Minneapolis-St. Paul's Best Bakeries

A Baker’s Wife and its signature old-school cake donuts have been a plentiful, reasonably priced South Minneapolis staple for over 30 years. Our favorites are the humble cinnamon-sugar and powdered-sugar versions, and we also recommend throwing in a signature tea cake as a snack for later.

Joachim "Aki" Berndt shifted his focus towards breadmaking after losing his architecture job in 2009. Namely, the rarely seen recipes he missed from his hometown: Mönchengladbach, Germany. 

Look out for three kinds of rye bread at Aki's Breadhaus  — one that’s kissed with currants and molasses, one that’s deli-style, and one that’s strewn with sunflower seeds. Germany’s signature take on sourdough (bauernbrot) is also in full effect, along with apple and cherry streusel, a wide array of rolls (spelt, poppy seed, cinnamon-walnut, bacon-cheese-chive... you name it), and the soft pretzels Berndt often bakes for breweries like his Northeast Minneapolis neighbor, Broken Clock Brewing Cooperative.  

Aki's current location offers more breads, pastries, and buns than its original space, and includes a new "Wunderbar" concept with bold wines by the glass and bottle, Bavarian cider and beer, and a full-on food menu featuring everything from parsley (peterlingskuchen) and onion (wiebelkuchen) cake to a rotating trio of seasonal open-faced sandwiches (schnittchen).   

Berndt's skills also shine at the TrailHead Café, which his bakery oversees at the bike-and-ski hot spot, Theodore Wirth Park. Stop by early for a breakfast sandwich or swing by in the afternoon for broetchen rolls stuffed with smoked salmon, chicken salad, turkey and cheddar, or ham and Swiss. 

New York native Asa Diebolt wanted to bring the chewy, high-quality bagels he grew up eating to his adopted city of Minneapolis, and we couldn’t be more grateful he did. Asa’s churns out bagels, bialys, and a rotating docket of sourdough breads, all made with locally-milled flour. Stop by their South Minneapolis shop to grab a lox sandwich to go and eat it in nearby Longfellow Gardens.

When Gavin Kaysen’s French restaurant, Bellecour, left Wayzata, customers all wanted to know one thing: Where can we still get pastry chef Diane Moua’s crepe cake? Boasting locations in Minneapolis and Edina, Bellecour 2.0 keeps Moua's spirit kicking (she now owns and operates the acclaimed restaurant Diane's Place) with Parisian-style pastries and daytime cafe fare. All of which are available for pre-order online.

The North Loop location also becomes a bistro around dinnertime, serving up such classics as steak frites, Burgundy escargot, and Kaysen's popular Dirty French Burger (served with raclette, red wine onion aioli and sauce perigourdine).

For years, Black Walnut existed as the pastry supplier of local coffee shops, and devotees of Sarah Botcher’s perfectly-executed croissants, kouign amanns, and espresso shortbreads had to line up early to get their favorites. But in 2019, Botcher opened her Uptown storefront, and expanded the menu to include cakes, tarts, pies, and an egg-and-cheese croissant sandwich that has to be tasted to be believed.

Named for the brakes on the bikes that deliver it, Brake Bread is St. Paul’s most likable supplier, running a “bread it forward” program that donates up to 400 loaves a month to local food shelves. The bread, of course, is superlative — naturally leavened and made with love. Our favorite is the “Gateway,” a Pullman-style sandwich bread. You can pick up one of Brake Bread’s rotating loaves at its West Seventh location (get a pastry while you’re there) or at Mississippi Market, which carries their products.

One of the first independent coffee shops to open in St. Paul (in 1982), Bread & Chocolate has remained a neighborhood staple for decades. Trends come and go, but caramel rolls, oversized chocolate chunk cookies, and comfortingly un-fancy ham and cheese croissants are forever. 

Bread & Chocolate’s sister restaurant, Cafe Latte, is famous for their cakes and conveniently located right across the street. Get a fat slice of their signature Turtle Cake and thank us later. 

Fans of the James Beard-winning Restaurant Alma had been begging owner Alex Roberts to sell their bread for years. In 2016, he acquiesced, opening the casual Cafe Alma next door to the restaurant. The Café runs a tight pastry and bread program, and while their croissants are second-to-none, you shouldn’t sleep on their gluten-free financiers either. Feeling a little more peckish? Alma serves a more hearty breakfast and lunch menu.  

Their treats can also be found at Alma Provisions, their small-scale outpost on 46th and Bryant near Lake Harriet.

Dahlia's truly out-there treats come from a trio of industry vets (Alex Althoff, Sarah Julson and Nat Moser) who built a cult following at frequent pop-ups that felt more like sneaker drops. We’re talking a rotating menu of revelatory specials — a lox donut complete with cream cheese icing, everything bagel seasoning, cured salmon, pickled red onion, capers and microgreens, for instance. Or maybe a croissant modeled after burnt cheesecake or all the tricked-out trappings of a Bloody Mary. 

As is the case with the Minneapolis-St. Paul food scene at large, nothing is off limits, and nearly everything imaginable is on the table at their new bakery/daytime cafe in Northeast Minneapolis. Open Thursday through Sunday, it has a small-but-mighty brunch menu, rotating cast of croissants, cakes and cookies, and weekend specials like sweet corn and white cheddar English muffins, miso caramel blondies, and chili crisp bagels. 

Don’t try to come between us and our Concha Pan Dulce. The Twin Cities has no shortage of excellent Mexican bakeries (many are wrapped into larger operations, like El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul), but Bloomington’s El Mariachi will let you order a “random half dozen” pan dulches for the extremely reasonable price of $15. There’s your contribution to the next potluck! 

A blink-and-you'll-miss-it bakery set off of St. Louis Park’s busy Excelsior Boulevard, Honey & Rye is worth making a U-Turn for. Stop in for a morning bun, coffee cake, or slice of quiche, and grab a baguette or loaf of challah on your way out the door. Honey & Rye also offers a selection of special-order items, including their excellent whole pies.  

If the St. Paulites proudly wearing Hot Hands’ “Risk it for the Biscuit” sweatshirts around the neighborhood are any indication, this Mac-Groveland bakery has a legion of loyal fans. Biscuits? Got ‘em. Sandwiches? Got ‘em. Sweet pies? Got ‘em. Pot pies? Turnovers? Brownies? Dog treats? Hot Hands has them all. 

You can even get their top-flight biscuits as “take and bake,” so they’re fresh out of the oven by the time your brunch guests arrive.  

There are cinnamon rolls, and then there are Isles Bun & Coffee cinnamon rolls. These monstrous, delicious, sticky, cream-cheese-frosting-laden behemoths have been inspiring around-the-block lines since 1993. If you can’t quite handle a whole roll yourself (it’s okay, we’re not judging), Isles generously offers “puppy dog tails,” which are made from the off-cuts of their rolls, and spun together to create the perfect Saturday treat.

A collective sigh of relief could be heard across the social media sphere in 2023 when the owners of Vietnamese restaurant Pho Mai announced they would breathe life back into the beloved Chinese bakery Keefer Court. Now open in a new location at Eden Prairie's massive Asia Mall, a little over a year after it abruptly closed in Minneapolis, it specializes in sweet (pineapple, red bean, coconut) and savory (BBQ pork, curry beef, three kinds of tofu) buns and Hong Kong hits like egg tarts, black sesame balls, and durian-flavored pandan cake. 

While it's no longer known as Swedish Crown Bakery — a change meant to reflect the broader European palate of its pastries — Krown is still the place to go in the greater metro area for Scandinavian delights like cardamom buns, tea rings, Budapest rolls, and fennel-blessed rye bread (a.k.a. kavring). 

If you'd like a tour of the entire region, co-owners Madison McCormick and Sharaya Mickelson also crank out everything from Icelandic meringues to Finnish almond cookies at their Anoka bakery, along with Friday lunch specials like Swedish meatballs, Irish beef stew, and tunnsbrödrulle (a street food staple that wraps flatbread around a hot dog, mashed potatoes, crispy onions and creamy pickle relish).  

For more Swedish fare within the city limits, keep your eyes on the pastry counter at FIKA Café, which often sells out of its own fresh-baked, Stockholm-caliber beauties by the early afternoon.   

Tiff Singh mentored under the Twin Cities best breadmakers at Rustica, Alma, and Sun Street Breads and teamed up with Chris McLeod to open Laune Bread in 2022. Laune’s airy Lake Street location draws big local crowds during its limited Thursday-Saturday hours, and its naturally-leavened loaves all include more than 70% whole-grain flour from the Upper Midwest. 

Laune’s pastry program is also deliciously unique, and Longfellow residents flood the bakery for their hearty whole-wheat croissants, rye-chocolate chip cookies, and a superlative morning bun with mandarin and spice. 

Laune also invests in their community by partnering with urban organizations that support food and education, and through their “bread fund,” which collects donations and provides freshly-baked bread to organizations like Appetite for Change and the Aliveness Project.

Raised in an abandoned cow barn in French Guiana, Marc Heu’s journey to James Beard-nominated pastry chef was anything but ordinary. After moving to Minnesota to be with his wife, Heu opened his eponymous bakery, and the demand was so overwhelming that it moved to a larger St. Paul location and added a second outpost in Minneapolis' Linden Hills neighborhood. A third cafe is now open at the Alliance Française cultural center. 

No wonder; Heu's artistic, exacting, superlatively delicious confections are among the best our state has to offer, and the bakery often sells out hours after opening. So get there early, and order with abandon. You can always share (your friends are lucky).  

Internationally-acclaimed pastry chef John Kraus (the only American chef to ever be inducted into the prestigious Relais Dessert Group) moved to Minneapolis because he thought it would be a nice place to open a bakery. With the 2010 opening of Patisserie 46, John changed the Twin Cities bakery scene forever. 

Serving everything from Paris-level baguettes (get there early; they sell out) to humble sour cream coffee cake and too-beautiful-to-eat opera cakes, Patisserie 46 has anchored the Kingfield neighborhood for more than 15 years, and it’s just as popular as the day it opened.  In 2016, John and his wife/business partner, Elizabeth Rose, brought some of their most popular items to St. Paul’s Rose Street Patisserie. We couldn’t be more grateful.  

Stop by and sample what Food & Wine magazine declared the “World’s Best Eclairs.”  

What started as a small Southwest Minneapolis shop has grown into one of the Twin Cities’ most venerable bakeries, inspiring a long legacy of trainees under founder Steve Horton, including Shawn McKenzie and Tiff Singh. Rustica has been turning out perfect sourdough loaves, flaky kouign amanns, and their famous bittersweet chocolate cookies since 2004, and their bouchons, croissants, and thick slices of banana bread are still as delicious as the day they opened.

Savory Bake House fans used to line up down Lake Street (in all weather!) to get their sweet or savory fix. It now operates at 895 Front Ave. in St. Paul, serving modern takes on comforting classics like smoked gouda and roasted tomato pretzel rolls and blood orange-passion fruit tarts.

Entirely gluten-free and peanut-free, Sift also has a range of offerings for those who are allergic to dairy, eggs, and soy, although that is not the top reason to visit this adorable South Minneapolis spot. You should go because their baked goods are unequivocally delicious, the donuts, cupcakes, and even scotcheroos (scotcheroos!) reminiscent of Mom’s, but better. 

Hosting gluten-free friends? Sift kindly sells frozen waffles, pizza crusts, and even bake-at-home pretzels. 

North Minneapolis’ charming Thirsty Whale sells cupcakes, cookies, and all manner of delectable sweet treats, but their true calling card is their custom cakes. These Instagram-worthy confections are ubiquitous at Minneapolis weddings, birthday parties, and other celebrations where a little dose of sweetness is exactly what the doctor called for.

Don't be fooled by the unassuming University Avenue storefront of Trung Nam; these croissants are some of the flakiest and most buttery in town. Perfect for fans who like their croissant on the softer, chewier side, Trung Nam, which has been holding down the Frogtown neighborhood since 1989, is the only bakery on this list where you can also pick up a BBQ pork steam bun and a banh mi.  

Turtle Bread Company opened in 1994, and as trends have changed and tastes have evolved, so has Turtle Bread, but they’ve never lost the homemade, comforting classics that made them famous. With multiple Minneapolis locations all serving breakfast, lunch, and a full takeout bakery menu, Turtle Bread is the perfect place to bring the whole family for a casual meal or to grab a bag of potato rolls on your way to the cookout. 

After a decade of professional baking in New York City, Rachel Anderson moved to Minneapolis and opened Vikings & Goddesses, a wholesale pie and pastry company that used the finest local ingredients (Baker’s Field Flour and Hope Creamery Butter, anyone?). In 2024, Vikings & Goddesses delighted the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul by opening a walk-up window, where you can pick up a loaf of their famous croissant bread, limoncello tiramisu pie, or frozen Danishes to pop in the freezer as a gift to future you. 

Need somewhere safe but delicious to bring out-of-town family? Yum! Want to grab a bite on the way to visit your kid at Saint Thomas? Yum! Been assigned to get baked goods for the baby shower? Yum! 

Patti and Robbie Soskin’s we-know-what-you-want-and-how-you-want-it all-day bakery, café, and restaurant serves a wide menu where every item elicits an “oh, yeah, that sounds perfect.” With fair prices and the option to grab a mini pumpkin cheesecake on your way out the door, we can’t think of anyone who couldn’t find something to like at Yum!'s locations in St. Paul, St. Louis Park, Minnetonka and Woodbury.