Colorado has a reputation for altitude, outdoors, and craft beer. The bakery part is newer to the conversation, but it has arrived. In the last decade, the state has produced some of the most technically accomplished bakers in the country: James Beard nominees, New York Times picks, gold medalists at international bread competitions, working out of everything from food halls to historic grain mills to strip malls that have no business producing croissants this good.
The Best Bakeries in Colorado
DENVER
Azucar Bakery | Platt Park
Azucar was founded in 2007 by a Peruvian baker with a dream and a multi-layer cake. It has been honored by both Westword and 5280, and has won WeddingWire’s Couples’ Choice Award eight years running. The specialty is custom cakes, technically precise and visually stunning, but the daily case is equally worth the trip: alfajores, dulce de leche-filled shortbread, and Peruvian sweets that bring Latin flavors to a South Broadway block that has embraced them completely. One reviewer described the buttercream and mousse as all decadent, at half the price of competitors. Walk-in friendly, warm atmosphere, free samples.
Bakery Four | Berkeley
Bakery Four has been named People’s Choice Best Bakery by Westword and 5280 three years running, and owner Shawn Bergin took Best Baker honors from StarChefs in 2023. The bread team won gold medals in sourdough and baguettes at the 2025 IBIE World Bread Awards. All of that from a naturally leavened bakery on Tennyson Street that started as a pandemic-era cottage operation. Every component of every product is made from scratch before sunrise, using imported French butter, Valrhona chocolate, and stone-milled flour. The morning bun, an orange zest cinnamon roll built on croissant dough, has its own following. One reviewer called the sourdough the best they had tasted anywhere in the world, including Boudin in San Francisco. Get there early. They sell out.
Black Box Bakery | Edgewater Public Market
Founded by a group of friends in 2019 and operating out of Edgewater Public Market, Black Box leans into a space theme that is genuinely fun without being gimmicky. The menu runs to ube cruffins, strawberry milk croissants, and miso caramel banana tarte tatin: laminated pastries built to impress, arriving in boxes that treat the presentation as part of the experience. The kitchen is wide open, and customers can watch the whole process from start to finish. One reviewer called it the one bakery they would choose in all of Colorado, and City Cast Denver readers consistently nominate the sausage roll, cinnamon rolls, and chocolate chip cookies as must-orders.
GetRight’s | Wheat Ridge
Chef Matt Dulin runs a 1,200-square-foot spot in Wheat Ridge that functions simultaneously as a bakery, sandwich shop, pizza joint, gelato parlor, and plant nursery. The maritozzi, Italian sweet buns split open and filled with a serious amount of cream, and a Basque cheesecake with a devoted following are the draws, but the pizza uses the same naturally leavened dough as the bread, and the gelato is made from unsold pastries. One reviewer called it the best bakery they had ever been to in Denver. 5280 covered it in October 2025 as a place that doesn’t dabble: it shines. Top items sell out, so get there early.
Photo by GetRight's
Hearth | RiNo, Uptown, and Highland
Westword’s Best Pastries at a Coffee Shop for 2025, Hearth started as farmers market pop-ups and has grown into three Denver locations with a fourth on the way, all built around locally milled Rocky Mountain grains, Colorado-grown produce, and coffee roasted by Hearth’s own sister company, Tablon. The pastry case rotates with the seasons: asparagus and ricotta salata Danishes in spring, spiced apple in fall, alongside year-round staples like the fudgy brownie and chocolate tahini cookie. The vibe is warm and unfussy, the kind of place you go in for a croissant and leave with an armful. One visitor said the pastries honestly rivaled anything they had tried in France.
Rebel Bread | Baker
Rebel Bread operates inside the Denver Design Center on South Broadway as both a bakery and a bread school, and the mission is genuinely about the craft. The bread is handmade, naturally fermented, and gluten-reduced, with loaves running from the Nonna G sourdough to a fig pink peppercorn variety, alongside croissants, focaccia sandwiches, and a Friday pizza night. One reviewer described everything they make, from pastries to classic loaves, as next-level delicious. The community feel is built in: baking classes, tours, and staff who will let you smell the experimental pastries if you ask. It is a good place to spend a Saturday morning if you have nowhere else to be.
OUTSIDE DENVER
Baked in Telluride | Telluride
Established in 1977 and affectionately known as B-I-T, Baked in Telluride is a no-frills, everything-baked-fresh-daily institution half a block off Main Street. Bagels, croissants, empanadas, pizza by the slice, and the buttermilk bar donut that the owner considers the sleeper item on the menu. Yelp reviewers call the ham and green chili croissant one of the best things in Telluride. The character and heart of B-I-T are still here after nearly 50 years, and the table of regulars who come in every morning for coffee would agree without hesitation.
Ginger and Baker | Fort Collins
A lovingly restored 1905 grain mill in the River District of Old Town Fort Collins, Ginger and Baker is a bakery, café, steakhouse, market, teaching kitchen, and event space that holds together with complete coherence. The bakery anchors the whole thing: fresh-baked pies (pecan and cherry reviews regularly use the word “world-class”), sourdough, cinnamon rolls, and seasonal pastries made from scratch daily. One reviewer said the chicken pot pie and pies alone were worth the trip, and that the Thanksgiving visit was the most enjoyable dining experience of their fall. The space itself, with original brick, warm wood, and a rooftop patio, makes a strong case for lingering. For over 100 years, this building has been where Fort Collins gathered, and it still is.
Photo by Ginger and Baker
Moxie Bread Co. | Louisville (with locations in North Boulder and Lyons)
Founder Andy Clark spent 15 years running bakeries for Whole Foods before opening Moxie to focus on 30 great loaves a day instead of 30,000. The flagship sits on the corner of Main and Pine in downtown Louisville in an 1880 building that has been a home and a doctor’s office and now smells like freshly milled sourdough from the sidewalk. Moxie mills heritage grains in-house, a detail that shows up in every loaf. The kouign-amann has its own mythology. One reviewer called Moxie a true community anchor and a deeply important fixture in Louisville. The patio doubles as a neighborhood living room. Three locations now, but Louisville is still the one.
Poulette Bakeshop | Parker
This is the one people drive for. Poulette has received James Beard Foundation nominations for Outstanding Bakery in 2026 and Outstanding Baker/Pastry Chef in 2024 and 2025, and the New York Times named it one of the 22 best bakeries in the United States. Owners Alen Ramos and Carolyn Nugent trained at Thomas Keller restaurants and Bottega Louie before landing in a Parker strip mall, which is exactly as improbable and wonderful as it sounds. The signatures are the Paris-Parker (a choux pastry filled with milk chocolate, hazelnut praline, and vanilla cream, topped with edible gold), stuffed croissants with seasonal compositions, and XL macarons with at least two filling components each. Hours are limited (Wednesday through Saturday, 8 am to 2 pm), so preordering a box online is the move. One reviewer said that after visiting Paris, New York City, and countless other cities, the best croissants they had found were in Parker, Colorado.
Winona’s Restaurant and Bakery | Steamboat Springs
Winona’s has been a Steamboat Springs institution for close to 40 years. The draw is the cinnamon roll: oversized, dripping with cream cheese icing, topped with fresh berries, and something of a Steamboat rite of passage. The full breakfast and lunch menu is equally serious: green chili cheese grits, carnitas hash, chorizo scrambles, and biscuits made from scratch. The vibe is small-town diner done right: warm, packed, no pretense. One reviewer put it plainly: Winona’s sets a high bar for what a standard meal should be, not pretentious or obnoxious, just great quality and quantity with genuine, friendly service.
A reasonable person would not drive to Parker for a pastry, or to a Wheat Ridge plant nursery for a maritozzi, or to a 1905 grain mill in Fort Collins for pie on a Tuesday. And yet, people are doing all of it. To be fair, “reasonable” becomes far more flexible when butter and sugar are mixed in just the right ratio. And Colorado has mastered ratios: one part winding mountain road to three parts thrilling slopes, an extra glass of water for every mile above sea level, two “puffs” per each “pass”... thirty miles of driving for every croissant flake.
Colorado will ruin you for everywhere else's pastries. Our Denver real estate experts can make the damage permanent.
Laurel Cisneros
Socials