Bar crawls will never be my thing. European church crawl? Absolutely. And for my 29th birthday this year, inspired by LA Bakery Walk, I decided to do a pastry crawl in Santa Monica on Sunday, June 7. Because how else should you celebrate your last year of your twenties than with buttery, flake, sugary confections?
There are so many bakeries that are on my bucket list, and I created a few routes in different parts of Los Angeles. Ultimately, I decided on a 4.5 mile route in Santa Monica for a few key reasons:
- You never know if there’s going to be a random heat wave, and I wanted to stay on the west side just in case it ended up being a scorcher of a Sunday.
- I mainly wanted to Petit Grain Boulangerie, which only has one location in Santa Monica.
- Parking is also fairly easy around the areas that I chose so that people could easily meet up with us along the way.
I’m so grateful to have so many friends come out, from Inglewood to Silverlake to Sunland!! Special shout out to my friends Rachel and Camilla who brought their babies and walked with their strollers! I also brought name tags because friends and +1s were coming from all my different social circles.
8am: LA LA LAND KIND CAFE (headcount: 5)
I met up with a few of my early bird friends and we grabbed some caffeine to fuel our walk at La La Land Kind Cafe on Montana. I got a banana chai latte. It’s usually pretty crowded, but anywhere at 8am on a Sunday is Los Angeles is fairly empty.
9am: PETIT GRAIN BOULANGERIE (headcount: 19 + 2 babies)
This is a small bakery that is on every LA best bakery list, and probably the best one on the west side. There’s pretty much always a line since it’s just a walk-up counter with no tables inside. I had seen reviews raving about the cinnamon roll, and it did not disappoint. I also got a free chocolate chip cookie since the employees were wondering why we all had name tags, and it may have been the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever had.
10:30am CHAUMONT BAKERY (headcount: 11 + 2 babies)
I had never been to Chaumont, but there are a few locations around LA. It’s known for having vegan pastries, although we learned the Santa Monica location was not vegan. Mayur and I shared a pain au chocolat, which was fine. There was a good amount of seating and we hung out outside for a bit.
12pm: TARTINE (headcount: 6 + 1 baby)
Tartine is from SF Bay area, but now there are 6 locations around LA, but I think the Santa Monica one is iconic. It has been in a converted funeral home since 2020, and it has a lovely courtyard and seating. I had been plenty of times before, and I planned for it to be the last stop since it has both baked goods, but also a full cafe menu so that we could eat real food. I got the soft scramble tartine, and it was delicious.
1:30pm: SWEET LADY JANE (headcount: 3)
We ended back on Montana Ave where we started. I could not eat any more, but my friend Sneh picked up a slice of cake for her boyfriend who couldn’t make it and I didn’t take any photos, but they’re famous for their triple berry cake and it is delicious.
I was really impressed that we basically stuck to the schedule exactly.
I also feel like this birthday party was kind of a reflection of my 2026 so far in that it was super casual. I barely even took any photos. Most years, I make my invite list and then have to see how many people can come, find a restaurant that has a reservation for that number of people, etc. This year, I sent the Partiful invite a month in advance and it was open invite. Partiful is a free event invite app that all the kiddos are using these days and it’s super easy to use. It takes care of reminding people via text to RSVP and you can send text blasts so everyone invited gets the message instead of individually texting information to each person. I had a blast, and I think I may do this again for another birthday down the line!
