Basque Boulangerie Café opened on the historic square of Sonoma in 1994 with an old-world feeling of an original French bakery. It is a second generation bakery, originally started in Sonoma in 1956 as the Sonoma French Bakery in the Sebastiani Theatre building. Our founders' family arrived in the United States from the southwest region of France, specifically the Pyrenees Mountains that separate France from Spain. They settled in the heart of the Valley of the Moon because of opportunity and since it reminded them of the villages in the Basque and Bearn regions of France that they were from. They had a family history of bakers, butchers and restauranteurs. The family learned the baking trade in their French small towns of Saint Etienne de Baigorry, and Oloron Sainte Marie and offers two generations of baking excellence. Our team of talented bakers start late at night, every night, using the old world European tradition of hand crafted baking artisanship in order to create these crusty, hand made loaves of peasant bread, inspired by our founders' Basque ancestors. We have brought traditional stone hearth ovens to Sonoma to assure the same consistent, traditional bread with no preservatives. Our pastries, baked goods and desserts are hand crafted in small batches using European-style techniques with quality ingredients.
"The Basque", as we are affectionately known by locals and return customers, specializes in lightcrumb, crisp sourdough breads and assorted sweet French or Parisian style breads, Danish, morning rolls, cookies, pastries, desserts and cakes in our lively café, as well as delivering these fresh products daily to our wholesale customers. Our breads have won the Sonoma County Harvest Fair's Sweepstakes Awards. Our Pastry Chef has been featured on the Food Network for her famous Beehive Cake and has won awards for her Chocolate Truffle Gateau and Frangipane Tartes.
Over the past 20 years, our café has become the town's gathering spot where locals meet for coffee and fresh pastry or sandwich. It offers an extended café style menu available all day, which is authentic and healthy and features homemade specialties that are made fresh daily. The aroma of freshly ground organic coffee beans fills the air while our baristas prepare your favorite coffee drinks. Wines by the glass are most competitively priced. Visit our café for a fun and delicious experience or contact us if you are interested in catering or wholesale delivery. Our passion is to bring a little piece of France to you and with our long history of baking we hope you will allow our products to grace your table!