America's Best Bread Bakeries

Christy Timon and Abram Faber are revered as early champions of classic European baking who continue to hunt down recipes for their French, Italian and German breads like a hearty volkornbrot studded with chopped rye berries. The most loyal customers know the breads are baked on rotation; the fire-roasted tomato fougasse, for instance, comes out warm from the oven every Saturday at 1 p.m. clearflourbread.com

When Ken Forkish opened his bakery in 2001, there were fewer than a handful of artisan bakeries in Portland. Now the city is brimming with great bread—yet Ken's Artisan maintains its enthusiastic following with standout baguettes and boules made with locally grown, sustainably farmed wheat. The wildly popular—and still going strong—Monday Night Pizza events prompted Forkish to open a stand-alone spot in 2006. kensartisan.com

Sandra and Mathieu Holl (she, a former baker at San Francisco's acclaimed Tartine; he, a pastry-loving Parisian) first started selling their wickedly good French pastries in 2006 out of a stand at Chicago's Green City Market. In 2010, they opened this Lincoln Park bakery, expanding their repertoire to phenomenal breads such as a light, yeasted cornbread made with local cornmeal and honey. floriole.com

Renowned baker and pasty chef duo Chad Robertson and Elizabeth Prueitt's stellar slow-fermented yeast breads, made from locally milled organic flours, have a cultlike following. The faithful line up around the Guerrero Street door at 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays for just-out-of-the-oven loaves like the signature country bread and walnut sourdough. tartinebakery.com

It may be set in a mini-mall, but Rustica is grounded in artisanal ambitions. Steve Horton and Tammy Hoyt-Simonds use high-quality ingredients and traditional, labor-intensive methods like long dough fermentation, hand-shaping and hearthstone baking for their flavorful breads like flax levain, Sicilian-olive-studded bread and cañadas de azucar, a Spanish-inspired, yeasty flatbread with a sugary glaze. rusticabakery.com

Bob Johnson, Allison Reid and Sonja Swanberg take their bread so seriously that they've named the starters—Lulu and Lavergne—that go into their terrific breads, including a deeply browned loaf packed with sweet sprouted grains and sesame seeds. Their hand-shaped bagels are so popular, there's a strict one dozen per person limit on the weekends. scratchbakingco.com

In just a short while, husband-and-wife team Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan have built a mini food empire, but the gem is this cheerful Santa Monica café and bakery, started in 2009. There’s a near constant line for Nathan’s stellar bread (rustic country boule, house-made English muffins), along with decadent pastries like prosciutto-Gruyère-stuffed croissants. huckleberrycafe.com

Gerard Grabowski and Jan Shireman take a locavore approach to bread baking, using organic Michigan grains (spelt, kamut, barley and rye) and fruit (cherries and cranberries) for their beloved wood-fired loaves. The duo are also passionate advocates of natural leavening: They've been feeding the same mother starter that generates their breads for 20 years. pleasantonbakery.com

With this 3,500-square-foot food-hall-style market, chef-owners Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison aim to provide the same top-quality items used at their neighboring restaurant Bacchanalia, from locally raised heritage meats to wild fish flown in daily. That commitment extends to their amazing breads—baked steps away in Bacchanalia's kitchen each morning—like golden-raisin-studded fennel sultana and French sourdough with a nicely caramelized crust. starprovisions.com

Greg Bortz has perfected the art of baking at high altitude, favoring a moist European-style dough best showcased in his signature boule, a three-pounder with a crisp-crusted exterior and soft, pillowy interior. Bortz also incorporates local influences; his seasonal beer bread is mixed with Breckenridge Brewery's Small Batch 471 IPA. thedenverbreadcompany.com

Pearl Bakery first opened its doors 15 years ago, yet it's still turning out some of the best artisan bread in the country, including deeply flavorful Kalamata-olive-stuffed ciabatta, pecan rosemary rolls and signature olive-oil-infused pugliese. Well before the Portland food scene became all about local, sustainable and organic, founder Eric Lester turned to local farmers and purveyors for many of the ingredients that go into his bread and pastries, from flour and butter to nuts and fruit. pearlbakery.com

Zachary Golper's French roots run deep: He apprenticed with a third generation patissier in Provence before running the bread program at Philly's acclaimed French restaurant Le Bec-Fin. So it's no surprise that his Boerum Hill bakery looks to France in both name—bien cuit translates to "well done"—and tradition, with a selection of sublime French breads and pastries that include chewy baguettes and long-fermented miches (a dark-crusted French country bread) that come out of the oven three times a day. biencuit.com

Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan's latest addition to their burgeoning empire features Nathan's beloved baguettes and country boules, plus new creations like a Grana Padano—Gruyère-and-cheddar-packed loaf that's a sophisticated take on Cheez-It crackers; green olive bread with lemon and thyme; and house-made bagels. Later in the day, the wood-burning oven fires whole-grain pizzas with seasonal toppings like rosemary cream and nettles. miloandolive.com

It's tucked behind a gas station off coastal Highway 1 and marked only with a hand-written sign. Yet this bakery and restaurant has managed to become a go-to spot for hikers, road-trippers, shoe-optional locals—and bread lovers. Co-owner Michelle Rizzolo uses skills honed at La Brea Bakery and Campanile for exceptional oak-wood-fired creations like a hearty, dense, seed-packed hide roll and a popular breakfast pizza topped with eggs and bacon. bigsurbakery.com

Jim Lahey is one of the country's elite bakers, whose terrific no-knead breads can be had in over 340 of NYC's restaurants and markets, including Lahey's own, Co., a pizza spot in Chelsea known, naturally, for its chewy, crisp, ever-so-slightly tangy crusts. But Lahey's jewel is still Sullivan Street Bakery for rustic Italian loaves like the crusty pane pugliese and baguette-like Stirato. sullivanstreetbakery.com