Baklavastory.

One pastry, made when you order it

The whole menu is baklava. Baklavastory works as a Turkish specialist counter rather than a bakery with a long case, and the pastry is made fresh once an order is placed rather than sitting out waiting for one. That is the shop's entire argument: layered pastry, nuts and syrup, eaten close to when they were put together. There is no bread programme behind it, no croissants, no cakes or cookies filling out a display, and no attempt to be a general Mediterranean bakery. The Mission address, in the middle of San Francisco's densest eating neighbourhood, keeps the same discipline in its footprint, a small and functional space where the product is the whole of the offer and the exchange at the counter is direct. What arrives is what was made for that order, which is a different proposition from a tray that has been sitting under lights since the morning.

The Princess Cut, in two sizes

The named items are the Princess Cut in a small box of twelve pieces and a medium box of thirty-five. The description the house gives is deliberately plain: a traditional layered pastry with nuts and syrup, made fresh by order only. The cut is the part worth noticing, because it decides how the pastry eats. Princess Cut pieces are small and neat rather than heavy slabs, which keeps the ratio of crisp pastry to syrup on the right side and makes a box easy to pass around a table. The two sizes are the only real decision to make, so the choice is about how many people are eating rather than about scanning a case for whatever looks best.

Which box to take

Take the twelve-piece box if this is a first visit. It is enough to read the pastry properly, to see how the layers hold their crispness against the syrup and how heavily the nuts are packed, without committing to a large format. The thirty-five-piece box is the one for a group, a host gift or a family table, and it suits the made-to-order model best, since the whole box is assembled for that occasion rather than broken out of a tray. Either way the order stays simple. Choose the size, then let the layered pastry, the nuts and the syrup do the rest, with nothing else on the counter competing for attention.