Who makes the best bread in SD?

[karaethon]

So I was wondering where one can go to buy all the best bread in San Diego. I guess this topic was discussed in the past (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/354628), but never really aggregated into one thread for the various types of breads. I'm by no means a bread expert, but let's go ahead and go with the following categories to start. Feel free to add more as we go.
- Baguette
- Batard
- Sourdough
- Multigrain
- Brioche
- Ciabatta
- Foccacia
- Pita
- Lavash
- Roti

From the previous thread, the 3 favorites seem to be:
- Bread and Cie
- Bread on Market
- Con Pane
- O'Brien's Boulangerie
- Solunto

I'm wondering if anything has changed in the past year since the last post as well as trying to discover new favorites for the other types of bread that haven't been covered.

[El Chevere]

Would be nice if I could find a bakery that makes--or a restaurant that serves--Pugliese style bread.I suppose the chain Il Fornaio comes close, but my mouth waters when thinking of the bread put out by Tartine (served at Delfina) in SF or Ken's Artisan (served at many restaurants throughout Portland)....any restaurants come to mind that you can recommend??

[El Chevere]

to specify a little further...looking for Pugliese style bread in a ciabatta format....the air pockets that form after the wet dough has dried makes for the ideal bread to dip in olive oil, not to mention the flavorful crust. I have yet to find a restaurant in San Diego that serves this style of bread and find it quite more common in other cities (dare I say more foodie oriented cities). If anyone knows of such a place, please enlighten me and share.

[shouzen]

Funny, Blanca used to have a pretty decent Pugliese...

[aloha925]

Bread & Cie does a lemon Pugliese style bread, I believe. I've used it for French toast when the challah wasn't available. It worked for French toast, but I don't recall much more about it.

[eastcoastgirl_28]

I too am a lover of Con Pane.

Have you ever tried the Baguettes at K Sanwiches? I think you will be PLEASANTLY surprised...pick up a Croissant while you're there!

[sdnosh]

Thank you for reminding me of K Sandwiches. I've been wanting to get over there but never find myself in that area. I will definitely make a special trip.

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K Sandwiches
7604 Linda Vista Rd, San Diego, CA 92111

[sdnosh]

I am a bread-aholic. And although my work schedule has been keeping me out of restaurants lately, I can't stay away from my favorite bakery. I was big fan of Bread & Cie until Con Pane opened. Don't get me wrong, Bread and Cie does a great job and has a larger menu - actually quite huge now, however, I think Con Pane does a better job overall - in baguettes, ciabatta, focaccia and especially the sourdugh and multigrain. I like that their crusts have substance and chew but are not burnt or dry, which I have experienced at Bread & Cie a few times. Their specialty breads is where they stand out, specifically the gruyere&chive bread and their chocolate bread. Rarely a weekend get together goes by without one of these breads. Every now and then I see brioche either in loaves or hamburger buns in their case and I grab them, they are so decedent. Bread on Market had some good bread option before it was sold but once it was sold, it went down hill fast. I'm not a big fan of Charlie's because I'm not into overpriced soft loaves I could buy at the grocery store for alot less.

[honkman]

The bread at WF is quite good and for us the best currently in SD

[honkman]

Forgot to add that my favorite bread in SD was (and hopefully will be once they reopen) the rye bread at Blanca

[cstr]

Bread & Cie is right up there for me, although gone now, Solunto was never on my list, I thought their bread was on the dry side and way over priced. I'd add Costco to the list, they have some pretty good offerings.

[Beach Chick]

Bread & Cie is gone...when did that happen?
Love their bread..

Costco has a two Rosemary loaves...rustic things of beauty.

[Cathy]

Punctuation.

First sentence should read:

......me. Although...

[karaethon]

I've never really been a fan of the La Brea Bakery/Costco offerings.

The only ones from Costco that I found good were the "limited roadshow" offerings from La Brea. Not sure why those taste better to me...

[DiningDiva]

I do like the La Brea Rosemary/Olive Oil. Could be you liked the ones that were being sampled because they were just baked off. I think that Costco receives La Brea bread as frozen dough balls and bakes them off.

[shouzen]

Timely post. I had a La Brea baguette for lunch yesterday, and enjoyed it. Crust was not as good as Bread & Cie (which is what we usually buy at work), but the crumb was significantly better.

[Josh]

Bread and Cie is very much around.

[jmtreg]

Solunto's gave San Diego decent Italian bread during a time when San Diego's food scene was pathetic, so let's give it a little slack. It was, for a time, the best Italian bakery in the City. Also, the pizza dough that it used to sell was my Mom's favorite for making pizza.

Actually, that leads me to an interesting question - now that Solunto's is gone, who has the best pizza dough? As I said, Mona Lisa's dough is okay, but lacks a good chew. Trader Joe's pizza dough will occasionally go sideways on me. I can, and have made my own, but I'm lazy.

[scottca075]

Fresh and Easy has pretty good pizza dough and is adding baking ovens to many of their stores to put out fresh bread.

[Cathy]

Solunto and Bread on Market are closed.

I have returned to Charlie's Best, which I abandoned for no good reason years ago. http://www.charliesbestbread.com/

[DiningDiva]

Thank you for adding Charlie's Best Bread to the list

Another one to add would be Sadie Rose

[karaethon]

Oooh.. Sadie Rose is reasonably close to work. I'll have to check them out.

Thanks for the tip!

[phee]

For the farmer's market bags, Specialty Produce switched to Sadie Rose from Bread on Market when the latter closed. We've tried about five offerings, and we were very disappointed in all of them. I second the rosemary & olive oil loaf from LaBrea (mentiioned below) suggest the Lemon Pugliese from Bread & Cie, and Charlie's has several wonderful options (like Gorgonzola Walnut).

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Specialty Produce
1929 Hancock St, San Diego, CA

[Josh]

Sadie Rose doesn't sell retail, FYI. The only way to buy it that way I know of is a woman at the La Jolla Farmer's Market on Sunday morning.

[karaethon]

I got some from Jimbo's Naturally

[Jenkay]

You can also get it at Major Market.

[karaethon]

So I tried O'Brien's and Sadie Rose and I prefer O'Brien's

The Dutch Bread at O'Brien's was also a nice treat. I think I found a passable local bakery (for me at least)