MANRESA BREAD (Los Altos, CA) – In an ideal world, I would have gone to the flagship restaurant, Manresa, Chef David Kinch’s 3-star Michelin restaurant in Los Gatos. But, I don’t make the kind of money you need for those 4-dollar sign restaurants (…yet). So, I went to the next best thing – Manresa Bread, the bakery that grew out of the restaurant, with two locations in the Bay Area (Los Altos and Los Gatos, respectively).
The bakery started as the Manresa Bread Project when Avery Ruzicka became the baker at the restaurant in 2012 where she used to put together a bread course to highlight four to five different types of bread. How amazing does that sound?! The project eventually grew into this offshoot bakery in 2014.
The bakery not only sells their high-quality breads and pastries, Manresa Bread uses the local and artisanal products and also has a full espresso tea service. I popped in one afternoon into the Los Altos location, luckily catching it before it closed and grabbed one of their monkey breads.
The cafe is pretty small, with a counter for seating inside and a few seats outdoors. This is definitely a spot that is grab and go rather than a kickback spot. Manresa Bread serves Verve Coffee at their bakeries, and the barista made a really good latte! I didn’t even add any extra sugar – a rarity for me. That monkey bread was sticky, sugary, and flaky. It was perfection and I was sad when I ate it too quickly.
Manresa Bread hopes to become the South Bay’s go to bakery, which if their delicious pastries are any indication, they are well on their way to doing so. I personally think is awesome since San Francisco and the East Bay has Acme Bread locations near them – everyone deserves good bread. Next time, I hope to take a loaf of bread home and a lot more monkey bread. A lot more.
bay-food.com 