La Boulangerie

Baguettes and viennoiserie, baked daily

Bread and viennoiserie are what this Shanghai boulangerie is for. The counter runs on fresh homemade bread, warm croissants and crisp pain au chocolat, with pastries and all-day snacks filling the rest of the case. The baguettes are the item that earns the place its standing among Shanghai bread buyers, and the almond croissant is the pastry most often singled out. The range stays deliberately French rather than sprawling: baguette, croissant, almond croissant and pain au chocolat form the spine, with cakes and other pastries alongside. It works as both boulangerie and patisserie, so the appeal splits between bread and viennoiserie rather than sitting only with plated desserts.

A small room in the Jian Ye Li lane houses

The setting is compact. La Boulangerie occupies a small space among the Jian Ye Li lane houses in Xuhui, quiet and classically finished, with a little outdoor seating, which makes the visit bakery-led and casual rather than a full restaurant meal. Sandwiches, pastries, cakes, coffee and tea are all available for eating there or carrying out, so the format suits a short sit as easily as a bag of bread taken home. There is no long tasting-counter menu and no elaborate service sequence. The room is arranged around the case, and the case is arranged around what came out of the oven that morning.

Order the almond croissant first

Start with the almond croissant, the single most recommended thing on the counter. Then add a baguette if bread is the priority, since the baguettes are what regulars rate most highly here. A warm croissant or a pain au chocolat covers the morning-bakery side if almond feels too rich for the hour. Beyond that, the offer runs to sandwiches, pastries, cakes, coffee and tea, without a long list of seasonal specials or named tart signatures, which keeps the best order simple: one piece of viennoiserie eaten in the room, one loaf carried out.