Berlu Bakery

PortlandBread is an editorial guide to bread and pastry in Portland, and we write about the loaf, the laminated case, the neighborhood door, and the bakers who keep those rooms honest. Portland first, with a few metro shops sitting under their real cities when the drive is worth it. We do not scrape reviews, and we do not run a cart — if a shop is here, it is because we would send you there.

A Portland loaf worth crossing town for has crust with character, crumb that holds, grain you can taste, and a bake that still means something the next morning, and we send people across town for naturally leavened country loaves at places like Tabor Bread, Ken’s, and Café Olli, for Little T’s baguette on Division, and for the westside country loaf at Baker & Spice when you are already in Hillsdale. The naturally leavened list is that errand in one place, and the Journal pages for those shops are what to order and when to go.

Naturally leavened on this site means wild yeast and a long ferment, not a quick commercial-yeast sandwich loaf wearing a rustic crust, and we put a shop on the naturally leavened list when that is how they bake the loaves we send you for. Grand Central’s everyday Como is still a Portland staple; it is a different errand than a dark, blistered country bâtard. If you want the long ferment, start with the naturally leavened list and the Journal visits behind those shops.

Tabor Bread on Belmont is the eastside Saturday we name first — buckwheat and mountain bread that day, with einkorn on Monday and the country loaf as the daily — and Baker & Spice if you are already in Hillsdale, Ken’s on 21st for the westside country loaf, and Bakeshop on Sandy for the dark whole-grain miche when they have it. The weekend loaf list is that morning errand, and the Journal pages for those shops are what to order and when to go.

Little T on Division is the eastside baguette we keep sending people to, and you want to get there early because that long skinny loaf sells out. Ken’s on 21st and St. Honoré on Thurman bake one too, and Baker & Spice holds a westside baguette when you are already on that side of the river. The baguette list stays at four shops on purpose — that is the whole set, not a hint that every café loaf counts — and the Journal pages for those shops are what to order and when to go.

Twisted Croissant on Broadway is the butter croissant we mean when someone asks whether Portland still laminates, and Nuvrei does kouign-amann and flavored croissants in the new downtown room — use the current address, not an old Pearl pin. St. Honoré on Thurman is the westside flagship, and JinJu’s kouign and croissant are the ones people remember; the Williams door is coming back, and it is not a walk-in yet. The croissant list carries the rest of the laminated case, and the Journal pages for those shops are what to order and when to go.

Soft crumb, square pullman, curry pan, and cloud cake are a different Portland-area errand than a dark country loaf, and Oyatsupan in Beaverton is shokupan and curry pan before the afternoon cutoff. Tous Les Jours at Flock downtown is useful when neighborhood bakeries have gone dark — start with the cloud cake and the milk bun — and 85°C at Washington Square is the Hokkaido chiffon and garlic cheese bread drive. The milk bread list is those three, and the Journal pages for those shops are what to order and when to go.

A bread bakery is organized around the loaf — country bâtard, baguette, miche, the Saturday bake — and a pastry shop is organized around the case — croissants, tarts, entremets, doughnuts, pie. Plenty of rooms do both, and we still file them by what you came for. Pastry Shops is the list when pastry is the point, and the bread lists are when the loaf is the errand.

Lauretta Jean’s on Division is the pie we mean — salted honey if you want the line reason — and Pix on Burnside holds entremets and the late case, Champagne Poetry on Hawthorne does fruit tarts and Asian-French pastry, Artisserie on NW 23rd is the pistachio croissant and the French case, and Coquine Market on the hill if you want a loaf and a market room in one stop. Read the Journal visit before you rearrange the day; the case changes and the good thing goes first.

Show up earlier than you think, especially for baguettes, doughnuts, and weekend loaves, because Little T’s baguette wants an early Division run and Doe and Petunia’s fry that morning and sell down. Saturday specialty breads at Tabor and the miche at Bakeshop do not wait for a late coffee, and if a Journal visit names a window, trust it. If we have not verified hours in a while, call the shop before you drive across town.

We would send you there, and we can say why in one specific line, and lists are not for sale. Naturally leavened, croissants, baguettes, milk bread, and weekend loaves are craft lists, and vegan pastry and gluten-free follow narrower rules on How we decide — we only use what the shop prints on a page it controls. Featured means the same editorial bar, with the bakery told.

The Journal is what to order, and when to go, one bakery at a time — a visit is us in the room, naming the loaf or pastry we came for and the constraints that matter. The Journal also holds the two explainers on how we read vegan and gluten-free claims, because other directories disagree and we stay narrow, so open a visit after you pick a bakery, not instead of the directory.

Open Bakeries when you want the directory — every shop sits under a real Portland neighborhood, or under its metro city — and there is a neighborhood index if you already know where you are walking. Search lives on that same directory when you want a name instead of a map of the blocks.

We cover a few shops outside Portland when they are worth the drive — Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Hillsboro, Forest Grove — filed under those cities, not as if they were on Division. If a shop is only a P.O. box or appointment-only, the page says so, and we do not invent a Portland neighborhood for a metro kitchen.

Vegan and gluten-free matter, and we keep them honest. Dedicated gluten-free means the whole kitchen, not a labeled tray in a mixed case — Petunia’s, New Cascadia, Berlu, Sinful, Gem, Kirari, and the metro dedicated shops on that list — and vegan means the shop says the item or the bakery is vegan; Sweetpea, Doe, Petunia’s, Hail Snail, and Carina’s are the kitchens people ask about first. Sweetpea and Doe are vegan and not gluten-free. How we decide is the long version, and Best gluten-free and Best vegan pastry are the short ones.

Contact for a correction or a press note, and if you run the shop, Add Your Bakery. We will not add a vegan or gluten-free claim unless the shop says so on a page it controls, and we do not take the order from this site.