Butter & Crumble

Cuisine Café / Bakery
Price $$ (16-30)
Rating 8/10
Last Visit Feb. 23, 2025
Location SFBA: San Francisco: North
General Notes

Butter & Crumble is right up there with Arsicault as one of the greatest bakeries in SF. While Arsicault focuses more on classic flavors for its pastries, the star of the show here is the excellent flavor combinations. They're not groundbreaking by any means, but they take classic flavor pairings and bring them to life with excellent execution. Definitely worth a try! I like to come once every three months or so to try all of their new offerings -- they have a lot of seasonal items.

Positives

> It's in a lovely neighborhood -- definitely would recommend exploring around! Washington Square Park is also a few blocks away, and it's a great place to enjoy your pastries.
> They update their menu seasonally. A few of their items are staples that are always on their menu (e.g. the pistachio cream croissant), but most of their items rotate with the seasons so you'll be able to try something new every time!

Negatives

> The line can get VERY long. I got here around 9:30am on a Saturday and waited for around an hour. Definitely bring some good company to pass the time (or, pre-order in advance so that you won't have to wait)

Dishes Tasted
  • ★★★★ Steak Frites Croissant -- yes, this is actually sliced steak and potatoes inside, with a topping of shoestring fries. And it's incredible.
  • ★★★☆ Cornflake Cookie
  • ★★★☆ Twice Baked Passionfruit Croissant
  • ★★★☆ Raspberry Almond Pastry
  • ★★★★ Roasted Strawberry Cheesecake Cruffin -- incredibly delicious, also terrible structural integrity and messy to eat
  • ★★★☆ Mortadella & Pistachio Pesto Croissant -- pretty yummy, the pesto adds a nice touch to it. One of the better "ham and cheese" type croissants I've had in a while
  • ★★★☆ ham / cheese croissant -- this is delicious, the egg yolk is an excellent touch.
  • ★★★★ chocolate cream pastry? -- there was one pastry that had a rich chocolate cream inside
  • ★★★★ espresso hazelnut? -- we had some kind of espresso hazelnut pastry, it was INCREDIBLE.
  • ★★★★ cruffin -- this was incredible, it tasted almost like a kouign amann at arsicault
  • ★★★☆ mushroom danish
  • ★★★☆ apple double-baked croissant
  • ★★☆☆ brownie -- a typical brownie, nothing too special
  • ★★★☆ Sausage Pain Suisse -- a little bit too salty, but otherwise very good! one of their seasonal savory pastries for fall 2024.
  • ★★★☆ Vegan Espresso Almond Cake -- vegan almond cake, espresso butter swirl, cinnamon crumble, coffee cream. Excellent flavor combination, and the texture was really nice! If I didn't know before hand, I honestly would not know that this was vegan.
  • ★★☆☆ Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie -- soft and gooey 55%, 70%, and 40%. Valrhona chocolates, topped with maldon sea salt. Great cookie, but not particularly noteworthy. A bit too chocolate-heavy for me.
  • ★★★★ Pistachio Cardamom Sugar Criossant -- cardamom sugar dusted, whipped pistachio cream stuffed. SO GOOD
  • ★★★★ S'mores Pain Suisse -- graham pastry cream, chocolate chips, marshmallow fluff. I'm a huge sucker for marshmallow fluff -- this was excellent.
  • ★★★★ Bruscetta Danish -- cherry tomatoes, herby balsamic bruschetta vibes, goat cheese, basil oil. This is INCREDIBLE.
  • ★★★☆ Blackberry Ricotta Swirl -- ricotta custard, cinnamon oak crumble, blackberry puree, tossed in cardamom sugar, topped with ricotta cream and fresh blackberry.
  • ★★★★ Twice Baked Peaches & Cream -- brown butter seminola frangipane, cinnamon peach compote, topped with whipped bourbon mascarpone cream. This was absolutely incredible; the flavor combination is amazing and the mix of creams / peach is perfect.
  • ★★☆☆ classic croissant -- french butter. Not super noteworthy but a solid classic croissant. Very flaky and a little lighter than your typical croissant.
  • ★★★★ Herby Mushroom & Potato Danish
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more pastries!
pastries!