Matilda’s

Across from Santa Monica Airport, Matilda’s is a top-notch French-Cali bakery drawing lines out the door daily for its four-day croissants, decadent sausage rolls and impeccable épis baguettes.

It’s hard to picture Francois Pied as anything but a baker, let alone a guy who spent nearly two decades in advertising (at Apple’s agency, no less). But that’s the very-L.A. backstory of Matilda’s founding baker. Born in the south of France, Pied returned to the motherland to turn a pandemic hobby into a calling, training at École Lenôtre in Paris and baking at B.O.U.L.O.M. and L’Amaranthe in his hometown. He came back to Los Angeles to join Bub and Grandma’s, where he met Matilda’s now-lead baker, Abel Pulsifer. Together they’ve created a menu that’s French in spirit and Californian in practice. Everything is slow-fermented for at least 18 hours, and the grain comes from either France or Arizona’s Hayden Flour Mills, including White Sonora wheat, a variety dating back to the 1600s.

Show up at the right time (a tall order, since you never know when things will hit the marble) and you might spot Pied behind the glass partition, taking a bite of a sandwich in beta and kindly telling his team it’s not there yet. Spoiler alert: That sandwich eventually made the cut. It’s prime rib, arugula and horseradish, and I crave it weekly.

Disclaimer: I live about a mile away, so I come here quite a bit and have had the pleasure of trying everything on the menu thus far. My favorite indulgences include the pain au chocolat, loaded with TCHO chocolate (probably the best rendition in town at the moment), and the sausage rolls, stuffed with Peads & Barnetts organic pork sausage and served with A1 sauce, which manage to be rich without feeling heavy. As for seasonal items, a shakshuka danish erupts with tomato goodness, just the right amount of spice and a jammy egg yolk. A guava and passionfruit danish layered with custardy vanilla bean cream cheese is among the best guava and cheese pastries I’ve ever had—and I’m a Miami girl. Even the ready-made sandwiches outdo most in L.A., like a ham and Comté with a generous swipe of DOP butter, or a turkey and havarti with sprouts, pickled onions and aioli.

And butterheads, rejoice! Matilda’s offers a selection of the world’s finest artisanal butters by the once-ounce tasting portion or, in some cases, the full stick. Go butt-er go home?

To drink, there’s Caffè Luxxe coffee and ceremonial matcha with a velvety, house almond milk. Coffee and matcha snobs, be warned: The matcha satisfies, but it’s on the lighter side, and coffee drinks come from a fully automatic machine, so if you like the barista touch, you might want to skip.

For the full pick of the litter, show up at 8am. Unless you’re after an épis baguette—those tend to come out a little later. And don’t trust the inventory on the board or online—things change rapidly.