Best Cities For Bakeries Around The World

We have compared different cities around the world for how they are good for bakeries. We have used the following criteria to rate each city. 

1. Paris, France

Number of bakeries
10/10
Signature bread/local favorites
10/10
Variety of breads
10/10
Bakeries interior & exterior layout
10/10
Inventive presentation
10/10
Overall
10/10

When you’re in France, especially Paris, you can find bakeries on almost every corner, and they are all perfection.

France is famous for its bakeries, which sell everything from fresh baguettes to croissants.

Find perfect croissants, pan au chocolat, and baguetttes that people are just munching right out in the street. The food, though, is the main draw, with the some of the best-known macarons in France.

Poilane bread and signature wheat flour have a global fan base, and they now ship worldwide as a result.

 

Best croissant in Paris, head straight for Du Pain et des Idees in Canal-Saint-Martin. Serving the best croissants in Pari  as well as every flavor of escargot you could imagine.

Make sure you get to Ladurée for a gorgeous array of rainbow-colored macaron. 

Carette also got the best macarons in the city if you ask me (which by being here you are) and I promise you the salted caramel macarons will change your life.

Stohrer Pastry is full of all the French goodies you will come to love including baguettes, cakes, macarons, tartins and even chocolates.

Ladurée beautiful French patisserie is covered head to toe in pastels to reflect the delicate and colourful pastries they serve in the French capital and now all over the world. 

Pierre Herme dubbed the best in Paris and if you’re in to inventive flavours and quirky combinations then you’ll be in heaven here.

2. new york, usa

Signature bread/local favorites
10/10
Variety of breads
10/10
Inventive presentation
10/10
Social rituals/traditional pastries
9/10
Overall
9.75/10

People come from all over the country to get the doughnut-croissant hybrid, aka a gift from the gods from Dominique Ansel Bakery. The cronut is the star of this bakery. People from all over the country drop by just to get a taste of this famous treat.

Dominique Ansel shot to fame when he debuted the now-famous cronut, but this bakery has so much more to offer than cronuts. 

Caramelized croissants, miniature pastel meringues and madeleines make up the sweet selections at the counter. 

 

This glorious combination of a croissant and a doughnut is your fast track ticket to sugar overload, but believe me it is entirely worth it (though I’m still not sure it is worth waiting half an hour in a line!?)

You’re also going to need a giant, warm cookie to complete the treat. The cookies at Levain Bakery are the stuff of legends. It’s the world’s perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Of course, you can’t forget about apple pie, which is an American classic.

Macarons, hybrid creations, like cronuts, and regional desserts like whoopie pies are also popular.

Breads Bakery in Union Square has arguably the best Jewish pastries in the city.

Sullivan Street Bakery brings the tradition and artisanship of Italian bread to New York City.

3. HONGKONG, Chinese Sp Admin Region

Signature bread/local favorites
10/10
Price of Bread
10/10
Loave sell within an hour/day
10/10
Bakeries interior and exterior layout
8.5/10
Inventive presentation
8.5/10
Overall
9.5/10

Hong Kong bakeries are known for their egg tarts, a baked confection that pairs egg custard with a small, light pastry shell. Local delicacies, including pineapple buns and egg custard tarts, at this traditional bakery.

Everyone rants and raves about Tai Cheong‘s legendary egg tarts.

Also, Visitors go crazy for one-of-a-kind menu items of Cake’s Secrets such as the ginger cheesecake.

Don’t forget to go to Fine Foods. The bakery makes an impact with the whimsical look of its cakes, from green apple cheesecakes shaped like the fruit, to mango and chocolate mousses disguised as sunnyside ups.

Famous bakery in Hong Kong, known for their egg tarts at an extremely reasonable $8 HKD (about $1 USD).

Bake Cheese Tart queues often go out the door and the wait can take up to two hours.

The outdoor garden at Teakha, with its full blooms and French bistro chairs, is a lovely setting for afternoon tea.

The seasonal creations in Urban Bakery are modeled after iconic Hong Kong delicacies like the pineapple bun and golden lava bun.

Complete Deelite cake shop opened by one of the most celebrated cake decorators in Asia.

4. London, United kingdom

Signature bread/local favorites
10/10
Inventive presentation
9.5/10
Bakeries interior and exterior layout
9/10
Variety of breads
9/10
Bread Making Course
9/10
Overall
9.3/10

Across the pond, talented bread and pastry makers trained in some of the world’s best restaurants are baking mouthwatering loaves, doughnuts, and even whoopie pies.

The deli sells a range of innovative sandwiches, on its homemade loaves of sourdough (try it with the excellent smoked bone marrow butter), potato flatbread, and Guinness soda bread.

Transparent chairs and white-washed walls create an art-gallery-style blank canvas for the colourful creations. Peggy Porschen has gorgeous pink exterior, the faux flowers surrounding the entrance, the pretty and perfect placement of pastries inside… this place is a pastel-pink-lover’s dream. 

The E5 Bakehouse holds a bread-making course every week to spread the traditional art of baking breads so you can take home skills to impress all of your friends.

All of its breads are accomplished and produced with an ethical, sustainable approach, plus there are cakes too, making the café a good place to linger for a warming lunch or granola bar and coffee.

Bread Ahead, Borough Market has an admirable waste policy and opened a cooking school last year.

5. Montreal, Canada

Inventive presentation
10/10
Signature bread/local favorites
9.5/10
Bread Making Course
8.25/10
Overall
9.25/10

The best bakeries in Montreal for amazing fresh bread and goods are almost too gorgeous to eat.

Boulangerie Guillaume feels like bread lab, which makes sense; creating such consistently flawless bread requires scientific precision.

Jenna Rae Cakes built up a name for itself with their colourful pastries and quirky flavour combinations. Patrice Pâtissier creations that are as masterfully constructed as they are innovative. Bakerbots has mind-blowing, handcrafted ice cream sandwiches.

Duc de Lorraine guaranteed to serve some of the best croissants and most indulgent opéra gâteau outside of Paris.

Maison Christian Faure has pastry school, with classes geared toward aspiring professionals, “serious amateurs,” and “little bakers.”

6. CHICAGO, USA

Number of Bakeries
9.5/10
Signature bread/local favorites
9.5/10
Inventive presentation
9/10
Social rituals/traditional pastries
8.5/10
Variety of breads
9/10
Overall
9.1/10

There are a ton of great bakeries in Chicago.

Reuters Bakery around for over 80 years this local favorite has wonderful chocolate covered donuts, coffee cakes, sweet rolls with real fruit filling, lots of bread, cakes, and tasty butter cookies.

 

Dinkel’s even created a new type of breakfast pastry that Chicago fell in love with: the burglaur, a breakfast sandwich in a baked bun.

Delightful Pastries known for their paczki the Polish jelly pastry eaten primarily on Fat Tuesday Delightful Pastries makes more than anyone else in town. Wedding cakes are a bestseller in Lutz.

Alliance Bakery consistently creates beautiful and delicious European baked goods and pastries.

D’Amato’s a traditional Italian bakery focuses on breads.

Best bakeries in the city highlights not just American treats, but also German, Italian, European, and Swedish goods, too.

7. Cape Town, South Africa

Loave sell within an hour/day
10/10
Inventive presentation
9/10
Signature bread/local favorites
9/10
Bakeries interior and exterior layout
8/10
Overall
9/10

Jason Bakery constantly experiments with flavors for his answer to the cronut, which sell out within hours. Different custom “Doughssant” (a donut and croissant hybrid) available here daily.

The koeksister, a sweet doughnut, is a South African staple.

In Woodstock Bakery, the crusty sourdough and generous bread sticks are perennially popular. 

Ou Meul Bakkery is the flagship of a growing group of bakeries beloved for sweets like their pecan tart and mini pies.

Loaves on Long has cute café with a balcony overlooking the space, but downstairs is where the baking magic happens.

8. Vienna, Austria

Signature bread/local favorites
9/10
Inventive presentation
8.75/10
Overall
8.9/10

The city of Vienna has been the pastry capital of the world since the days of Freud, Lenin and Trotsky. 

Austria is known for their world-famous chocolate cake, which alone makes it a great destination for sweet and savory goods.

Most iconic confections include Sachertorte, a dense chocolate sponge cake layered with apricot jam and coated in ganache, and Apfelstrudel.

Demel offer some of the best Sachertorte, Apple Strudel, Annatorte with Paris Cream, or even “Fächertorte” around.  The menu itself are all nostalgic of Vienna’s glorious and glamorous past.

You can watch pastry chefs baking and decorating cakes as you enjoy a slice of your own.

9. TOKYO, JAPAN

Signature bread/local favorites
8.75/10
Inventive presentation
8.75/10
Social rituals/traditional pastries
8.75/10
Overall
8.75/10

Don’t leave Tokyo without visiting Pâtisserie Sadaharu Aoki – of which there are four spread throughout the city—without trying his matcha macarons.

 

Henri Charpentier is known for his incredible cakes that are almost too beautiful to eat. 

Japan has a wonderful ability to adapt concepts, ultimately producing something familiar yet strange, and often much better. Bakeries today don’t just copy Western-style bread, but transform it into new creations.

Traditional bakeries sell a range of sweet buns. The popular bun, anpan, is typically filled with red bean paste.

10. Zurich, Switzerland

Variety of breads
8.7/10
Signature bread/local favorites
9/10
Bakeries interior and exterior layout
8.4/10
Overall
8.7/10

There are tons of pastries to try, like meitschibei (a long, nut-filled pastry). You can try tirggel, which are honey cookies.

Luxemburgerli, a smaller, lighter variety of macaron.

The bakery is housed inside a small and unassuming shop front, that opens up in to a grand maze full of separate rooms, outdoor patios and stairs winding to even more space.

You have a chance to feel like royalty in Café Schober sitting on plush chairs laced in gold.

11. Rome, Italy

Signature bread/local favorites
9/10
Loave sell within an hour/day
8.25/10
Overall
8.6/10

The bread that is typical all over Italy, it is only called pizza bianca in Rome.

Among the specialties of Forno Monteforte, the bread with hazelnut flour , the one with artichokes and pecorino or with raisins and rosemary.

You will never be  disappointed if you’re on the hunt for a the best croissant here in Rome.

Biscottificio Innocenti sells 50 types of biscotti per day.

12. Barcelona, Spain

Price of Breads
8/10
Signature bread/local favorites
9/10
Overall
8.5/10

Escribà boasts inventive cakes and chocolate sculptures. It’s not cheap, but it’s not every day a bakery can pull off exploding cakes and chocolate stilettos.

If dunking hot, cinnamon-spice churros into a mug of rich, dark chocolate sounds good to you, Barcelona just might be your town.

You need to make time to try the churros (dipped in melted chocolate). There is also the classic almond tarte, which is popular and so good.

13. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Social rituals/traditional pastries
7.75/10
Signature bread/local favorites
9/10
Overall
8.4/10

Argentineans serve the flaky treat filled with dulce de membrillo (quince paste) or dulce de batata (sweet potato paste) for Revolución de Mayo and other celebrations.

Alfajores–coconut-covered sandwich cookies with dulce de leche or jam in the middle.

14. Istanbul, Turkey

Signature bread/local favorites
8.5/10
Variety of breads
8.1/10
Overall
8.3/10

If you are planning to visit the bakery during your trip to Istanbul, you should certainly try the Turkish baklava in Hafiz Mustasa.

This famous bakery in Istanbul was established in 1864, and specialises in Turkish treats including baklava and Turkish delight.

has every flavor of Turkish delight you could possibly imagine, and its baklava melts in your mouth.

15. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Signature bread/local favorites
8/10
Bakeries interior and exterior layout
8.5/10
Overall
8.25/10

Boulangerie Guerin bakery has some of the best fruit tarts you’ll ever taste.

Confeitaria Colombo is a  Historic and Artistic Heritage site full of delicious goods.

16. Nykvarn, Sweden

Signature bread/local favorites
8.6/10
Variety of breads
7.8/10
Overall
8.2/10

These Swedish marzipan-coated treats are a perfect afternoon pick-me-up—and a surprising way to put old cake to use.

Taxinge Slott Café largest cake buffet in Northern Europe. With 60 different kinds of cakes, pies and pastries, you can have as much of these treats as you can handle in one sitting and where you can choose any slice you like.

17. Mexico City, Mexico

Signature bread/local favorites
8/10
Variety of breads
8.2/10
Overall
8.1/10

The tres leche cake alone is more than enough of a reason to visit the country.

Amado bakery use local ingredients in creative ways and the breads, breakfast pastries, cakes, candies, and cookies are some of the best in town.

Varieties range from shell-shaped conchas, which are characterized by their sweet crust, to breads for special occasions, like pan de muerto (“bread of the dead”).

18. Singapore

Social rituals/traditional pastries
8.5/10
Inventive presentation
7.5/10
Overall
8/10

No Singaporean holiday festivity is complete without a tray of these kueh tarts.

Singaporean pineapple tarts, known as kueh tarts, are gifted to loved ones as a wish for prosperity.

Try something unusual, like doughnuts with salted-egg-yolk custard at FIX or Butterfly Pea Tapioca at Soi 60 Thai. Or, for a real showstopper, get the edible terrarium at Antoinette.

19. New Orleans, USA

Signature bread/local favorites
8/10
Overall
8/10

Gave us doberge cakes and muffaletta loaves, the aromas of king cakes during Carnival and chicory coffee year-round, bakeries are essential to everyday life.

Willa Jean is homey bakeshop that offers such indulgences as cinnamon rolls, donuts, and biscuits—plus a coffee program and a full bar serving adult slushiescreate. They are also known to their the world’s most heavenly pecan sticky bun.

20. Lisbon, Portugal

Signature bread/local favorites
7.75/10
Overall
7.75/10

There may be similar tarts other places around the world but the ones in Portugal are really special.

Pastéis de Belém bakery has been pumping out Pastéis de Nata (custard tarts) and one of the world’s most beloved bakeries – an institution in itself.

This bakery is the home of the original pastel de nata (custardy, crispy goodness).

21. Athens, Greece

Signature bread/local favorites
7.5/10
Overall
7.5/10

Galaktoboureko (a custard pie), bougatsa (a custard pastry), loukoumades (little donuts), and halvas (semolina pudding). It’s hard to go wrong with any dessert you choose here in Athens.

When in Greece you must try the loukoumades. Small fried dough drenched in honey.

Ariston specialty is kourou, a flaky, buttery half moon-shaped pastry filled with feta cheese.

22. Cairo, Egypt

Signature bread/local favorites
7.25/10
Overall
7.25/10

One of Cairo’s most famous bakeries, El-Abd offers an assortment of local favorite treats, including roasted nuts, basbousa, kahk, and konafa.

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