Best Mexican Bakery: El Bolillo Bakery
No one eats the fresh, flaky pan dulce purchased at their favorite El Bolillo location on site. There’s not a real seating area in any of the outposts of the popular Mexican bakery we’ve been to because conchas, cuernitos, marranitos and empanadas are communal noshes, treats meant to be purchased in bulk in big bags and shared with family, friends or some very lucky co-workers. El Bolillo has become a trusted source where Houstonians grab the pinzas, fill up the bandejas and zoom off to enjoy their traditional, delightful baked goods elsewhere.
Houston is blessed with incredible panaderias, so choosing the best of the bunch making artisan-crafted sweet breads comes down to more than which concha looks prettiest or tastes best (they’re all beautiful in our eyes and tasty on our tongues) or whose tres leches is richer or which bakery is offering seasonal treats like pan de muerto. No panaderia worth its salt, sugar and anise isn’t doing so each fall.
What makes El Bolillo best is how accessible its hojarascas and piernas de canela and otras are, beyond a quick stop at your favorite location. Let’s say you’ve moved to East Lansing, Michigan and the nearest Mexican bakery is in Detroit. If you’re missing El Bolillo’s quality, you can have it delivered right to your front porch via Goldbelly, where it has a 90 percent favorability rating. El Bolillo is also an active participant on one of our favorite food apps, Too Good To Go. The app connects shoppers with conscientious restaurants and bakeries, like El Bolillo, which offer unsold food products at drastically reduced rates to fight food waste. That’s the kind of leadership El Bolillo has shown for its fellow panaderias across the city since its start in Greater Heights in 1998.
Multiple locations