London’s Best Bakeries 2026: 10 must-visit spots from Good Food Guide’s list
Published 24 March 2026

Founded by Singaporean restaurateur Ellen Chew and French-born patissier Alix André, this bakery and café started life as a Soho pop-up before putting down roots in the heart of Covent Garden in 2020. East Asian flavours weave their way into a display counter of dazzlingly good-looking treats from hotdog croissants with Japanese BBQ sauce to miso bacon escargots and 'gula melaka' coconut buns. The honey butter toast – a take on Japanese shokupan (milk bread) – is a must-order. A second outlet can now be found on Duke Street in Marylebone, and a third outlet is due to open on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2026.

What started in Harry Robins' Putney flat – loaves and pastries delivered by cargo bike to a band of devoted regulars – has blossomed into one of London's most exciting bakeries. Since crowdfunding to launch their Clapham Common shop in December 2024, Harry and his wife, Florrie Beard, have wasted no time making their mark with meticulous bakes that prioritise substance over style – although the line-up of sweet, seasonal buns and burnished focaccia sandwiches is hardly short on good looks. Proof that the best things really do come from small beginnings.

Sian Evans and Tom Mathews turned lockdown loaves for neighbours into one of Britain’s most lusted-after bakeries – a sell-out success story that has never let its standards slip through five years of unremitting hype. Despite operating both a pre-order pick-up address at 120a and a walk-in site a few doors down, you’ll know you’re near when you spot the queue. Understandably so, as everything from the stacked focaccia sandwiches and airy pizzas by the slice to the malted-milk maritozzi and pumpkin spiced doughnuts hits a home run. 

Deeply embedded within the Queen’s Park community, you’ll find this bakery-by-day, restaurant-by-night buzzing from first thing on a Monday morning. And rightly so. The quality and originality of the goods from head baker Keren Sternberg is outstanding. Just try turning down the gorgeously glossy brown-butter maple challah doughnuts or the buttery crackle of a bergamot sfogliatella. There are also freshly baked sandwiches for weekday lunches or pies at the weekend, and you could do worse than relax into the low-lit good looks of evening service for a seasonal small-plates supper.

There’s a perma-queue at the counter at this bakery and café beneath Hackney's railway arches but it moves quickly and you’ll soon find yourself at a table with your coffee and a bun. Take a laptop or stylish baby if you want to look the part. The baking is exceptional, both in terms of skills and ingredients: their croissants, for example, are made using three different types of heritage flour, stoneground on site and laminated with raw cultured butter. The menu changes constantly but currant buns, florentines and rye cookies are constants. For something more substantial, choose soup, a sourdough sandwich or a seasonal special. There are outlets in Poplar and, from May 2025, in Hackney Wick.

Arguably the best croissants in London (if not the UK) are on offer at Eric’s – a local bakery run by ex-Flor supremo Helen Evans. Inside, it has a level of refinement that most of its rivals simply cannot match: carefully chosen interiors and an intentionally gentler style of service create what one visitor called 'an elevated experience'. Those croissants get their unmatched depth of flavour from a mixture of meticulously sourced wholemeal and emmer flour, but everything excels here: savouries include a rich, tangy and devilishly moreish aubergine and fermented fava bean swirl, while sweet inducements range from exemplary pain au chocolat to cinnamon buns. Eric's only serves filter coffee, but that’s just fine by us.

The golden croissant-shaped door handle sets the tone of this glossy bakery and café before you've even stepped inside. Fred's Oxford Circus outpost, opened in 2025 and complementing the original in Holborn, has earned its place on the social circuit – though its merits run far deeper than influencer aesthetics. Butter-laden bakes are a portal to the streets of Paris at their finest; a decadent tiramisu bun tempts the sweet-toothed, but it's the cinnamon buns, baked fresh throughout the day and served still warm, that stopped us in our tracks.

Hai Lin Leung works to her own schedule when it comes to running her micro-bakery from her Walthamstow home – and rightly so, given that she juggles a career as a full-time doctor alongside it. Her signature bakes, to which loyal locals set their watches, are a reflection of her British-Cantonese identity and include fluffy pineapple buns and her signature sesame soy congee sourdough.

Pa Modou’s petite little Suba bakery is one of Walthamstow’s greatest hits. From the Gambia by way of Hackney, his African- and Asian-inflected bakes are spectacular elevations on the classics. Estate Dairy butter and milled-to-order grain from Scotland are baked into ‘plain’ croissants, produced in batches throughout the morning for the ultimate stretchy, flaky freshness and finished with a mango syrup glaze. There are also bantu buns fragrant with caraway, and sunshine shades in the signature 'mango baobab danish' with cardamom cream. On our latest visit, a Japanese egg mayo sandwich was a savoury highlight. There are outlets in Spitalfields and Upper Clapton.

At the weekend, you may have to join a lengthy queue if you accidentally hit peak time, such is the popularity of this small, crowdfunded Camberwell bakery where excellent bread is a given. Sourdough is long-fermented and made from UK-grown, sustainably farmed grain, but the stars of the show are the pastries. Choose from sweet treats such as almond croissants, saffron and vanilla teacakes or yuzu orange Jaffa mini cakes; otherwise, pick up a savoury croissant (beef brisket 'bear claw' with pickle, say). There are daily meat and vegetarian sandwich options, too.

Image: Teo Della Torre