CAR Artisan Chocolate

Bean-to-bar chocolate inside the lamination

The chocolate croissant is where this Pasadena shop explains itself: the chocolate folded into the butter layers is made in the building, not bought in. Artisanal Goods by CAR opened in 2021 as a chocolate manufactory, working with cacao from farms in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Madagascar, Tanzania and Nicaragua, and the beans are still turned into bars and packaged on the premises. Pastry came second. The founder moved from bean-to-bar work into French laminated dough, and the bakery and patisserie grew out of that shift, which is why the croissant reads as a meeting point between two crafts rather than a bakery dropping a purchased baton into a sheet of dough. The name comes from the founder's surname, while “Artisanal Goods” covers the rest of what the shop makes: seasonal laminated pastries, warm chocolate chip cookies finished with flaky salt, and the bars that keep the manufactory visible in a room now known for its pastry.

A corner counter east of downtown

The shop occupies a compact corner on the quieter eastern side of Downtown Pasadena and behaves like a neighborhood bakery, even as it draws pastry seekers from across Los Angeles. Everything happens at the case: customers line up, choose, add coffee and carry it out, with no dining room to speak of. Weekend mornings are the busiest stretch, when the line forms for pastries coming out fresh. Partnerships with local florists have put plants in the room, which gives the space a lifestyle streak alongside the chocolate, though the handmade, small-batch character is the same on both sides of the counter.

Start with the chocolate croissant

Order the chocolate croissant first. It is the flagship and the one item that carries both halves of the business at once, laminated dough around chocolate the shop made itself, and it is what most people queue for on a weekend morning. After that, the rotating seasonal pastries are worth checking, since they change what is in the case beyond the signature viennoiserie. Add the warm chocolate chip cookie when it is out, because the flaky salt sharpens the chocolate and shows it in a different register. Coffee is part of the counter routine and goes with either. For the chocolate unmediated, take home a bean-to-bar tablet, which is where the whole operation started before the pastry reputation arrived.