Before opening a new shop, pastry chef Beth Woulfe spent six months testing out her baked goods on the crowds at the Alameda Farmers’ Market. The chef, who grew up in the East Bay but had recently been working on the East Coast, wanted to get a sense of the region’s tastes — and whether there was a demand for more baked goods here. The positive feedback was clear. “The economy is kind of on the upswing,” she said. “And there is a strong desire for a high-end bakery. … Now is a good time to open a small business in the East Bay — if you have the right product.”

On July 31, Woulfe opened the doors to Crispian Bakery in Alameda — her first brick-and-mortar business and one of at least six bakeries and pastry shops that have recently opened or are expanding in the East Bay. Throughout the region, chefs and shop owners like Woulfe are gambling that local residents have a strong appetite for homemade pastries and breads. Here are some of the freshest baked goods the East Bay’s new leading pastry chefs have to offer.

Crispian Bakery

1700 Park St., Alameda, 510-239-4751, CrispianBakery.com

Located just across the bridge from Oakland’s Fruitvale district, Crispian Bakery has already attracted a steady stream of customers in its first two months. Woulfe’s mouth-watering pastries and Christian Fidelis de Goes’ artisanal breads are a welcome addition to the Park Street retail corridor. The shop has a small seating area in front, but Woulfe said she poured the majority of her limited resources into building a high-quality kitchen. It was a worthy investment.

Woulfe’s moist olive oil cakes ($5) feature seasonal fruits from the nearby farmers’ market or other local vendors — including recent versions with peaches, plums, pluots, and pears. The recipe also includes California olive oil, lemon zest, and juice in the batter, which together make the cakes especially flavorful. Another good pastry option is Woulfe’s small, but very tasty wheat-free muffin ($2.50) — a sugary mix of pumpkin, eggs, and tapioca flour that I never would’ve guessed is gluten-free. On the savory side, the ham and cheese croissant ($4.50) is de Goes’ twist on the classic pastry, with everything bagel spices layered on top and ham, Swiss cheese, and mustard rolled into the flaky dough.

Gran Milan

5327 Jacuzzi Street, Richmond, 510-984-0679, GranMilan.com

If you want old-school Italian baked goods and pastries, it’s hard to imagine finding a more authentic shop than Gran Milan, which opened its doors in April in a strip mall off of Interstate 80. The co-owners of the bakery and restaurant are Ivo Buratti and Rufo Verga, two longtime chefs who met while working in Varese, a city in northern Italy. Despite their somewhat obscure location, Verga said business has been steady — mostly through word of mouth and social media.

The most authentic treats — though I don’t recommend eating them all in one sitting — are Gran Milan’s cannolis, apple strudels, tiramisu, and almond cakes. Gran Milan’s business is successful enough that Verga told me he is now looking to open a second location.

Nick and Aron’s

4316 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, 510-250-9538, NickAndArons.com

When chefs Nick Yapor-Cox and Aron Ford tried to add a bakery component to Nick’s Pizza, a small popular joint in North Oakland, there just wasn’t enough kitchen space. But they knew North Oakland eaters wanted more freshly baked goods in the area. So in March, they opened Nick and Aron’s, a new Temescal cafe and restaurant that serves their signature pizzas and a wide variety of breakfast pastries and artisan breads.

For meat-eaters, Nick and Aron’s cheddar bacon scone ($3.25) is a perfect mix of savory and sweet, and tender and crunchy with bacon bits spread throughout. Ford said he’s most proud of the new restaurant’s croissants ($3.75), which use sourdough and include a mix of different fillings. Another very popular pastry item is Nick and Aron’s cinnamon rolls ($3.25), which are made with croissant scraps and sweet icing.

Grease Box

942 Stanford Ave., Oakland, 510-922-1323, GreaseBoxOakland.com

A favorite restaurant for East Bay residents who are gluten-intolerant, Grease Box has expanded its exclusively gluten-free bakery operations over the last year and now offers a diverse and constantly changing menu of freshly baked goods and pastries all week. One of owner Lizzy Boelter’s most popular new treats is her gluten-free donuts ($3.50), which she typically offers on the weekends and which can sometimes sell out within hours. Unlike many other gluten-free pastry makers, Boelter said she avoids additives and chemical stabilizers that chefs typically use to mimic gluten and instead uses natural whole grains. As a result, she said, “I would be willing to bet we’ve got the best gluten-free donut ever.” The donuts are deep-fried and are similar to beignets, the popular New Orleans pastries made of fried dough.

Another favorite is Grease Box’s huge gluten-free muffins ($4.25), which feature seasonal fruits and are filling enough to function as an entire meal.

Firebrand Artisan Breads

2343 Broadway, Oakland, FirebrandArtisanBreads.com

A West Oakland wholesale bakery known for its wood-fired breads, Firebrand Artisan Breads is expanding into the retail business with a new location in the rapidly growing Uptown complex called the Hive. The new Firebrand site — which is on track to open in November in time for the Thanksgiving rush — will be more than three times the size of its current West Oakland location, said owner Matt Kreutz. The Uptown space will enable the company to launch a new line of pastries, including danishes, croissants, custards, éclairs, donuts, pies, and tarts, he said. Noting that the bakery will be near two new food businesses — the high-end Mexican restaurant Calavera and new beer garden Drake’s Dealership — Kreutz said, “We really want this to be a destination spot for Oakland.”

Flour and Co

1398 University Ave., Berkeley, FlourAndCo.com

Berkeley is not missing out on the new wave of bakeries on this side of the bay. Scheduled to open next month, Flour and Co (which has a location in Nob Hill in San Francisco) is on track to bake a wide variety of fall treats for East Bay customers. Owner Emily Day said the neighborhood is clearly underserved when it comes to pastries and coffee; her sister lives just a few blocks away from the new location, which previously housed the Bread Workshop, a cafe that shuttered in 2013. “The space was perfect,” she said. “I couldn’t pass it up,”

In terms of her Berkeley pastries, Day said she plans to offer pumpkin bunt cakes, pumpkin muffins, apple crostatas, specialty “toasty tarts” (Day’s version of pop tarts), and many other sweet and savory goodies.

One of the toughest things about going vegan is finding ways to replace favorite comfort foods with alternatives that are free of animal-derived ingredients. And while fake meats and savory veggie dishes are plentiful in the East Bay, finding the best go-to spots for vegan sweets that are comparable to their non-vegan counterparts can be challenging.

It takes a savvy chef to replace the crucial building-blocks of desserts — eggs and dairy — with vegan ingredients in a way that allows donuts to retain their fluffiness; ice creams, their creaminess; and cakes, their moisture. Fortunately, we’ve done the work for you and scouted out the best places for vegans to satisfy their sweet tooths in the East Bay. While some of these restaurants and cafes offer vegan takes on familiar dishes, others specialize in inventive, plant-based creations that will delight those who abstain from meat, eggs, and dairy — as well as their omnivorous friends.

Encuentro

550 2nd St., Oakland, 510-832-9463, EncuentroOakland.com

Encuentro is a special occasion-worthy vegetarian California cuisine restaurant in the Jack London district that specializes in seasonal, organic ingredients. Its rotating dessert menu boasts plenty of decadent, plant-based options, including its rich, moist, layered chocolate cake, which co-owner Linda Braz said is one of Encuentro’s most popular dessert items and a permanent menu fixture. The chocolate-dipped, vegan ice cream sandwich — which includes vegan cookies and coconut ice cream — is also a customer favorite.

Some of Encuentro’s seasonal, dairy- and egg-free desserts to look forward to this fall include the tofu-based cheesecake, a creamy pumpkin tiramisu, and an ice cream sundae with spiced, fruity flavors that evoke apple pie a la mode — a perfect fall treat that will make you forget that being vegan is technically a dietary restriction.

Pepples Donuts

6037 San Pablo Ave., Oakland, 510-338-6319, PepplesDonuts.com

Pepples Donuts — often mistakenly referred to as People’s — is the Bay Area’s foremost purveyor of vegan donuts, and its plump, round little pastries are also completely organic. Pepples stocks its donuts at a variety of Oakland and Berkeley coffee shops, as well as at its Ferry Building stall in San Francisco. However, for the freshest pastries and largest amount of flavor options, visiting its North Oakland headquarters (also known as the Donut Farm) on San Pablo Avenue is a must. The shop’s offerings include more than twenty flavors of donuts, as well as milkshakes and savory brunch items on the weekends — all of which are animal product-free.

Pepples’ dense, crumbly cake donuts come in inventive flavors — many of which are seasonal — such as pumpkin spice, curry, matcha green tea, and candy cap mushroom (which has a sweet taste akin to maple). For its light, fluffy raised donuts, make sure to stop by on the weekends, because they are not available during the week.

Cinnaholic

2132 Oxford St., Berkeley, 510-647-8684, Cinnaholic.com

Competition among Berkeley cafes is high, and the area surrounding the Cal campus is saturated with eateries that take inventive approaches to food service. However, Cinnaholic, an entirely vegan bakery, stands out with its creative approach to cinnamon rolls. Batches of the swirly, moist pastries are baked throughout the day, and each roll is guaranteed to have spent no more than twenty minutes outside of the oven before it reaches your mouth.

Cinnaholic’s cinnamon rolls are entirely customizable, and the cafe offers a large assortment of frosting flavors and toppings from which to choose. Cream cheese frosting with cookie dough, maple frosting with blueberries, or root beer frosting with marshmallows are just a few examples of the dozens of indulgent varieties available. And for those who find the number of options daunting, Cinnaholic has a display case full of flavor recommendations and updates its Instagram with daily specials — like the Butterfinger roll, the raspberry-pomegranate roll, and the chocolate-banana-almond roll. Yum!

Souley Vegan

301 Broadway, Oakland, 510-922-1615, SouleyVegan.com

Souley Vegan’s founder and chef Tamearra Dyson is an Oakland native who invokes her family’s Louisiana roots in her approach to plant-based Southern cooking. While many vegan restaurants focus on small portions and light bites, at Souley Vegan, you can eat your fill of cheeseless mac ‘n’ cheese, meatless chicken and waffles, and fried okra. So it’s only fitting that its selection of baked goods — many of which are vegan takes on generations-old family recipes — offers rich cakes, cupcakes, and cookies that are as hearty as its entrees.

As far as the cupcake selection goes, Aquil Rahman — Dyson’s son, who also works at the restaurant — said that the sweet potato ginger cupcakes are among the most popular, though customers can expect to find an assortment of other flavors, including pecan praline and peanut butter. The chocolate ganache cake with walnuts is also a bestseller, as well as the chocolate chip cookies — which Rahman’s grandmother, Catherine Williams, bakes herself.

Timeless Coffee

4252 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, 510-985-1360, TimelessCoffee.com

Timeless Coffee doesn’t explicitly advertise that its fare is entirely vegan, but the third-wave coffee shop has become a destination for local herbivores through word of mouth. Not only are all of its coffee drinks made with either soy or almond milk, but the cafe also offers an enormous selection of vegan treats. Its gourmet-, egg-, and dairy-free takes on frosting-filled pastries, such as Hostess Twinkies and Chocodiles, pair excellently with a strong espresso or pour-over coffee.

In addition to delectable vegan cupcakes, cookies, and cakes — some of which are also gluten-free — Timeless also serves hard-to-find vegan treats, including Danishes with a soy-based cream cheese and seasonal fruit toppings; diary-free soft serve; and an assortment of hand-made chocolates and truffles.

Na****************@************ss.com

A properly prepared pot of tea is delightfully ritualistic. Asian tea culture dates back centuries, and encompasses an entire world of conventions and aesthetics. It’s much more than a tea tag hanging out of a to-go cup. Traditionally, tea is meant to be enjoyed mindfully, in the proper setting, with the appropriate tools. Being a Bay Area hub for meditation and other Buddhist practices, it’s not surprising that Berkeley is home to some of the best tea houses that the East Bay has to offer. These are the top places to get introduced to that vast world of fragrant, unfurling leaves.

Asha Tea House

2086 University Ave., 510-549-9137, AshaTeaHouse.com

Asha Tea House may not be the most peaceful place, but there is a reason why it’s constantly filled to the brim with customers. The pleasingly modern tearoom on the corner of Shattuck and University avenues in downtown Berkeley offers an exquisite selection of Taiwanese boba tea — an often milky tea-based drink filled with chewy tapioca balls. While the boba menu at Asha offers a depth and maturity of flavor that’s unmatched in the East Bay, Asha’s matcha and herbal tea menus are not to be overlooked.

Asha is one of few places where you can go to do work on your laptop — and that’s how most of the young patrons spend their time there — and also enjoy quality matcha (specially grown and powdered Japanese green tea) that has been traditionally prepared with a whisk in a wooden bowl. The result is a frothy, earthy beverage that’s unlike any steeped green tea you may be familiar with, and much more flavorful. Asha offers its matcha in a traditional bowl (ceremony style), as a small “shot,” a macchiato, a latte, or as affogato — thick green tea fragrantly poured over scoops of vanilla ice cream ($2.75–$5.25). Asha also offers a wide selection of artisanal loose leaf teas and herbal teas. Most are quite affordable, while some rare blends can be pricier. These can either be enjoyed to go, or through Asha’s “tea service.”

Luckily, there’s a special bar reserved for tea service patrons — often the only open seats in the house. The seats come equipped with a two-level wooden tray that catches any spilled tea. The tea arrives in a small bowl for brewing, with a petite pitcher of hot water and tea cups so that you can repeatedly brew and refill. Even in Asha’s sometimes hectic environment, the teaware manages to make the tea service experience far more enjoyable than a mere hydrating session.

Far Leaves Tea

2626 San Pablo Ave., 510-665-9409, FarLeaves.com

Far Leaves has a homey, unpretentious feel, decorated with plants, hanging lanterns, and worn, wooden tables. It offers its own brand of tea, including many special blends. In all, it sells approximately fifty teas, from familiar herbals to rare teas, including many puer varieties — strongly flavored fermented tea that comes in cakes of varying sizes. Part of the comfortable ambiance of the space comes from having each table equipped with its own electric kettle so that you can keep refilling at your leisure. While not overbearing, the staffers have a wealth of knowledge to offer and always deliver each tea in the proper style of pottery to accentuate the flavors. Patrons often bring laptops and stay a while — unwinding or working — and with the large space, it’s never cramped. Small Asian salty snacks and steamed buns are also available, although they’re not made in-house.

Teance

1780 Fourth St., 510-524-2832, Teance.com

Teance is Berkeley’s destination for a high-end tea experience. The extravagant yet tastefully designed storefront in the Fourth Street shopping district welcomes visitors with a trickling fountain and pond full of koi fish. Teance’s vast collection of teas is expertly sourced and finely packaged. But the main attraction is the store’s sophisticated tea bar, which is open 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. There, you can either order a pot of tea ($7–$10) gracefully prepared by a suave and knowledgeable bartender, or order a flight of tea for a tasting. For the latter, you get a tasting of three teas of your choosing or a pre-chosen selection based on a category — white, green, Taiwanese, etc. The tastings come with an elaborate educational presentation and take approximately an hour ($27). You can also pay more to get a tasting of the connoisseur teas, which are the shop’s best and most rare specialty teas.

If you’d rather not sit at the fancy bar, you can opt to take your tea upstairs to the cozier but still elegant lounge. Either way, one of the biggest draws to Teance is the glass case of delicate chocolates made especially for the shop by the Oakland Chocolate Company. On the weekends, Teance also offers matcha mochi cakes. Plus, it works with the local Caravaggio Gelateria to create aromatic tea-flavored gelatos that pair exquisitely with a hot pot.