The Bakery Café by Ghirardelli
2555 Main St, St. Helena, CA
Crema's Take
“Tucked inside what feels like a charming gift shop, this café is run by culinary students who bring genuine care to both their coffee and pastries, with housemade bread and desserts that earn genuine praise. The rotating daily menu keeps things fresh and unpredictable, though expect an intimate, limited selection rather than extensive options—perfect for a leisurely sit-down if you're in the Napa Valley wine country and want something more thoughtful than typical café fare.”
What to expect
Google Reviews
The food was good, limited menu, they have a set menu dont have breakfast options, just pastries, sandwiches, soup and bread.The bread and dessert were amazing!
Good food from the students… good service and good ambience, small selection of wine and good deserts… Menu keeps changing daily ! Lots of parking. Burger was really good !
We wanted to come by for the restaurant but it was closed so we ended up coming to the cafe instead. You walk through what looks like a gift shop to get through it and it's run by students. The menu is a bit limited but nice that you look at the display in order to see what they have instead of a traditional paper menu. We ended up ordering the chicken sandwich, farmers salad, flat bread, strawberry tart, and a pumpkin latte (seasonal). The sandwich and salad were both excellent but the flatbread was a bit thick and chewy and thought both the tart and latte were good. The tart shell was a bit tough to bite through but the flavor was good and the latte was just missing something, maybe some nutmeg or something that would have made it pop a bit more.
I bought a coffee and a one piece of chocolate truffle to go. When the truffle melted in my mouth, I felt a lot of hair in it. A mid-lenght brown one and a couple of short blonde hairs. It made me pretty sick. Not sure if it was supposed to be a joke of some immature students of Culinary Institute, or someone else who was preparing these, but it was extremely disgusting and I’m dissapointed.
We visited the Culinary Institute of America. While there we went to their nice cafe - The Bakery Cafe by illy. We enjoyed a good cup of coffee. They also had some splendid holiday candies. The seating area is pleasant.
Crema Reviews
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