Neighbor Bakehouse — Restaurant in San Francisco

My husband and I started our bakery exploration weekends. We do this in Europe when we do ping drives between major cities. We stop at random cities along the route looking for the best bakeries in the area and learning about thé different bread, pastries, desserts, etc. in the area. Our first stop this weekend is Neighbor Bakehouse. We wanted something different from our usual Arsicault and B Patisserie mainstays. First of all, as in most areas in the city, parking is a challenge. But not too bad. Upon arriving to the bakery, we were greeted with a line. We did not expect anything less. While in line, locals would pass by telling us “it is worth our wait” to the long line of people on the sidewalk waiting. I’m glad I had my hat on because we were under the noon sun. A few minutes passed and it was finally our turn. We unfortunately passed on the bread because it was with olives and rosemary. Something tells me we should have tried it because the person in front of me with her groceries took a list of bread and a dessert treat. Anyway, that will be part two of our visit. We will be back. As my FOMO hits, I asked for several butter and chocolate croissants for good measure and one each of the remaining pastries. By the writing of this review I have only had the chocolate hazelnut twice-baked and butter croissant. The croissants dough they used is like the Arsicault croissant dough had a child with the Costco croissant dough. Not as buttery and flaky as thé Arsicault dough but more buttery and flaky than the Costco croissant. It taste good and not as heavy to the stomach as the Arsicault butter croissant. We love the Arsicault croissant. It’s closer to the Parisian croissant in our opinion. But we would love to get the Neighbor Bakehouse butter croissant everyday if we can. The chocolate hazelnut twice-baked is delicious as well. Flaky with the delicate crunch, not too sweet with enough hazelnut flavor to enjoy. Based on these two pastries, balance is the recurring theme playing thru my head. They both have a sense of balance and I truly enjoyed both of them. I will be enjoying the rest of the box with my family especially tomorrow for breakfast. The quality of the pastries are remarkable. I am excited to try the caramelized banana almond bostock, Ube croissant, amelie and strawberry croissant buns among the other items in our box. This was a great solid start. I have truly enjoyed the treats and looking forward to...

Where do I begin with this place? I know - stop whatever you're doing, get in a car, über, or the T line muni, arrive at Neighbor and buy the ginger pull apart. This is my favorite pastry of all time. Why? It's a myriad of textures and flavors that evoke all the best aspects of perfect baked goods. The pastry is composed of croissant dough scraps pieced together and layered with sugar and crystallized ginger. Its got a bit of that super on trend kouign Amman swagger with twice the size and twice the textural variance. The top is light and airy like those awesome bubbles that form on the crust of a pizza. Inside it's doughy and soft, like the inner layers of a cinnamon roll or raised donut. The bottom gets a crazy crystalized sugar caramelization that sticks to your teeth like ginger taffy. The aroma is buttery with dancing ginger spice and is never too sweet or too spicy. It is perfection.

And that's just one pastry!!

Neighbor doesn't get the shine of some of the hipper spots in the city but it deserves all the glory. Their croissants are perfect, and I've tried them all from plain to chocolate (claw) to everything (bagel) to salmon to blackberry pistachio. Flawless layers of fluffy flour and butter. They also have a wonderful sauerkraut tart and rotating veggie tarts that perfectly balance savory ingredients with a sweet dough. I have literally tried almost every thing this shop has to offer and have never been disappointed.

They also offer whole loaves of bread, and recently I picked up a fresh sourdough sandwich loaf ($6) and made the best French toast of my life with it. Go to neighbor. You won't regret it.

Note: normally a spot that offers little-to-no seating would get a slight dock in my book but I'm in the "pick up pastries in my PJ's and bring them home" camp rather than try to deal with the early morning dog...

Was told off by the curly haired female staff with glasses for taking photos. Oh wait, there’s no sign anywhere that says no photos. And it’s a place that serves food and even though people have mixed opinions on whether one should take photos of food, many do it, so it’s more or less “normal” these days? Was she worried about potential competitors trying to spy on them? Oh actually, Neighbor’s own instagram has photos and videos of their baked goods and their kitchen 🤷🏻‍♀️ I wasn’t blocking traffic either because it was a Wednesday at 7:20am and we were the only people inside - so what is it? I have tried most of their stuff and everything is mediocre (subjective statement of course - evacuated based on my preferences) except for the raspberry hazelnut croissant (and second place: pistachio blackberry croissant). Those are so good. Most negative reviews on google and yelp are about their customer service. It’s true that the customer service has never been overwhelmingly positive but it was never much of a problem because it was never technically bad - their staff are just like every waiter in France who doesn’t work for tips - kind of condescending and/or not giving a damn but still overall reasonably efficient. The curly haired woman with glasses though - I saw a yelp reviewer who was said to frequent the place weekly and wrote that the service is bad but she was especially bad and needed an attitude check 🤷🏻‍♀️🤤 not working for tip is not inherently an excuse to be rude though - servers in Australia don’t work on tip but the majority of them are super friendly. I’ll just go to Bluestone lane coffee shop in the city that serves their raspberry hazelnut croissant in the future (and much better coffee). And if I reeeeaaally want the pistachio hazelnut for a change, I’ll call ahead and make sure she’s not...