Best of Philly

Best Bakery

2026 Best Wedding: Baker

The Cake Vault

A gluten-free cake with black sesame ganache and salted caramel. A honey lavender and lemon confection with lavender buttercream and lemon curd. And an old-fashioned spiced apple cake with brown butter cream cheese buttercream. Those are among the flavors Esy Arthur layers into her gorgeous (and delicious) nontraditional wedding cakes, which can range from a pretty oval design with a mix of dainty and vintage piping to a structural sweet complete with a disco ball that holds up two of the three tiers. A recent addition to her pastry prowess: a 17-pound tiramisu, because big desserts are now a thing. Read More »

5401 Tacony Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2026 Best Babka

Rougarou Baking

Babka is traditionally made with either chocolate or cinnamon. At Rougarou, in a stroke of glorious maximalism, hefty slabs of buttery, braided brioche are thickly swirled with both. It’s a signature at Paige and Zach Wernick’s Creole- and Jewish-inspired bakery, which is shaped by her New Orleans and Gulf Coast roots and his Philly upbringing. Go early — the rotating menu of treats from babka to brown-butter chocolate chip cookies and flaky jambalaya hand pies disappears fast. Read More »

526 South 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2025 Best Bakery

Downtime Bakery

What began in 2022 as a pop-up operation out of Dayna Evans’s home is now a full-fledged bakery in Mount Airy. Evans and her partner, Sam Carmichael, serve a cornucopia of sourdough bagels, breads, and sweet and savory treats, made with local grains. While the bakery is known for its excellent bread, you can’t go wrong elsewhere on the menu — and thanks to Downtime’s staggered baking schedule, there’ll be something fresh, guaranteed. Read More »

6624 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA Website

2024 Best Cakes

Dreamworld Bakes

When Patti LaBelle celebrated her 80th birthday, there was only one bakery bold enough for the Godmother of Soul: Dreamworld. Adorned with fresh flowers, glitter, and broad swirling strokes of vibrant icing, every creation by owner Ashley Huston is a statement piece. The flavor combos are just ambitious. Cardamom-spiced sponge filled with mango-chai mousse; matcha cake with lavender-strawberry jam; and for LaBelle’s birthday, brown butter cake topped with — what else? — lemon marmalade. Read More »

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2024 Best Wedding: Statement Cakes

Clara’s Groovy Deliciousness

There are cakes, and then there are cakes, like the ones crafted by Brookhaven baker Samirah Williams. She’ll take your initial idea and run with it, layering buttercream, ganache, hand-shaped petals, sugar leaves — a little dash of everything sweet — to create a tiered confection that will draw almost as much attention as you will on your wedding day. For favors? Her LoveCrunch caramel corn in one of her limited-edition flavors — like honey-candied rosemary. Read More »

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2023 Best Wedding: Reason to Have a Vintage-Style Cake

New June Bakery

Imagine cutting into a four-tiered, ultra-frilly Lambeth-style cake on your Big Day — you’ll slice through prettily piped garlands and scrolls and frosting on frosting to reveal a vanilla confection with layers of tangy lemon cream and raspberry cardamom jam. The micro bakery and cake studio’s self-taught baker, Noelle Wheatley Blizzard, is embracing retro maximalism with her ’60s-inspired designs, and they’ve become wildly popular among the soon-to-be-wed crowd. Read More »

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2021 Best Bakery

Eeva

Pizza and wine is Eeva’s main game, sure, but every weekend, the kitchen crew bakes crispy-skinned bagels completely coated in everything spice, country loaves so airy they could double as kick drums, glistening­ focaccia,­ French baguettes and cookies. Read More »

310 Master Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2021 Best Mission-Driven Bake Shop

Darnel’s Cakes

Discs of cheese danish and icing-smothered brioche cinnamon rolls taste that much better when you know Kyle Cuffie-Scott’s business supports AIDS and HIV relief orgs. And they tasted pretty damn good to begin with. Read More »

444 North 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA Website

2019 Best New Jewish Bakery

Lipkin’s Bakery

The Lipkin family’s first bakery was in South Philly, but they left for the Northeast almost 50 years ago. Well, they’re baaaacck. And their knishes, bagels, and poppy seed hamantaschen are better than ever. Read More »

2153 South Hancock Street, Philadelphia, PA | 215-462-1637 | Website

2019 Best Neighborhood Hang

Jezabel’s Argentine Cafe & Bakery

When Jezabel Careaga moved her Fitler Square Argentine cafe west, she combined it with a teahouse and retail shop, and it immediately became a hit — a place to eat, work, study, host events, and run into the neighbors. Read More »

206 South 45th Street, Philadelphia, PA | 267-519-2494 | Website