Paderia

With two locations in Orange County and a third in Santa Monica, Paderia (also known as Paderia Bakehouse) has established itself as a particularly excellent destination for desserts and drinks. Vietnamese-founded yet globally inspired, Paderia is best understood as an elevated local alternative to LA’s and NYC’s Magnolia Bakery locations – small but sophisticated shops serving monthly rotating croissants and cookies, banana pudding, mini cheesecakes, Portuguese egg tarts, Filipino ensaimadas, and Portuguese malasada donuts, the latter exclusive to Fountain Valley.

Paderia’s strength comes from doing relatively few things, but achieving such excellence in each that even seemingly simple items taste better here. For example, we’ve gone from gawking at the size and price of their cookies to realizing they’re irresistible: Huge, gooey chips inside the triple chocolate and peanut butter chocolate cookies work so perfectly with their dark chocolate batter that we occasionally skip their other desserts just to experience them again.

Fresh-from oven Portuguese Egg Tarts beat out ones found sitting on shelves at several other bakery chains, and their mini cheesecakes are consistently compelling: Regrettably discontinued but wonderful rotating flavors included blueberry, matcha, ube, and pumpkin. Banana puddings, which also previously rotated through flavors (including one with a giant-sized Oreo on top), have similarly settled into a single basic version that rivals Magnolia Bakery’s classic flavor. (Creamy and light, it’s a great choice to extinguish spice-induced flames from Paderia’s Irvine neighbor, Cluck Kitchen.)

Paderia added croissants to its menu in 2024, including almond and chocolate versions available each month, plus a rotating monthly flavor. After waiting a few months for a super-compelling flavor, we were lucky enough to chance upon a matcha version, which combined a perfectly executed – buttery, flaky, and crispy – pastry with a bright matcha glaze and a pudding-like matcha filling. We’d certainly come back again for another.