Pioneering D.C. Bakery Bread Furst Is Coming to Dupont

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.

Bread Furst

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.

Photo by April Greer For The Washington Post via Getty Images

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.