"I don’t mean to be dramatic, butVive La Tarteis the bakeryof my dreams. Imagine a giant warehouse space with windows open to the fresh air and lots of tables and benches made of light-colored wood. There are breakfast salads, toasts, and egg sandwiches, but who can bother with that when there’s a whole case of pastries waiting to be explored? (If that sounds like a place you want to hang out in all day, just know that they don’t have WiFi, probably to keep people like me from doing just that.) A lot of the croissants werecovered with cream and fresh fruit, appealing but impractical, so I chose the less risky orange blossom and za’atar croissant (which was filled with frangipane) and a pleasantly zippy individual-sized turmeric monkey bread. (I’m not above the trends!) There’s a second location farther south, in Noe Valley, and they’ll beopening in L.A.sometimes in the next year." - BySarah Jampel