executive chef of Gozu. “People are just going nuts for bread.”

From the monkey buns at upscale Indian spot Ettan in Palo Alto to San Francisco wine bar Ungrafted’s “Pull Apart” Za’atar bread, restaurants are noting a marked increase in demand for bread courses and are often running out of their doughy dishes halfway through dinner service. Orders to local institution Acme Bread have doubled since March, including sales to nearly 50 restaurants and expansion to a new territory in Sonoma County, where Acme added 16 restaurants to its roster, according to wholesale customer manager Monica Contois.

We’ve followed the bread crumbs and rounded up some of the most exciting destinations for bread consumption right now, with a focus on options that emerged during the pandemic. There are swanky tasting menu destinations, tried-and-trusted bakeries, and unexpected spots on this list. It’s just a morsel of the many bread offerings around the Bay Area and by no means exhaustive, but it is a great place to begin.

Nightbird

Nightbird's "kitchen sink bread," served with honeycomb and Tête de Moine cheese.

Courtesy of Adahlia Cole

Chef Kim Alter’s bread trifecta on Nightbird’s celebratory, California-inspired, 10-course tasting menu is prepared to satisfy even the most ravenous grain enthusiast’s cravings. The experience opens with a fermented farro sourdough, paired with homemade cream butter. The farro’s nourishing texture is balanced by an exacting acidity and makes for a yeasty somersault in the mouth. The second bread course is a Parker House roll reborn; in its new life the roll is baked, wrapped in warm burlap and paired with a handmade nutritional yeast, lemon zest butter and Shio Koji, a Japanese fermented rice vinegar seasoning. For the finale, Nightbird offers a gluten-free adventure bread, affectionately dubbed “the kitchen sink bread” by Alter, which began as an experiment using whatever nuts and seeds she could forage in her kitchen. Today, it includes a deliberate melange of pumpkin seeds, chia, almonds and flax bound together with psyllium husk. It is served in a pan with honeycomb and a rich, nutty Tête de Moine cheese from the Bernese Jura mountains in Switzerland to round out the adventure.

Nightbird. $185 tasting menu. 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 330 Gough St., San Francisco. www.nightbirdrestaurant.com

Protégé

Michelin-starred Palo Alto restaurant Protégé's Bavarian-style pretzels

Courtesy of Valerie Demicheva

Introduced to the menu earlier this year, Michelin-starred restaurant Protégé’s soft pretzel is unwound into abstract branches in a gleaming clay bowl alongside honey butter, mustard seed and sea salt, all served in a style that’s typical for Bavarian pretzels. Pastry chef Emma Alden initially opted to serve Parker House rolls, but a more casual bread felt more appropriate as diners started returning to restaurants again. “Pretzels are near and dear to my heart because I grew up in New York where we had pretzel stands on every corner,” Alden said. She recommends diners rip apart the pretzel branches with their hands and generously smear the bread with honey butter. “It’s supposed to be a fun, messy experience.”

Protégé $7. 5-9 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. 250 S. California Ave., Palo Alto. www.protegepaloalto.com

Press Restaurant

A rustic cornbread at St. Helena restaurant Press that features Benton's bacon and comes with a side of black truffle butter.

Courtesy of Press

Chef Philip Tessier sought to offer patrons something warm and inviting when Wine Country staple Press opened for outdoor dining in the fall of 2020. The answer was a piping hot cornbread served in a rustic griddle, made of finely milled cornmeal, laden with black truffle butter and Benton’s bacon, sourced from the namesake, iconic butcher in Tennessee. To Tessier’s surprise the steamy cornbread remained a hit dish even on warm summer nights. “It's requested as often as our squash blossom gnudi or the Flannery New York strip,” said Tessier. “People seem to be really embracing our cornbread.”

Press Restaurant. $10. 5-8:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 5-8:30 p.m. 5-9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday. 587 St Helena Hwy., St. Helena. 707-967-0550 or www.pressnapavalley.com

Michael Warring

At Michael Warring, in Vallejo, this brioche beignet is a star attraction

Courtesy of Michael Warring

Chef Michael Warring harnesses a thick brioche in myriad dishes throughout his seven-course tasting menu, from the amuse-bouche to dessert. “It's a classic yeast risen dough that’s versatile and holds integrity,” he said. Warring prepares his brioche daily using a high gluten, double-zero flour that gives it more structure, allowing him to roll treasures into the dough such as sweet custard for dessert and uni creme fraiche for hors d'oeuvre. To prepare the latter, he shapes brioche balls into little doughnut holes that he deep-fries and rolls in a beurre noisette, a meld of brown butter sauce and sage. The decadent canapé takes the place of a traditional bread roll, presented as a beignet atop jams made from local apricot, cherry or orange blossom — depending on the season.

Michael Warring. $84 Tasting menu. 6-9:30 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. 8300 Bennington Court, Vallejo. 707-655-4808 or www.michaelwarring.com

Ungrafted

The pull-apart Za'atar bread at Ungrafted frequently sells out early

Courtesy of Ungrafted

At Ungrafted, the early bird gets the za’atar bread. “People come and ask to try the bread,” said co-owner and sommelier Chris Gaither. “We sometimes don’t have enough halfway through the night.” The restaurant’s “pull apart” za’atar bread is an Israeli twist on brioche, made by folding the za’atar spice blend directly into the dough, resting it overnight, then rolling it like a cinnamon roll that encases generous helpings of butter. This technique lends the bread its signature pillowy quality, pulling in returning diners weekly.

Ungrafted. $10. Noon-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; noon-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 2419 Third St., San Francisco. www.ungraftedsf.com

Ittoryu Gozu

Braised snow beef shank, local urchin and truffle at Ittoryu Gozu, Saturday, July 17, 2021, in San Francisco, Calif.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

Pastry chef Ethel Koh’s newest creation includes a Hokkaido Japanese milk bread that’s dunked in sweet tare sauce, grilled and topped with braised Wagyu, local uni and slivers of black truffle. Staff say that patrons have been asking for second and third helpings of the decadent milk bread since the restaurant resumed indoor dining. The bread is only available as part of the restaurant’s Wagyu-centric tasting menu.

Ittoryu Gozu. $195 Tasting menu. 5-11 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 201 Spear St., San Francisco. www.gozusf.com

The Wolf

A crunchy, airy popover with cheddar and pecorino cheese delicately folded inside at the Wolf

Courtesy of Flora Chang

This French-California brasserie has added something decidedly English in origin to its menu: a popover with cheddar and pecorino delicately folded inside. The crunchy, airy biscuit is anchored with delicate, cheesy custard flavors in its soft interior, a result of diligent experimentation prior to homing in on the recipe. When the popovers burst onto the takeout menu as an experimental item during COVID-era closures, diners instantly cozied up to them. Chef and co-owner Yang Peng says she felt an extra helping of love from patrons who often asked for additional orders of the heartwarming goodies, inspiring Peng to put the popovers on her dinner menu when the Wolf reopened.

The Wolf. $4. Noon-8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 3853 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. www.thewolfoakland.com

Birdsong

Chef Chris Bleidorn’s take on the classic Parker House roll carries an avian lilt and is one of the 10 courses on the restaurant’s tasting menu. Bleidorn bakes the rolls using a family recipe he grew up with in New England, sprinkled with a “little bit of chef’s magic,” as he describes it, referring to his gourmet touches such as quail fat and Sel Gris — a gray sea salt that boasts high mineral content and trace elements of plankton sourced from the coastal region of Brittany, France. At Birdsong, the roll is lacquered with quail egg, then roasted on a yakitori grill above subtly smoky almond wood embers in an open kitchen. This permits diners to look on as their bread is prepared. It’s served piping hot, alongside grilled quail. “There’s something special about seeing that warm roll land on your table,” said Katie Limoges, the operations manager at Birdsong. “Then you rip it open and watch the steam come out, reminding you just how fresh the food is.”

Birdsong. $225 tasting menu. 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 1085 Mission St., San Francisco. 415-369-9161 or www.birdsongsf.com

Lazy Bear

The Brown Bread at San Francisco's Lazy Bear is a modern take on a century-old canned wheat bread favored by American soldiers.

Courtesy of Lazy Bear

Lazy Bear’s “brown bread” is a modern take on a century-old canned wheat bread favored by American soldiers in the 1940s because of its long shelf life and faintly sweet aftertaste. A quirky East Coast staple that regained popularity during pastry chef Kim Conroy’s childhood in the 1990s in Boston, B&M Brown Bread (still sold in a can) has developed a cult following, selling on Amazon for over $40 per can. Conroy’s rendition is baked with molasses and cacao that makes it taste similar to the canned version. It is also a nod to chef David Barzelay’s nostalgia for Outback Steakhouse’s iconic brown bread. Lazy Bear’s version made its debut on the restaurant’s 14-course menu during the pandemic and is paired with a hand-squeezed, salty butter made in-house using a 9-year-old mother culture created during the restaurant’s inception.

Lazy Bear. $265 Tasting menu. 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 3416 19th St., San Francisco. www.lazybearsf.com

Ettan

The monkey buns at Cal-Indian Palo Alto spot Ettan

Courtesy of Ettan

Ettan’s Cal-Indian menu features a signature bread section starring monkey buns, a playful, savory take on Hawaiian sweet rolls. While tearing Monkey Buns with one’s fingers is almost always apropos, servers suggest that diners plate Ettan’s buns with silverware since the hot buns are served in a hot cast iron skillet right out of the oven and paired with eggplant chutney and butter. “After reopening we noticed that diners wanted to make the bread last throughout the meal so we re-engineered our recipe to incorporate even more butter and give it more moisture,” said chef and owner Srijith Gopinathan. With supply running low toward the end of most evenings, savvy bun fanatics don’t monkey around, routinely calling ahead to request an extra skillet of rolls set aside just for them.

Ettan. $13. 59 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 5- 8:30 p.m. Sunday. 518 Bryant St., Palo Alto. 650-752-6281 or www.ettanrestaurant.com

Acme

Acme Bread Company, Thursday, July 15, 2021, in San Francisco, Calif.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

At the height of pandemic closures, when restaurant bread orders cratered, the team at Acme found a way to lift staff spirits by encouraging plenty of time to play with dough and focus on research and development. The result was a novel high-hydration pain au levain made with malted barley, rye, pumpernickel meal, toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds. “It’s a kind of bread we’ve always loved, but never had the opportunity to focus on before,” said Acme Bread founder Steve Sullivan. “Grilling or toasting it, you get spectacular thin crisp surfaces, with a smoky, steamed, pudding-y texture on the inside.” The loaf quickly became a favorite among restaurants as they reopened. It can be found across the Bay Area at Acme bakeries and places such as Snail Bar in Oakland, where it is the hearty foundation in a seasonal toast featuring Sungold tomatoes and strawberries atop burrata.

More for you

Acme. $6.28 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Sunday. 1 Ferry Building, Stall #15, San Francisco. 415-288-2978 or www.acmebread.com.

Valerie Demicheva and Flora Chang are Bay Area freelance contributors, cowriting a book about chefs, vintners & creatives who take big risks. Valerie’s Twitter: @vdemicheva. Flora’s Instagram: @flora_s.c

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