Thomas Keller branched out from The French Laundry with American comfort food at Ad Hoc and a Parisian bistro via Bouchon. Keller’s former French Laundry chef de cuisine followed the Francophile theme by opening Monsieur Benjamin four years after Benu. Coi’s Daniel Patterson and his DPG group seem to open a new venue or change an existing one every few months (Aster, Plum Bar + Restaurant, Alta CA, etc.). La Folie’s Roland Passot has Left Bank Brasseries around the Bay Area. Joshua Skenes of Saison soon will open Fat Noodle. Quince’s Michael Tusk later opened Cotogna, Acquerello has 1760, Chez Panisse has Chez Panisse Cafe…you get the picture. Prominent Bay Area chefs love opening a casual sequel.

David Kinch of the Michelin two-starred Manresa in Los Gatos, on the other hand, took his time in expanding from the mothership. Instead of opening a "Le Petit Manresa" or yet another casual, neighborhood bistro with a focus on sustainable, local, and organic ingredients, Kinch didn’t even go the sequel restaurant route at all. Instead, after 13 years, he opted for a bakery. With Manresa’s head baker Avery Ruzicka, Manresa Bread commenced, selling loaves at the Campbell Farmers Market in 2013 and soon after at Palo Alto’s California Avenue Farmers Market. When you’re the 62nd-best restaurant in the world (according to the very scientific San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best rankings), and launch a baking program at farmers markets, the eating public will notice. Lines started early and extended to Tartine/Mr. Holmes lengths right away.

Two months ago, Manresa Bread opened its tiny shop in Los Gatos, approximately 25 steps from Manresa’s front door. A nearby commissary kitchen with a 19,000-pound Italian-made oven yields 450 loaves of bread and 800 pastries a day. There is a pair of two-person benches out front and no seating inside the shop, hence there will be kale scone crumbs in your car. Something to drink? Pour yourself a cup of Verve drip coffee. No baristas to provide attitude here. It is a tranquil, spartan space, intensely devoted to the beauty that is bread and buttery treats. Rumor has it that a café will open in the summer (sandwiches with the bread!) and a Cajun restaurant in Los Gatos is in the works (Kinch grew up in New Orleans).

Manresa Bread is all about Ruzicka’s breads and the gorgeous pastries from Manresa’a pastry chef Stephanie Prida. The breads and pastries are formidable. There is no need to leave you in suspense — they are as good as it gets in the Bay Area, and that is a seriously bold statement to make.

Baguettes ($3.50, all other breads $8)) are majestic, with an artistic curve to the end nub that evokes Dali’s moustache. A unique breed of red fife wheat from Camas Country Mill in southern Oregon transforms the whole wheat from the obligatory health choice of the yoga set into something transcendent, sporting that perfect pure nuttiness and an inner dough marbling of a top flight Wagyu filet. Ruzicka’s olive sourdough boule is a masterpiece, with a gorgeous sour burst from the crust tamed by a sweeter interior and the occasional salt jolt. But if there is a single bread to select, make it the fruit and nut (pumpkin seeds, raisins, currants) boule.

Oh, yes, the “laminated” pastries (think puff pastry as the base). The pain au chocolat and almond croissants are textbook, better than any this writer ate while living in Paris for six months. Somebody needs to do a kouign amann-off with the fabled ones at B Patisserie. After all, Belinda Leong is a former Manresa pastry chef. Chocolate brioche and gluten-free, frosting-free carrot cake are hits, with less of a sugary high. If in a savory mood, the kale scones beckon. Only the whole wheat chocolate chip cookie studded with walnuts didn’t reach stratospheric heights, mainly from almost not being sweet enough, maybe from the addition of the wheat. But that is overboard nitpicking. 

While studying abroad in Dijon, France for a year and a half, Ruzicka fell in love with the pain integral, a miche-style whole grain sourdough loaf studded with figs, hazelnuts, and apricots from a baker at the local market nicknamed “The Bread Pirate.” Yes, Ruzicka tells us, he really did wear a red bandana and a big gold hoop earring. The pirate didn’t convince Ruzicka to become the next Dread Pirate Roberts but did fascinate her with his bread, eventually leading her to the French Culinary Institute, Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York, and well, to why San Franciscans now are willing to drive an hour south for a levain loaf. Nobody should be surprised if a few local kids taste the seeded whole wheat and decide baking should be their future instead of being a scallywag of the sea or, more commonly in these parts, a programmer.

At the end of the day, what brings out everyone's inner orangutan is the monkey bread. It’s a giant cube of croissant dough dusted with cinnamon and sugar, given a spunky swipe of molasses butter. Serve this as a closing sweet of the $198 meal next door and diners will beat their chests à la gorillas.

Or for a slightly lower price, get past the “no need to go south of SFO for anything except work and ramen" philosophy and make a day trip to Los Gatos with some picnic supplies and grab the bread and pastries here. Then make up the price difference with a bottle of the nearby Ridge Vineyards’ 1998 Montebello. Please, enough of the Gluten is Satan attitude. Bread is glorious. The best discovery since the invention of sliced bread just might be Manresa Bread.

276 N Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos; (408)402-5372.