ACQ BREAD CO.

Tucked away at 543 Clinton St. in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood, ACQ Bread Co. is a charming little bakery that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. Their hours are quite limited—open from 4 PM to 7 PM on Fridays and Saturdays at the bakery, and from 8 AM until sold out at the Sunnyside Greenmarket on Saturdays and the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket on Sundays.  Food: The bread here is nothing short of fantastic. The ACQ Milk Bread, priced at $13, is a must-try. It’s a delightful blend of a crispy exterior and a chewy, slightly tangy interior with a hint of sweetness. It’s like a perfect marriage between traditional sourdough and Japanese milk bread. They also offer a variety of other breads, including sourdough boules and Pullman loaves, each crafted with care and quality ingredients.  Service: Given the bakery’s small size, the service is personal and friendly. The staff are passionate about their craft and happy to chat about their products. Just be prepared for potential lines due to the limited hours and high demand. Ambiance: The bakery itself is quaint and unassuming, with a hand-painted menu on an easel out front. It’s a no-frills, cozy spot that focuses on the essentials: baking and community. The aroma of freshly baked bread wafting through the air adds to the charm. In summary, ACQ Bread Co. is a hidden gem in Brooklyn that’s well worth planning a visit around their limited hours. The quality of the bread, especially the milk bread, makes it a standout choice for bread enthusiasts.

ANOTHER slam dunk, knock on wood but the bread in this city has yet to let me down. I made a last minute subway trek out to this spot, it was cold and dark and took awhile but it's important to have healthy doses of indie movie dramatic alone time and what are subways for if not that? Anyway after dramatically looking out the car window and refusing to sit down I got off the train and followed the heaven scent of yeasty greatness to this little haven. I was greeted by a beautiful raven haired employee who very kindly walked me through their selection, their hours are pretty limited and I think I was too late to have choice of their full menu. I went home with a loaf of sourdough milk bread, something I've never had! Very exciting.The scent of pure heaven wafted around me the whole way home. It was difficult to uphold the dramatic subway vibe and not tear into it like a bear. But honestly that would have been a better movie. ANYWAY. Point is. This bread is damn good. So versatile. It's soft and plush and sweet with enough tang to swap from sweet to savory, that CRUST?? Godlike. You could use this for anything. I've been using it for ricotta toast, it's great for a fish sandwich, also think it would make fabulous French toast but I've yet to try it since eggs are climbing to gold rush Era prices. This bread is the product of pure talent. I'm very excited to go back at an earlier time and see their full spread, but I don't think you could buy a bad thing here. Worth the trip. Highly recommend.

To me, this bakery is so iconic for its unique blend of European sourdough and Japanese bread loaf. The milk bread is a must-try, with its perfect balance of sour and sweet flavors.

Oh wow. Amazingly flavoured bread. Amazing texture, just fabulous. Got here at 4 pm on a friday and there was a line already. Come early and get your breads freshly baked! Stunning, like nothing I’ve tasted before!

Been a customer of Tyler since day 1 and his bread has been one of the best things coming out of the pandemic. Every time when I pick up bread - whether it’s the milk bread or the latest live bread - and talk to Tyler, I can really feel his passion and love in baking. The quality of the bread also improves every time because Tyler always wants to be better. This is the man you can trust with your bread. Every of his bread is magic and unique - because when someone loves his job, you can tell from his product. As someone who has had every single so-called best sourdough loaf in NYC, I will say THIS is the best sourdough in the city. We are lucky to have him in our neighborhood.

The milk bread from ACQ Bread has been trending on my Instagram feed for a while and I think most of the bread fans in NYC are crazy about it. We decided to give it a try after the baker Tyler who announced that they won’t take online orders but walk-ins only. It’s a humble, simple and tiny bakery with limited options on the menu. We got 2 loafs of Blueberry Milk Bread which are their signature bread, 1 loaf of Sourdough and 4 Fermented Chocolate Cookies. It was recommended to finish them all within 3 days. Everything was decent and our favorite was the chewy sourdough. We love the sweet & natural taste after chewing for a while in mouth.

Their bread is really unique. The signature milk bread is something between Japanese style breads (soft and milky) and sourdough (crispy outside, chewy inside, a bit tangy). You can tell how much love the baker has put into these breads.

I have been following ACQ’s IG for a while but didn’t make my first bread order until a week ago. Now I wish I could have done that long time ago! It totally worth my 2 miles round trip with my high heels. The milk bread 2.0 has a chewy and spongy texture, subtly sweet and full of beautiful open crumbs — I was very lucky that Taylor happened to have some loaves left on that day for my spontaneous purchase. The living bread has a slightly burned nutty crust outside. It’s also true that the technics Taylor applied made this bread stay hydrate longer than usual, still taste soft and moisture after a few days! If you are a bread & butter person, please do yourself a favor to get that house-made Nori butter. The umami and the flour aroma just make each shining even more! I had to say I am always conscious about my carbs intake, but Taylor’s crafted bread just gives me legit excuse to indulge myself, because why not?!

An adorable little shop with some amazing Milk Bread. We did this at the end of a bakery tour of Brooklyn (went to 9 bakeries) and weren't sure we really needed bread at 4 pm, but so glad we went! Staff was nice, smell was great, vibes were good, and the Milk Bread was absolutely delicious. A line does develop so I would get there a few minutes early.

An artisan bread bakery on the border of Red Hook open for 6 hours a week sounds like it should generate a good deal of hype. Yet the lines at ACQ are far more manageable than at any of the competitive bakeries in North Brooklyn or otherwise. And the bread is the best in the borough. While I only had the opportunity to try the Japanese milk bread on my first visit, it had such a heavenly melange of tangy and sweet flavors that I'm sure everything else on the menu is impeccable. It probably makes for a killer grilled cheese or French toast, but this is bread worth eating plain.

I'm not sure how it's taken me this long to find out about ACQ Bread, but I was recently having dinner at a friend's place, and he asked me to go pick up his order from "the bread guy around the corner." (How I wish I had a bread guy around the corner, especially one making such interesting and tasty breads.) Pickup time at ACQ is 4 pm. I walked over around 4:15, and there was a short line of folks waiting to check in at the tiniest and most adorable of storefronts with Tyler, the one-man bread band. He's super nice, justifiably excited about his product, and just seems happy to be handing bread to people. Our order was for the milk bread. It is evidently made from redeemer white wheat flour from Small Valley Milling, as well as aromatic sticky rice from Thailand. I've baked milk bread myself before. It's an enriched dough (incorporating butter and eggs) that starts with a process known as tangzhong (Hokkaido-born I believe), but mine was not nearly as interesting as ACQ's. It's darker, with a rich crumb, and the sticky rice lends it a depth of flavor that frankly puts mine to shame. It definitely makes me want to try the sourdough, and soon. The milk bread also turned out to be the perfect vehicle, once toasted and brushed with olive oil, for the foie gras my friend was serving (we fancy, I guess). I sliced it up for him, and stole a piece for quality control. You definitely don't need any fancy spreads; the milk bread is lovely all by itself. Borderline irresistible, really. I wanted to eat the whole loaf. That would've been irresponsible, a bit rude to the other folks who were excited about the foie, and really a bad move as I'd be too full to eat the rest of the meal we had planned. But I still wanted to taste the whole loaf... So, between you and I (he will only find out about this if/when he reads this review), I just licked every piece of that bread.

Their milk bread is really unique! It's kind of like a mix between a Western sourdough and Eastern milk bread. It's crispy outside, chewy inside, a bit tangy, a bit milky. It's a rarity that you can't find anywhere else.

Yummy breads that my Brooklyn food co-op at one point carried. Donor to worthy arts orgs. Support!

Travelled from Jersey just to pick up my bread. Definitely worth it! I reheat the bread using my air fryer. The aroma quickly fill up the room. The freshness and texture of this chewy bread is amazing! Airy, moist, chewy and crunchy on the outside. A little bit(good amount) of sourness. It's the kind you will fall in love with on the first bite. Tasted great with or without the butter. I feel that the quality is similar to the bread that I have enjoyed a lot in Commis(Oakland CA) and Mira Kaimuki(Oahu HI), but more unique than those. Will be back!

Wow! You can tell the amount of care and quality that go into these breads! Picked up the olive and black pepper loaf today, and we were not disappointed! Large amount of olives, hints of black pepper throughout. Can't wait to try others!

I started seeing articles about ACQ Bread in early December, and while I was intrigued by the baking process and the community-focused culture behind the bakery, I figured I was never going to schlep to Carroll Gardens to pick up a loaf of bread. But one night in December, I saw ACQ loaves being sold at Dimes Market in Chinatown, accompanied by a sheet of paper which described the genesis of the loaf and the baker's inspiration. True to form, I was transfixed by evocative copy, and walked out with a fluffy loaf of ACQ's milk bread. As a child who's only gateway to sweets was the Asian supermarket, I am very familiar with various types of Asian milk breads, and was truthfully somewhat skeptical that this loaf was going to truly blow me away (but again: the copy was SO GOOD, I highly recommend you go to ACQ's website and read it, if you've made it this far in this review). But holy hell. This loaf is the king of milk breads. Really fluffy and buoyant texture, but simultaneously dense and rich. Flavor is a little sweet, a little tangy. It's amazing. This weekend, I knew I was going to be in the area for dinner, and took the opportunity to pre-order a half loaf of the rye bread for pickup Saturday evening. It's a very easy, socially-distanced pickup: you ring a little bell outside the bakery, give Tyler (who runs ACQ) your name, and he grabs your freshly baked bread. It smelled so amazing just standing in the doorway, even through my mask. Apparently this was because Tyler had just put the chocolate milk bread in the oven, so that may need to be my next buy. (I truly wish I could attach a smell-o-vision file to this review, it was so heavenly.) I'm also happy to report that the rye bread is similarly jaw-dropping. Sliced into it this morning, and paired the untoasted slice with some whipped cream cheese and berries: toasted seeds make for a crunchy, fragrant crust, and the flavor of the bread is rich and nuanced, very satisfying and hearty. It's a dense, close-textured bread, but not dry and doesn't scream "health bread" the way some ryes do. I'm already excited to eat this for breakfast tomorrow.

OMG! The best bread ever! I drove past going to pick my daughter up from school and made a not I have to try! The following Thursday I pulled over and brought the Pullman, Milk Bread and 4 chocolate chip cookies! Wow! Cookies smh if you don't go and get a cookie you're missing out! The bread is moist butter or any other condiment is not needed! Amazing bakers as well! I will sing your praises ACQ!

So happy to pick up bread from ACQ Bread!! Read about the business on Grub Street then preorder for yourself! I got the milk bread - it's so flavorful and fluffy! Such a cool local business and idea.

The living loaf from ACQ is the best loaf of bread I've ever had. Life changing really.