This chic North Bethesda jewel focuses on crafting quality, small-batch croissants and other pastries like brown sugar scones, brioche doughnuts, and cookies. The croissant menu covers savory and sweet, ranging from a stuffed ham and Swiss cheese or mushroom truffle to traditional butter, chocolate, and matcha green tea, varieties (plus cruffins). Weekend specials include kouign amann and macarons. A second outpost is en route to McLean, till then the bakehouse is popping up around the neighborhood.

Fresh baguettes are obviously a point of pride at this mini-chain bakery by the same name. Bakers use a cold-dough process, house-made “levain,” and French baking equipment. There’s also a solid line-up of sandwiches, topped ciabatta, cake, quiche, flaky croissants, and seasonal specials like King cakes, with eight shops scattered across the DMV. The newest one just debuted by Lafayette Square. Online ordering here.

Tenleytown got the bakery of its dreams in 2023 with the arrival of SakuSaku Flakerie’s first-ever, full-time storefront. Confectionary couple Yuri and Jason Oberbillig birthed the baked goods brand in the front of a now-closed Cleveland Park Italian spot and have amassed a devoted D.C. following for their tantalizing French pastries infused with Japanese and seasonal ingredients. Highlights include lychee and grapefruit cruffins, lavender matcha mochi rolls, fluffy Japanese shokupan, and even gluten-free mochi bites filled with red bean paste (weekends only). There’s also now a Cleveland Park location serving kakigori, Japanese shaved ice, and Union Market stall. SakuSaku is a longtime collaborator with another small business, Lost Sock Roasters, with the bakery serving the brand’s coffee and SakuSaku pastries found at the roaster’s new cafe in NoMa.

Eater DC’s 2018 Restaurant of the Year energizes sleepy Mount Pleasant with rustic baguettes, breakfast sandwiches, guava turnovers, lemon poppy pound cake, dimly lit dinners, and an undeniable devotion to fermentation. Served on a sesame potato roll, the hit breakfast sandwich includes brisket pastrami that’s brined for two weeks, smoked for eight to 10 hours, crusted with peppercorns and coriander, and steamed until tender. On top of that, tender farm eggs, white cheddar cheese, and fermented chile hot sauce complete the sandwich. The bakery and cafe by day flips into a full-service restaurant by night, with indoor dinner seatings available on Resy. Online ordering here.

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Around since 2017, this believable French bakery in Georgetown and Potomac, Maryland draws menu inspiration from the chic coastal town of Saint-Tropez. Its award-winning baguettes — dark and crusty on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside — continue to be the star of the show, joined by whole grain, wheat, and sesame breads, pastries, croissants, and more. The show-stopping pastries are now available on UberEats as well.

Six expert bakers begin the day at 3:30 a.m. to make hundreds of heavenly baguettes and rotating breads for Stephen Starr’s famed French brasserie Le Diplomate on 14th Street NW. The 100-square-foot micro shop tucked away in a Union Market district alley also invites the public to come and pick up the same crusty loaves, multigrain levain boules, cranberry walnut boules, viennoiserie, pastries, and an ever-changing selection of specialty breads. Small-batch local jams, butter, honey, and salts are also available to-go.

Chef Alicia Wang is the force behind Yellow’s premiere pastries combine Levantine flavors with classic French techniques. Think za’atar and labne croissants, chocolate 7-spice cruffin, and pistachio olive oil cake. In the evening the bakery serves an “All the Kebabs” menu with a rotating selection of charcoal-grilled kebabs and meze prepared on an open hearth. The Bib Gourmand-designated establishment from chef Michael Rafidi also maintains an additional outpost in Georgetown specializing in pizza.

Unique among D.C.’s bakeries, Seylou is the first and only D.C. bakery to operate an in-house mill. The Blagden Alley bakery is committed to the traditional ways of baking as owner Jonathan Bethony mills whole grains and ferments his loaves before popping them into an imported, wood-fired oven. The result is some of the most impressive loaves of pain au levain, einkorn, and others. There are also rich pastries, like whole grain croissants and fruit scones, served in the morning alongside an espresso bar. Plus, the bakery’s whole grain sourdough becomes the base for pizzas each Wednesday night. Pre-orders and delivery available through the website.

Georgetown’s locals-favorite coffee shop and bakery dishes out colossal cupcakes, among other baked goods. Widely known as one of the very best cupcake spots in the city, the bakers at Baked & Wired swirl fresh strawberries into the strawberry cupcake and top the cinnamon-laced, Texas sheetcake cupcake with rich chocolate pecan frosting while it is still warm. The lines can get long, but kind service and the view of the glass dome-covered confections lined up on the Carrera marble bar help. A Baked Joint, its sister cafe, has been open for ten years and serves plenty of pastries, famous biscuits, goat cheese-studded foccacia, and loaded breakfast sandwiches in Mount Vernon Triangle as well.

From the folks behind macaron hub The Sweet Lobby, this globally influenced bakery and cafe on Barracks Row is a source for matcha passion coconut tarts, Jamaican patties, lemon almond tea cake, honey pistachio kouign amann, and so many more baked goods. There’s also a large selection of gluten-free pastries, like lemon meringue tart, Italian pignoli (pine nut) cookies, and honey-almond bars.