It’s true that Salt Lake City has no shortage of excellent bakeries that have perfected the balance of sugar and buttery flakey layers of French pastry and Gourmandise is one such outstanding bakery. When we entered Gourmandise for an early morning breakfast, my eyes went straight to the large pastry cases displaying colorfully dipped spiral croissants, beautiful single servings of baba au rhum, and sugar crusted Kouign Amann. After we were led to our table, we circled back to the pastry display and began plotting which items we would take home to try later.

We returned to our seats and placed two orders of steaming cups of coffee, the Breakfast Hash Bowl (scrambled eggs, roasted vegetable hash, everything avocado with tomato tarragon sauce & pickled red onions) and Shakshuka (classic Moroccan-style eggs baked in house shakshuka sauce with feta crumbles, topped with cilantro garnish) and at the last moment decided to start with sharing the hazelnut spiral croissant. This delectably divine pastry creation transcends the ordinary, elevating the classic croissant to a realm of unparalleled delight. Perfectly golden layers of flaky, buttery pastry, meticulously rolled and baked to perfection, filled with hazelnut chocolate cream and dipped in chocolate and hazelnut shaving, creating a textural symphony with each bite.

The Gourmandise Breakfast Hash Bowl and Shakshuka were tasty and reliable breakfast dishes but the pastry is really their specialty and makes this culinary destination worth visiting. If you’re at Salt Lake International for a layover and don’t make it into the city, the airport hosts a Gourmandise where I recommend you stock up on some pastry for the remainder of your trip. For the road we had the Kouign Amann and the raspberry croissant which were equally delicious.