Bread & Cie

On our list of the best dessert spots in San Diego.

Charles Kaufman, a former filmmaker who once carried a 143-year-old sourdough starter home in his lap from a bakery near Cannes, opened this Hillcrest bakery and cafe in 1994 as the first in San Diego to bake hard-crust European bread. The oven still turns out crusty peasant-style loaves and pastries the wholesale side now delivers to hotels and grocers across the region, while the counter serves sandwiches like roast beef with horseradish cream, soups made from scratch, and daily-changing baked goods. Its only retail storefront has stayed in the same Hillcrest spot for more than three decades.