NashBakes
Bakery · Financial District ·
Cheesecakes with classic & adventurous flavors, incl. salmon lox
Cheesecakes with classic & adventurous flavors, incl. salmon lox
"As with chocolate chip cookies, what makes cheesecake great depends entirely on who you ask. But no matter where you fall on the cheesecake spectrum, Nash Bakes in the Ferry Building does the job. The versions are smooth and creamy while still putting up a fight with your fork. (Be forewarned, though, that crumbly crust loyalists should look elsewhere.) Prioritize the traditional and passionfruit above all others, and skip the lemon poppy and black sesame, which can be a bit dry. If you’re interested in trying a savory cheesecake, there’s always the capers and lox flavor, complete with a bagel crust and smoked salmon on top. It’s fun once for the novelty, but you’re better off eating an actual bagel. One more note: some slices are sold frozen, so we suggest checking with the staff if you plan on digging in immediately on one of the nearby benches. video credit: Patrick Wong" - Patrick Wong
"Owner Jared Nash, a Pacific Northwest–raised pastry chef who baked at Northern California restaurants, including now-closed Julia’s Kitchen and Orson, has opened a cheesecake-focused kiosk inside the Ferry Building. He grew up outside of Portland, worked in commercial bakeries at grocers including Fred Meyer, attended culinary school, interned at the Hyatt in Lake Tahoe, spent eight years crisscrossing the lake’s food scene and worked as pastry chef under San Francisco pastry wiz Nicole Plue at Napa’s Julia’s Kitchen, then at Orson, then under Arnold Eric Wong (executive chef of E&O Trading Company), and also worked under celebrity chef Elizabeth Faulkner. The operation—visually likened to the Ocean Malasada outpost that debuted in July 2024 near Gott’s Roadside—will be open seven days a week from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; the kiosk debuts on Wednesday, July 23 with a quiet launch before a later grand-opening announcement on social media. Unlike many cheesecake spots, the menu spans classics and adventurous flavors: classics include raspberry swirl and salted caramel (six-inch pies going for $30), there’s a gluten-free vanilla bean and a lemon poppyseed, and farther afield is a salmon lox caper-dill cheesecake atop a toasted bagel crust with the salmon, capers, and pickled onion flowering from the center like a fishy bouquet. Reflecting his cheffed-up background, Nash offers seasonal, fine-dining-leaning options—light purple mulberry cheesecakes when the fruit is ripe in summer, a margarita cheesecake on a pretzel crust for Cinco de Mayo, a malted Easter egg for Easter—and the initial launch menu will focus on vanilla, chocolate, cookies and cream, lemon poppy, raspberry swirl, passionfruit, black sesame, and the salmon lox, with other one-offs (peanut butter and mint chip, for instance) to come. He’s been selling at Peninsula farmers’ markets (popping up at the San Carlos Farmers Market and Robert’s Market on Woodside Road) and typically works out of commissary kitchens, which he says can be almost turnkey with the green light from city officials. "This is an opportunity for me to get things moving on a regular basis," Nash says. "Let's give it a year or two and see where it goes, let the Ferry Building lead me a bit." - Paolo Bicchieri
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