Boulangerie Saint Georges

A French boulangerie across from Eastern Market

The queue on the first morning ran out of the door and down the block, which is a fair measure of how much Capitol Hill wanted this. Boulangerie Saint Georges opened in Washington, D.C. in April 2026, after two years of preparation, built to work the way a neighbourhood boulangerie in France works: bread and viennoiserie made on site every day, a case that empties as the day goes on, and enough regulars that going to the bakery becomes its own errand rather than a treat. A French pastry chef and a baker split the daily production between them, one on the laminated dough and the loaves, the other on the finer pâtisserie. Sitting directly opposite Eastern Market gives the shop a ready-made stream of commuters, families and market shoppers, and the large patio takes dogs.

Viennoiserie in the morning, pâtisserie beside it

The croissant is the first test and the honest one. Around it sit pain au chocolat, chausson aux pommes and croissant aux amandes, the standard grammar of a French case, along with kouign-amann for anyone who wants the Breton version of the same butter and sugar logic. The pâtisserie side is more delicate: financiers, petits fours, brioche and a Paris-Brest when it appears. Crêpes give the counter something made to order rather than baked in advance, sweet or savoury depending on the hour, and sandwiches are built on the bakery's own loaves. Coffee is Italian espresso, which is the one deliberate departure from the French frame and a sensible one, since it stands up to a buttery pastry better than a lighter roast would.

What to order first

Order a croissant and an espresso and judge the place on that. If the lamination holds up, work outward: kouign-amann for the caramelised edge, a financier or a petit four if you want something small with the second coffee, brioche if you are taking anything home. A sandwich on house bread turns the stop into lunch, and a crêpe covers the middle ground when nothing in the case is quite right. The bread deserves a separate look, since the loaves are part of the daily in-house production rather than bought in, and they are what makes the sandwiches worth ordering at all. Seasonal items rotate through the case, so the list is never quite the same twice.