The laid-back island city of Alameda has always been an appealing day trip for its beaches and waterfront breweries, but often, its dining scene gets overshadowed by Oakland and Berkeley. That’s changing fast.
Ever since Indonesian-Texas barbecue restaurant Fikscue opened in 2023 and gained national acclaim, culinary momentum on the island has been building. Now, the East Bay city is experiencing a full-blown bakery boom.
Oakland favorite Bake Sum opened a second outpost in May, followed closely by Castro Valley’s Ones Café & Bakery in July — just blocks apart on Park Street. Add in a stellar weekend doughnut program at Moxie, plus an upcoming brick-and-mortar from farmers market staple Night Heron Bread, as well as existing bakeries Crispian Bakery, Firebrand Bread and Donut Petit, and the island has become a destination in its own right.
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Scenes from two of the new crop of Alameda, Calif., bakeries: Bake Sum, top left and bottom left, and Ones Cafe and Bakery.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
Scenes from two of the new crop of Alameda, Calif., bakeries: Bake Sum, first and third photos from top, and Ones Cafe and Bakery.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
I took a walk down Park Street to see what the buzz is all about.
Ones Cafe & Bakery
At 10 a.m. on a Friday, Ones Cafe & Bakery was packed with customers sipping black sesame lattes while working on their laptops. Ones manager Cyrus Zhang, whose mother and aunt co-own the bakery, had advised me to get there early: Wait too long, and the pastry case might be empty.
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Zhang’s mother, Mei Tang, and aunt, Nicole Tang, opened the original Ones Cafe in Castro Valley in 2024. The family has previously owned Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, and Mei learned French lamination technique in Japan. Ones Cafe’s pastries feature Asian-inspired flavors and playful shapes, from a Thai-inspired spicy lemongrass chicken pastry to a black sesame “onigiri” (a triangular croissant shaped like the Japanese rice ball). Its most popular pastries are its moon croissants, filled with either strawberry or ube cream.
Interior of Ones Cafe and Bakery on Park Street in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
Cindy Zhao fills the popular Ube Moon pastry in the kitchen at One’s Cafe and Bakery on Park Street in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
“She was looking for, how do I go about this where we can be a little bit different?” Zhang said of his mother. “… At its core, this is a French bakery, right? So what are some other bakes that we can use just to make it a little bit fun, while still keeping the laminated dough?”
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While the lemongrass chicken pastry was already sold out when I arrived, I was able to try the strawberry moon and the black sesame onigiri, as well a rather unexpected savory pastry: a tuna salad Danish with avocado, potatoes and Thousand Island dressing. My favorite was the strawberry moon, with crispy layers of laminated pastry that shattered away to expose a mountain of mildly sweet strawberry cream inside. It reminded me of a more decadent version of the famous Neiman Marcus popovers with whipped strawberry butter that you can get at the Rotunda in San Francisco. Soon, Zhang said they plan to use their soft-serve machine to incorporate ice cream into a croissant, which is a menu item I will definitely return for.
Michael Hew, left, decides what to order at Ones Cafe and Bakery on Park Street in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026. Hew’s favorite here is the popular Beef Cup.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
Nicole Tang, co-owner of Ones Cafe and Bakery on Park Street in Alameda, Calif., stands with a tray of pastries on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026. The other co-owner is Mei Tang, her sister.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
Zhang said that his family decided to expand to Alameda because the opportunity to take over the Coffee Cultures space came along at the right time, and his aunt also happens to be from Alameda. It’s a decision that proved fruitful — they’ve been surprised at how busy it’s been.
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“We were hoping for equal to how we were doing in Castro Valley, and it’s definitely been more than that,” Zhang said. “So we’re very appreciative of people that are supporting us in Alameda.”
Ones Cafe & Bakery, 1926 Park St., Alameda. Open Wednesday through Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.
Bake Sum
Bake Sum has been one of Oakland’s most celebrated bakeries since it opened in Grand Lake in 2021, even garnering acclaim from the New York Times for its Croissubi (a Spam musubi-inspired croissant). Owner Joyce Tang said that she was looking to move out of her commissary space in Berkeley to something larger, so it felt like the right opportunity when Feel Good Bakery vacated its space at the Alameda Marketplace. Now, the Alameda Bake Sum produces dough for both locations.
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“It’s such a beautiful community, it’s really well run, it’s really clean, it’s really safe and we have a parking lot now,” Tang said of Alameda. “Those are a lot of the big things that we didn’t get in Oakland and in Berkeley, frankly, that we’re finding here that are really helping us usher in that next phase of growth.”
Tamar Weir working behind the front counter of Bake Sum in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
A close-up view of Okonomiyaki Danishes at Bake Sum, a popular new bakery in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
Winding through the grocery aisles of the Alameda Marketplace, I found Bake Sum’s stall in the back. I’m not normally huge on savory pastries, but the okonomiyaki Danish singlehandedly changed my mind: The croissant interpretation of the Japanese pancake was packed with umami, from roasted cabbage and savory mushrooms to a sweet onion Mornay sauce. What took it to the next level were the drizzles of Kewpie mayo and sweet tangy okonomiyaki sauce, plus a shower of bonito flakes.
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I also loved the ginger peach cruffin, which reminded me of a morning bun with its bright, zesty dusting of sugar, as well as the concha-inspired pineapple milk bun and the crispy-chewy coco-ube cookie. As a pescatarian, I didn’t sample the famous Croissubi, but I found it fascinating to hear the Bay Area’s changing reception of it over the years. Tang said that when she first introduced it at her pop-ups 10 years ago, she really had to sell people on Spam. Now, it needs no introduction — it’s her most popular pastry.
“Because of the diversity in backgrounds and population in the Bay Area, I think that the appetite for all these different flavors and presentations and styles, there’s a lot of runway for folks to do a lot of this stuff that I didn’t feel like I had 10 years ago,” she said.
A tray of baked pastries inside Bake Sum, a popular new bakery owned by Joyce Tang inside the Marketplace building in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
Joyce Tang, owner of Bake Sum, a popular new bakery inside the Marketplace in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.
Douglas Despres/For SFGATE
So much so, that now, two Asian-inspired bakeries can open within a few blocks of each other in downtown Alameda and both be successful.
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“I think that one of the big draws for us is that there’s a really big, growing Asian American scene on the island here for sure,” Tang said. “It’s really strong.”
Bake Sum, 1650 Park St., Alameda. Open Friday through Sunday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Moxie
Continuing my sugar-fueled amble down Park Street, I’d barely crossed the street from the Alameda Marketplace before an A-frame sign stopped me in my tracks. “Fresh donuts and cocktails,” it beckoned.
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Moxie is a steakhouse by night, but on Saturdays and Sundays, it’s a brunch restaurant. Tuck into a plate of steak and eggs in a cushy red velvet booth, or just pop in for a doughnut. Regardless, you should definitely order a doughnut, because if you do, a full bar cart of gorgeous confections will be wheeled out for you to choose from.
A selection of baked goods from Moxie in Alameda, Calif.
Courtesy of Moxie
Moxie chef Donna Meadows built a following for her doughnuts at Alameda’s Little House Cafe (from the same owners as Moxie), where she was the chef until it closed in 2022. So when Moxie debuted its brunch program in early 2025, she listened to her customers’ pleas and brought them back. On Saturdays and Sundays, Meadows comes in at 6 a.m., makes the doughnuts and leaves just before Moxie opens at 10 a.m. She then returns in the afternoon for dinner service. When I asked her if she ever manages to get any rest, she demurred.
“I love doing it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
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From the sugar-dusted rows of doughnuts, I selected a blackberry plum bombolone, an Italian filled doughnut. It was pure late summer in a doughnut, the soft, fluffy dough collapsing to reveal a center of light pastry cream surrounded by tart, dark purple jam.
Meadows’ bombolone fillings are in constant rotation, from passion fruit curd to strawberry rhubarb, based on whatever seasonal fruit looks good at Berkeley’s Monterey Market. French crullers, chocolate glazed and maple bacon doughnuts are also often available, as well as the occasional scones and housemade pop tarts.
Chocolate-glazed doughnuts and French crullers at Moxie, in Alameda, Calif., which offers doughnuts during brunch service.
Courtesy of Moxie
Despite doing little to promote her doughnuts, Meadows said they’ve been wildly popular. In one particularly busy recent weekend, they sold 175 doughnuts. “It’s crazy, like I’m not a doughnut factory, people,” she joked. “What’s going on?”
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As an Alameda resident of 23 years, Meadows is excited to see her city’s dining scene, and specifically its bakery scene, having a moment.
When she first started working in Alameda, she said, “I thought, OK, Alameda is going to be supercool and hip and trendy. It’s taken a long time for Alameda, I think. But maybe we’re finally going to make it.”
Moxie, 1640 Park St, Alameda. Doughnuts are available Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Night Heron Bread
Night Heron Bread’s upcoming brick-and-mortar is still in the works, but for now, you can find it at the farmers market in West Alameda on Tuesday and Saturday (and if you hadn’t wanted to leave Park Street, up until the summer’s recent end, it also had a spot at the Thursday market downtown). On a Tuesday morning, I shopped for stone fruit and zucchini before joining the other customers lining up for loaves of sourdough bread and seasonal pastries.
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Trevor Adams and Robin Ostenfeld Adams started Night Heron as a sourdough pandemic project in 2020. Trevor, a bread baker at Tartine in San Francisco, had a health condition that made him reluctant to return to a communal work environment. So the couple decided to launch their own bakery out of their garage in Alameda. Six years later, the business has blossomed: Now, they bake out of a commissary kitchen in San Francisco and plan to soon open their own place in the former Feel Good Bakery space at 3215 Encinal Ave. in Alameda. (While they had originally announced an early 2026 opening, the buildout is taking longer than they expected.)
Night Heron Bread co-owner Robin Ostenfeld Adams holds a loaf of sourdough at the Alameda Farmers Market on Aug. 25, 2026.
Madeline Wells/SFGATE
The couple are Alameda locals through and through, and are looking forward to being able to bake without leaving the island.
“There’s a lot of great bakeries in the Bay Area, but we were really missing really delicious sourdough here, and we saw an opportunity to bring it to the island,” Ostenfeld Adams said, who is a middle school food and agricultural science teacher when she’s not baking.
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You can’t go wrong with anything at Night Heron, but I loved the honey whole wheat bread — a sourdough sandwich bread with 85% whole grain and just the right touch of sweetness. The peach coffee cake was moist and brimming with sweet, peak-season peaches, topped with a crunchy crumb topping, and the hatch chile corn cheddar biscuit was the perfect balance of spicy and savory. The corn cookie — a crispy-chewy sugar cookie made with corn milk — has its own cult following, for good reason.
Night Heron Bread is a farmers market sourdough staple that’s opening a brick-and-mortar location soon in Alameda, Calif.
Courtesy of Night Heron Bread
While Feel Good Bakery recently closing after 21 years and freeing up two bakery spaces on the island explains some of Alameda’s recent bakery boom, Ostenfeld Adams thinks there’s more to it. Alameda is home to a community of people who like to spend time outside, on the waterfront, and who also have a deep appreciation for local, scratch-made food.
“They’re hanging out in parks, and people need to eat and want to bring things there that are delicious,” she said. “It’s a community that wants to get together, and needs coffee and sugar in order to fuel it.”
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Night Heron Bread, available at the Tuesday and Saturday Alameda Farmers Market, 710 Haight Ave., 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Dining and Cooking