San and Wolves

A vegan Filipino bakeshop counter

Everything in the case at San & Wolves is Filipino, vegan, soy-free and nut-free, and most of what makes that possible is made in house: the butters, the sweetened condensed milk, the ube halaya. That is what lets a pastry be filled with ube, finished with fresh salted caramel or showered in shaved cheddar without any dairy going into it.

The named items run from the traditional to the deliberately playful: buko pie, pandesal, bitsu-bitsu, ensaymadas and pan de coco on one side, ube Pop-Tarts and pandan cinnamon buns on the other. Pan de coco took the longest to get right. Kym Estrada was testing a vegan version of it nearly a decade before the Long Beach shop opened, which is why it carries more weight on the shelf than its size suggests.

From Brooklyn pop-ups to a Long Beach storefront

Estrada started the bakery in Brooklyn in 2017 and ran it as a pop-up for years before moving west. The permanent shop opened on the 4th Street corridor in February 2025 with her partner, who grew up in Long Beach, and the opening drew lines down the block.

What it is not is a general vegan bakery with a few Filipino flavours attached. It is a Filipino bakery translated whole into a vegan, soy-free and nut-free format by a first-generation Filipino American founder. The response has run to selling out of sweets most days, and the sharper part of it is Filipino customers finding pastries they grew up with rebuilt without dairy or eggs and still recognisable.

Start with the ube cheez pandesal

Order the ube cheez pandesal first. It is the most sought-after thing here and the clearest demonstration of what the kitchen can do without dairy, soy or nuts. Buko pie gives a different reading of the same repertoire, while ensaymadas, bitsu-bitsu and plain pandesal show the classic side of the case.

For the crossover, the ube Pop-Tart is the one to take, and the pandan cinnamon bun shows how Filipino flavours get folded into familiar American bakery shapes. Pan de coco is worth ordering for the history in it alone. The case turns over quickly and the best-known items move first, so a plan that survives contact with the counter is a good idea.