Bakers Bench Victor Heights

Lamination without butter

The technical problem this bakery sets itself is visible in the first bite of a croissant: laminating dough without butter, and getting the layers to separate anyway. Jen Yee, the chef-owner, builds the whole counter on that plant-based approach, so the vegan croissant is not an alternative sitting beside a conventional one. It is the thing itself.

Scones and danishes extend the same logic. The danish carries fruit or cream on a laminated base, and the scone is the plainest item in the case and therefore the most exposed. Between them the range stays small and deliberate rather than sprawling into everything a bakery could make.

A modern counter in Victor Heights

The room is minimalist and modern, a bakery counter in a shared space rather than a cafe with its own dining room. That keeps attention on the case: you look, order, and leave with a box, which suits a bakery whose reputation rests on pastry rather than on somewhere to sit for an hour.

The recognition matches the focus. Bakers Bench was named in the New York Times list of the country's best bakeries in 2024 and appears in Eater's bakery guide for 2026, both of which credit the baking rather than the setting.

That is a notable position for a bakery this small in Los Angeles, a city with an unusually crowded pastry scene, and it was earned on the plant-based work rather than in spite of it.

Order the croissant first

Start with the vegan croissant, because it is where the bakery's argument is won or lost. If the layers shatter and the crumb is open, everything else in the case follows from that.

The danish is the natural second order and shows how the same dough behaves under a filling, sweeter and softer without collapsing. The scone is the one to take if you want the bake in its plainest form, with nothing on top of it to distract from how it was mixed and baked. Buy for now rather than for later: laminated pastry is at its best soon after leaving the oven, and the case is built around that timing rather than around keeping. A box that sits overnight is a different pastry from the one that came off the tray, and no amount of technique changes that.