IZOLA — Restaurant in San Diego

Izola : B, meaning “Good: a solid choice if in the area, but not a destination restaurant.”

Executive summary for the attention deficit: Cool vibes, good baked items, but nowhere near how good they used to be prior to the expansion. It’s been over 4 years since I moved to San Diego. My first “food goal” was to find a bakery comparable to @1900 Barker in little Lawrence, KS, a city with less than 100k population. The owner is a baker prodigy who graduated from culinary school at age 19, opening 1900 Barker at 23, and to this day, made the best breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had.

In the first few months I arrived, I tried all the so called “best” bakeries recommended by people on the San Diego foodies Facebook page, including but not limited to: Izola, Wayfarer, Hommage Bakehouse (sadly closed), Darshan, Wildwood Flour, Con Pane, O’Briens, Prager Brothers, Bread & Cie, and Bonjour Patisserie.

I was ecstatic when I found Izola as they were the only bakery comparable to 1900 Barker, with Wayfarer & Hommage coming at close seconds. Before my wife started baking bread in 2022, I made monthly pilgrimages to Izola, spending $100+ each time for my monthly sourdough ration.

It’s been almost 3 years since I visited Izola, and my first time at the new location. I had relatives visiting from Hong Kong and wanted them to try what I thought was “the best bakery in San Diego.” Despite the cool architecture, beautiful decor, chill vibes and great service, the price is much higher and the food has gone downhill.

On this visit, I tried a sourdough flight, a couple croissants and a croissant dough pastry. The sourdough had good hydration, but the crumb is simply not as open, and texture not as light as they once were. The croissants also deteriorated, not as light and flaky as they used to be. I wonder if it has to do with the larger dough batching, resulting in less human contact and ultimately, a worsened quality control process.

Plain sourdough (B ) : a satisfying chewy crust and good flavor with appropriate sourness. The hydration was fairly good, but the crust was not open or light enough to be deemed top quality sourdough.

Lao Gan Ma Gruyere sourdough (B+ ) : I love lao gan ma and use it on everything from wontons to noodle dishes, and even in stir frys. The added savoriness was interesting, but the crunchy texture of the lao gan ma is lost. More heat would accentuate the hero ingredient. A good piece of bread but at $21.54 a loaf, I expect AMAZING and it's not.

Roasted Garlic sourdough (B ) : this used to be my favorite and would easily give it an “A-,” but the first thing I noticed, where is all the garlic? It used to be loaded and now, I estimate about 40% less.

Everything croissant (B+ ) : satisfyingly savory, appropriately fragrant and buttery, it’s definitely a good croissant. But Izola’s croissants used to bring an intense, emotional satisfaction, but no longer, especially when the croissant costs $9.

Chocolate croissant (B ) : another good croissant, but no longer great. More chocolate would help.

Brown butter caramel knot (B- ) : the pastry was good, but I found the brown butter caramel overpoweringly sweet, masking the flavors and texture of the pastry.

I feel sad writing this review because they used to be sooo good, and now, I'm one step further away from replacing my old favorite bakery.

Food Grading Scale:

A-: Very very good. Whatever it is, it’s one of the best, but you can think of further improvements. B+: Very good. Very enjoyable, not to the point of “impressive,” but worth revisiting. B: Good. A solid example of whatever it is, offering enjoyment, but not enough for making an effort to get. B-: Not bad. If in a pinch to eat something, this offers some enjoyment and is a reasonable option. C+: Mediocre plus. Pretty average, but with one or two positive characteristics you can identify. C: Mediocre. “Meh”. Very average. Not bad enough to make you angry, but nothing good...

I’m sorry but I can’t call an unorganized place with no service a 5 star business. They are much better off removing the dine-in option and just do pre-orders, that way they can stay away from reviews like mine.

Please note that this “store” is on a third floor of a building for which you need to get buzzed in. This is my second time here… first time we got here at 9:40 AM on a Friday and they had a sign saying they are “sold out but come in for coffee”… but guess what, they never opened the door for us and after paying for parking and trying the buzzer 3 times, we gave up.

Second time, we came here on a Tuesday at 9:20. This time there was no sign for “sold out” and they opened the door!! But guess what, once we made it upstairs they told us they are sold out. Apparently they open at 8 and are sold out by 9! Sure, no problem, give me a latte (my go-to drink). Man that was one of the worst lattes ever.

This place needs to get its act together. How about just stop advertising for something that you are not.

Never had it but apparently their pastries are very good, so just do that. Definitely no experience running a dine-in place. Remove the option for people to come in and just do pre-order pickups.

I’m only giving 2 stars because they have a spacious area for sitting and they basically leave you alone doing whatever you want, like me writing a review for them while I sip on my bad latte 😂

If you really want to get pastries just pre-order, but personally I’d never give a penny to a place that doesn’t value their customers and wastes their time and money, no matter how great their product is.

————- UPDATE————- It felt wrong to leave a bad review without even getting the opportunity to try what they are famous for, especially after seeing their online message where they asked people to stop visiting them based on recent experiences at the store. So, I felt responsible and tried for a few days until I finally managed to order their pastries online for take out.

The ordering process was simple but pricy 😝, our pastries were ready ahead of time and staff were on point to deliver it to us as soon as we made it to the store. We tried/ordered as many pastries as we could. They were all made from high quality ingredients and they were good but unfortunately I can’t say any of them were exceptional :( …. Sorry to break the news, but I had better croissants in other bakeries in San Diego.

So, it is a good bakery that is under-managed, absolutely. But is it as good as some of the reviews claim, definitely NOT, at least in my opinion.

If I had to give them stars only for online bakery I would give 4 stars, but based on my first experience I can’t give it more than 3. I’ll go back and try again in few months and update.

—— Last update —— At this point I can say tried almost all the pastries. As I said before great pastries but NOT a solid 5 stars. It seems like this place likes to improve and read/follow up with the feedback/comments. Definitely customer service has improved. But much more to be done! Desperate for a real operation management who knows how manage a place like this to get it to the next level.

Place with great potential, with a long road ahead but...

SUPER DELICIOUS LUNCH ! After almost 3 years living in Irvine and San Clemente we were more than happy to move house to La Jolla....much closer to our fav places and friends in San Diego. And IZOLA is one of our absolute favs. In fact my wife and I have been huge fans virtually from the very beginning when the founders Jeffrey & Jenny kicked things off in the studio. BEST SOURDOUGH BREAD & GOURMET CROISSANTS EVER ! On Saturday we headed over here to pick up our online order and hang around for some lunch. PARKING ! It can be very tricky scoring a street parking spot in this area but we got lucky when a car pulled out just as we arrived around 11.30am. After whacking a couple of hours on the meter we ambled inside. SUPER BUSY ! There was a long line out the door stretching to the edge of the sidewalk. While my wife grabbed a table inside I waited a few minutes to place our lunch order at the service counter. A helpful cashier named Tariq took my order for 2 x 7oz Double Shot Cappuccinos and 1 x Muffuletta Croissant ( something new we had our eyes on ). I asked about sweetener and the best option sounded like brown sugar on the side. After I paid upfront Tariq gave me table no 41. MEANWHILE ! Our scheduled pickup time for our online order was midday so I fronted up at the pickup counter to collect our order....1 x Chocolate Almond Croissant, 1 x Blue Cheese & Walnut Sourdough and 1 x Artichoke Heart & Feta Sourdough ( both sourdoughs were new ones for us ). Everything looked perfectly delicious when I peeked inside so I headed back to our table. WHOO HOO ! And then our 2 Cappuccinos arrived courtesy of server Molly who also gave us 2 small glasses with brown sugar for our sweetener. It says on their menu board they are serving a single origin Brazilian espresso. TOTALLY SMOOTH AND SATISFYING...and the brown sugar didn't dampen the flavor of our cappuccinos. Jeff the ever busy manager dropped by to say hi and reminded us they were running a little behind with lunch orders. WHAM BAM ! A cheery server named Michael delivered our awesome looking Muffuletta Croissant on a round breadboard with plates, napkins etc. HOLY GUACAMOLE ! We have enjoyed Muffuletta sandwiches more than a few times during our trips to New Orleans but this was a whole new invention. After slicing it in half we could see all the goodies inside. TASTE ! A totally gourmet experience unlike any other....ultra delicious hardly does the amazing flavor & texture justice. We didn't run into Jeffrey & Jenny who are enjoying weekends off these days now they have an awesome crew in place...but their stamp of excellence was on...