Ethnic Bakeries

Starlight Café
Midtown Global Market, Stall 161, E. Lake St. at Chicago Ave., Mpls., 612-871-7827
Lovely as the butter-cream tortes she creates, Faduma Hashi serves up a range of African specialties and European pastries, bars, tortes, scones, and key lime pie. What’s unique here, however, is the soft, spongy East African bread (sambusi) for wrapping spiced meat, plus éclairs and napoleons that Hashi remembers her grandfather bringing the children as treats. Hang around talking to her long enough (which is easy to do), and she will give you a taste of the Italian torte as she finishes icing it.

Chinese

Keefer Court
326 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls., 612-724-6116
The home of the e-Fortune cookie (custom-ordered sayings), this busy Chinese bakery features sausage-stuffed buns, sweet-bean cakes and cookies, and other traditional sweet and savory pastries.

French/Vietnamese

Trung Nam French Bakery
739 University Ave. W., St. Paul, 651-229-0887
Don’t let the appearance of this former Popeye’s with its chain link fence get in the way of enjoying the best croissants in the Twin Cities. Go for the plain ones—flaky and tender, rich with a quiet tang that tells you this dough has been allowed to rise before being layered with butter and freshly baked. The real deal.

Saigon Restaurant and Bakery
601 University Ave. W., St. Paul, 651-225-8751
Best known for its bánh mì—those Vietnamese submarine sandwiches filled with sweet pickled carrots, daikon, cucumber, cilantro, hot peppers, and meats, all on freshly baked baguettes. Saigon also sells a few French pastries and cakes. But everyone goes for bánh-mì.

Jewish

Cecil’s Delicatessen
651 Cleveland Ave. S., St. Paul, 651-698-6276
You don’t have to be Jewish to love Cecil’s. Try the rich rugelach (bite-sized dumplings of flaky pastry filled with poppy seed paste or jam) or the fresh caraway rye bread. Cecil’s is the go-to place for challah and cookies as well.

Fishman’s Kosher Market & Deli
4100 Minnetonka Blvd., St. Louis Park, 952-926-5611
Fishman’s is a darn good grocery with kosher baked goods, including mandelbread, sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), rugelach, challah, and other Jewish specialties.

Latino

Don Pancho’s Bakery
140 Cesar Chavez St., St. Paul, 651-225-8744
A Mexican self-serve joint with sweet empanadas, budin de pan (bread pudding cake), Don Pancho’s serves a wonderful pastel de tres leches (three-cream cake). Y mucho mas.

El Burrito Mercado
175 Cesar Chavez St., St. Paul, 651-227-2192
This Mexican grocery, located in the heart of St. Paul’s Latino community—District Del Sol—is long on Mexican pastries, sweet empanadas, cookies, and bread.

Panaderia Marissa
2750 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-871-4519; 3733 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-822-0448
Grab a tray and a pair of tongs and pile ’em on: panqué de chocolate (dense pound cake with chocolate frosting), perky besos (filled with sweet apricot jam), and, of course, those churros (foot-long deep-fried spirals adorned with cinnamon sugar), bolillos (hard rolls), sweet empanadas filled with fruit, and all manner of galetas (cookies), some in shocking neon shades of pink, yellow, and green.

Middle Eastern

Holy Land Middle Eastern Restaurant & Deli
2513 Central Ave. NE, Mpls., 612-781-2627; Midtown Global Market,  Stall 145, Lake St. at Chicago Ave., Mpls.
This sprawling Northeast Minneapolis grocery and deli is like an exotic bazaar—aromatic, bustling, noisy. Here, find mountains of pita breads (white or whole-wheat, with or without pockets) all made fresh daily, lavosh, baklava, and numerous pastries, from powdery wedding cakes to sesame-studded horns.

Scandinavian

Café Finspång
Midtown Global Market, Stall 148, Lake St. at Chicago Ave., Mpls., 612-872-2462
The tiny bakery stand serves up Scandinavian specialties, such as lefse, chewy almond crescents, macaroons, sturdy, black rye rugbrod, and open-faced sandwiches aplenty.

Finnish Bistro
2264 Como Ave., St. Paul, 651-645-9181
Soile Anderson’s light, elegant aesthetic resonates throughout this charming spot in charming St. Anthony Park. Expect beautiful tortes and European fruit cheesecakes (with lingonberries) plus Anderson’s trademark breads and pulla rolls.

Scandia Bake Shop
5011 34th Ave. S., Mpls., 612-724-8353
Come the holidays, those who aren’t Scandinavian sure want to be. Oh, those breads and pastries, those groaning-board feasts. A good holiday table requires at least seven different sweets—choose among julekake, krumkake, sandbakkels, Linzer tortes, marzipan cakes, and plenty of spritz. For weddings—the tower of almond rings (kransekake) and a three-tiered Bavarian cream-and-fruit–filled torte (blottekake). There’s also golden St. Lucia’s buns and cardamom or cinnamon twists. Scandia Bake Shop is Minneapolis’s oldest Scandinavian bakery.

Taste of Scandinavia Bakery & Café
Bloomington, Coon Rapids, Little Canada, North Oaks
The bakery founded by Soile Anderson (now of Finnish Bistro) features cardamom-scented, raisin-studded pulla the size of a fat fist, fancy cookies, gleaming cloudberry and lingonberry tarts, and tall, creamy tortes. There are also those oddly named kolacky, almond two o’clocks, and munkki (fried sweet dough loaded with fruit). All are beautifully displayed. Just point if you can’t pronounce them.