Izola bakery opens new cafe in East Village
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Yes, I ate all three. Photo: Kate Murphy/Axios
If you're ever craving a big, flaky croissant fresh from the oven, Izola is the place to go.
Dig in: The popular bakery reopened in a highly anticipated larger cafe in East Village last week after its last shop closed for renovations that forced a move.
- Izola specializes in sourdough loaves and carefully crafted croissants made with 96 layers of French butter.
- The team makes 1,000 croissants a day and serves them hot out of the oven on a personal breadboard.
Best bites: The classic croissant ($7) is crispy on the outside, chewy in the middle and is topped with flaky salt that enhances the rich, buttery flavor.
- The decadent Tahitian vanilla knot ($6) is a generously glazed, very sweet treat.
- Co-owner Jeffrey Brown's go-to is the Moroccan black olive croissant ($9) that has an earthy taste with a touch of chocolatey sweetness. He said he eats one almost every day.
- Sip on an iced double cappuccino ($5) between bites.
The vibe: The open-air, industrial-ish cafe feels like a community space where people can work on laptops, have breakfast with their kids and dogs, or pop in after a workout class with friends.
- The expansive patio with long farm tables meant for sharing overlooks Fault Line Park.
- The smells wafting from the ovens tempt passers-by.
Flashback: Brown and his partner, Jenny, opened Izola in June 2020 to bring a little joy to their community during COVID-19. They taught themselves to bake using cookbooks, YouTube videos and a recipe from the back of a flour bag.
- Each day, they baked 12 croissants and five loaves of bread in their home oven, told people through Instagram and put the baked goods in a picnic basket and lowered them from the window of their third-floor photo studio.
Fun fact: Yelp named it the top bakery in the country in 2022.
If you go: Open Tuesday-Friday, 7am-2pm.
- You can also place pick-up orders that come in boxes with at-home care instructions for your baked goods.
What to watch: Izola is in the process of opening a zero-emissions dough factory in City Heights that will increase production to 20,000 croissants daily.
- That's enough to supply 20 of these locations around Southern California, and the company is looking for investors.
- The next one could be coming to La Jolla, per Eater.