Del Sur Bakery

The Calamansi Chamomile Bun is the one to look for first: bright calamansi curd inside, a dusting of chamomile on top, and an exterior that reads like a muffin until it gives way to something closer to croissant. Del Sur Bakery in Chicago's Lincoln Square is built on that kind of misdirection.

Filipino ingredients in Western pastry shapes

Owner and pastry chef Justin Lerias, born in Mindanao and raised on Chicago's north side, folds calamansi, ube, pandan, longanisa, turon and toasted rice into croissants, danishes, buns and cookies. Nothing is a literal dessert translation; the flavours arrive inside familiar laminated forms, with Midwestern references sitting alongside them.

His stated approach is more intention and more salt, and it shows. The Toasted Rice Croissant uses Minnesota-grown toasted rice for a nutty profile that salt pushes further. The Turon Danish reworks the Filipino banana-and-jackfruit sweet lumpia as laminated pastry with caramelised fruit. The Longanisa Croissant carries the savoury end, folding Filipino sausage into butter layers.

From an apartment kitchen to Lincoln Square

Del Sur started as pandemic-era home baking, moved into pop-ups that sold out fast, including a first event that cleared in twenty minutes, then took a residency supplying weekly pastry to a Ravenswood coffee shop. At its peak Lerias was producing up to 300 pastries a week out of his apartment kitchen before stepping back to build the permanent bakery, which opened in spring 2025.

The training behind it is Chicago's: pastry commis at Lost Larson in Andersonville, a stint at Pacific Standard Time, and the pastry programme at Big Jones. The room he ended up with runs to 1,200 square feet with pops of pink, shelf houseplants and soft green tones, and the staff handle the line calmly, counting heads and sending people out with boxes and matcha.

What to order

Take the Calamansi Chamomile Bun and the Toasted Rice Croissant if you are only getting two things; between them they cover the sweet-sour and the toasted-nutty ends of what the bakery does. Add the Longanisa Croissant if you want something savoury.

The rest of the case rotates: ube oatmeal sandwich cookies, strawberry pandan basque cheesecake, calamansi hojicha buns, and occasional runs at kringle and oatmeal pie through a Filipino-American lens. The menu is seasonal and locally sourced, so read it as a grammar rather than a checklist.