Bread & Chocolate — Restaurant in Concord

The premier bakery in New Hampshire - and all of New England as far as I know. Get in early before the good stuff sells out!

To talk about how good B&C is, I will tell a short story. My brother-in-law is a baker from France. He is in the habit of making fresh croissants every morning for his family. He visited us and we took him to Bread and Chocolate. We bought him a croissant and kept going with our day. After tasting it, he went back in to buy one of everything so that he could try it. The next day, instead of making croissants like he normally does, my brother drove to town and bought a basket of croissants from B&C. He repeated this for the whole trip, buying a different type each day.

We get raspberry croissants for every special occasion and we get the sticky buns for everything. They are that good!

You should also try Franz's excellent lunch sandwiches. These are an underappreciated aspect...

Full disclosure: I didn’t get to try any of their items due to exceptionally poor customer service. I stopped in on a Thursday to see if by some miracle they could do a cake for that Saturday. They couldn’t make the cake which was completely expected so no big deal (that was not the poor customer service). I said that I would be back on Saturday to buy a “pre-made” cake and was told that they’d have a better selection than they currently had (I didn’t want to give my wife a 2 or 3 day old cake for her birthday so I didn’t buy one of the cakes currently in the case). I walked in on Saturday morning to cases that were completely empty, not one single cake. I asked about cakes and was told “No cakes today but we will have raspberry tarts later” (I guess because chocolate cake can easily be swapped w/a raspberry tart without anyone noticing?). THAT’S bad...

European Bakery with fantastic breads, pastries, cakes, tarts, and sandwiches. The baker is from Austria and it shows in the precision and quality. This is the single best shop on Main Street. A loaf of the fresh sourdough Spelt Bread is a sensual experience. The hard crust, tender interior and tangy flavor are just right. This is a place for the classics, not the trendy or cute, where depth of flavor matters more than sweetness. Croissants, muffins, eclairs, elaborately decorated fresh fruit tarts, decadent cakes, a cup of coffee. The Opera Cake is memorable.

Sandwiches are prepared fresh just in time for lunch. There are vegetarian sandwiches, standards like turkey or tuna, all the way to the meaty earthy reuben. Most are available on a couple types of bread. It's worth experimenting. Highly...