There seems to be general agreement that Café Besalu in the Ballard neighborhood is the best croissant bakery in town. James Miller consistently has been a semi-finalist for the James Beard Award for outstanding pastry chef. There have also been some claims that Besalu ranks right up there with France’s finest. I’m not in a position to take sides on that last opinion. If you don’t get there early (7am-3pm, W-Su only), lines frequently form pretty quickly, often out the door. Later in the day, croissants can run out though in the morning the kitchen does churn out popular ones as fast as it can make them. My daughter swoons over the almond croissant. With over 400 reviews on Yelp, the average score is astonishingly high.
I was here at 8:20am, more than an hour after Besalu opens. Fortunately, there were only three customers ahead of me. As I’ve said before, I prefer savory over sweet breakfasts, so my choice this morning was the ham and cheese croissant (☆☆☆). I’ll say this, the croissant itself is perfect—buttery, flaky, light and chewy in the middle. As for the filling itself, it is definitely savory but falls a little short of being top-notch, or enough of a distraction to consider driving over here over the one I can get at Belle Pastry in Bellevue.
As for the other pastries, maybe tomorrow would be a good opportunity—or later today? Nah.
9-28-13: It was a day later than when I thought I’d return, but return I did. Blustery and wet weather may have had something to do with the usual line of customers, but I was able to walk right up and order a couple of pastries. The cardamom pretzel (☆☆☆½) was more of a twisted croissant, denser but still flaky with a nice chew and a hint of cardamom on the finish. The plum danish (☆☆☆☆), actually a frangipane, was a masterpiece. Sweet-and-tart plum was beautifully complemented by an almond-flavored crème filling.
Café Besalu
5909 24th Avenue Northwest
Seattle, Washington 98107
206.789.1463
zoomeboshi 
Leave a Reply