/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72172870/614478444.0.jpg)
Nearly a decade after opening the original Bread Furst in Van Ness, its James Beard Award-winning baker Mark Furstenberg will bring his best-selling baguettes closer to city center this spring.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24580578/IMG_1972__3_.jpg)
Bread Furst’s surprise sophomore cafe will debut inside Dupont Circle’s red brick-framed Phillips Collection in early May (1600 21st Street NW). Furstenberg takes over the space most recently occupied by Lost Sock Roasters, which ran a temporary pop-up there since October. Bread Furst, however, plans to stay put at the cultural attraction “for the long haul,” owner Furstenberg tells Eater.
“Although I have never imagined expanding Bread Furst in any way, an overture from the Phillips Collection was more than I could resist,” says Furstenberg, who’s a longtime member of the iconic art museum and Dupont resident.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24579247/860784814.jpg)
Open since 2014, his tiny cafe along upper Connecticut Avenue NW is a national standard-bearer for patiently baked breads that helped him earn the 2017 James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker in the U.S. His all-day menu has expanded past multigrain and sourdough to include cakes and pies, brunch bagels, chocolate croissants, cookies, and English muffins starting at 8 a.m. daily. Phillips Collection hours will be more abbreviated, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays through Sundays.
Look for an imported cross-section of the same breads, pastries, sandwiches, salads, and coffee found in Van Ness, he says. The walk-up cafe will be open to the public, so customers can buy baked goods without paying the $16 admission to peruse Matisse and Picasso paintings in America’s first museum of modern art.
“We hope that we can be a cafe not only for members and patrons of the museum, but for the community as well,” he adds.
While the museum marks Bread Furst’s second brick-and-mortar shop to date, the bakery maintains a seasonal farmers market stand at Georgetown’s Rose Park from May to October. Bread Furst built out an impressive retail market during the pandemic, offering access to wholesalers for high-quality coffee and olive oil.