Three bakeries in New Orleans are turning out morning pastries that owe as much to Saigon and Singapore as to Paris.
1. Dong Phuong Bakery, New Orleans East
De and Huong Tran founded this bakery in the early 1980s to feed the Vietnamese community that settled in New Orleans East after the war. The family still runs it, and the James Beard Foundation named it an American Classic in 2018.
The bread is the foundation of everything. Dong Phuong’s French loaves come out with a crackling crust and a pillowy interior, and they anchor 17 varieties of banh mi built with house-made meats, pickled vegetables, and pâté. The bakery ships that bread to restaurants across the city, which means a po-boy eaten miles away may well have started here. The case also holds steamed bao, crawfish pie, and seasonal mooncakes.
Then there is the king cake, added to the menu in 2008 and now produced at a rate above 60,000 a year. Fluffy brioche, thick cinnamon paste, soft cream cheese icing, with flavors that have grown to include strawberry, pecan, coconut, almond, and durian. Online orders sell out within an hour of opening each January. The bakery sits at 14207 Chef Menteur Highway, open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed Tuesdays. Call (504) 254-0296, and know that king cakes run only during Carnival.
2. Ayu Bakehouse, Marigny
Kelly Jacques and Samantha Weiss met in pastry school in New York thirteen years ago and later ran operations at Breads Bakery there. When the pandemic hit, Weiss went to California and Jacques came to New Orleans, where she had gone to Tulane. They opened Ayu in 2022, and the name rhymes with bayou.
Both are classically French trained, and they use that technique on flavors that have nothing to do with France. The kaya bun draws on the coconut jam eaten across Malaysia and Singapore. Matcha turns up in the pastry case. The muffuletta breadstick packs the meats, cheeses, and house-made giardiniera of the sandwich into something you can carry down Frenchmen Street with a drink in the other hand. A boudin pastry called the Boodin Boy comes with chile oil. The Shroom Boom folds mushrooms, caramelized onions, and gruyère into croissant dough.
Food & Wine named Jacques one of America’s Best New Chefs for 2025. The bakery sits at 801 Frenchmen Street with a few outdoor tables facing Washington Square, open daily from 8 a.m. and closing between 2 and 3:30 p.m. depending on the day. Go early, because the specials go fast. Call (504) 302-7985.
3. La Boulangerie, Uptown
This is the traditional counterweight to the other two. Dominique Rizzo founded La Boulangerie on Magazine Street in 2000, and Donald Link’s restaurant group bought it from him in 2015 with a stated intention of changing as little as possible.
What changed was the sourcing. Cochon Butcher meats went onto the sandwich menu, so a Parisien arrives with Butcher ham, salted butter, Comté, and cornichons on a baguette. The case runs to morning buns, lemon meringue tarts, danishes, tarts, scones, and chocolate croissants made with Valrhona. Lunch brings seasonal crawfish dishes and a muffuletta stromboli. At Carnival, pastry chef Maggie Scales makes both a New Orleans king cake and a French galette des rois, two rounds of puff pastry over almond cream.
The bakery now serves as the pastry hub for the entire Link group, which means the volume coming out of the ovens exceeds what the counter sells. It sits at 4600 Magazine Street, open daily 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call (504) 269-3777.
