Best Bakery in Los Angeles: Milo and Olive

Milo and Olive

2723 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90403

(310) 453-6776

It's some feat for a pastry chef to actually out-bake herself, as Zoe Nathan has possibly done at Milo & Olive. More so as she did it not by upping the chocolate ganache ante — as one might expect from the seasoned pastry chef — but by fully embracing the bread baker's domain. Sure, Nathan turned out a handful of great breads at Huckleberry, but the real reason we trekked to her first Westside outpost on Saturday mornings was for anything that could double as both breakfast and dessert. At Milo & Olive, Nathan's pretty little fruit crostatas are still perched on the counter, but we elbow our way through the impatient, pizza-seeking crowds on a singular mission: Nathan's multigrain baguettes, whole-wheat potato bread and that rustic country boule begging for a drizzle of olive oil. Does that mean Nathan now is considered a baker first, pastry chef second? That depends on which side of the laminated dough issue — is a croissant pastry or bread? — you land on. 2723 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. (310) 453-6776, miloandolive.com. —Jenn Garbee

Source: LA Weekly