Pain D’Avignon

I almost ate 3 croissants here and I don’t even like croissants!!! This place is awesome. It’s in the middle of the market so make sure you look for it!!!
I bought a big bread here for my wedding (we have a tradition or bread and salt welcome) so I was very very satisfied!

I still can’t give 5 stars just cause it’s pricey and there’s a $ 10 card minimum. But gosh darn is this bread good! Lately, I’ve had the chocolate croissant, choco-​hazelnut croissant, and the pistachio-​chocolate roll thingy that can’t be called a croissant (see Sonia N.‘s photo), and it’s that latter one that has me dreaming of bread in my sleep and handing over my hard-​earned $ 4.50 every week now. On a different note, I don’t quite recommend the iced coffee because the last time I ordered it, I was a little unimpressed that it came out of a cooler in their tiny fridge. Stick with the hot coffee/​espresso drinks, eat bread, pay cash, and you will be a happy customer!

I loved their apple lemon pudding bread. Exceptional! It was so rich, heavy-​as-​a-​brick, and not-​at-​all-​sweet. Taking off 1 star for the awful service. She was on her cell phone, swearing in Spanish the entire time. She shouldn’t assume that customers don’t understand Spanish. This is NY! Really shameful talk!

Incredible product that’s second to none anywhere on the LES. Try anything from baguettes to ciabatta. They even have stellar onion dinner rolls. Service and ownership is fantastic and they have one of the nicest stall fronts in the Essex Street Market.
Pain D’Avignon really hits it out of the park, worth a trip or becoming a regular if you’re living in the area.

The bread here is matched in quality only by a few other excellent bakeries in New York and the price here is much better than grocery store resellers. Everyone who works here is nice, the pastries are delicious, and they even have good coffee (stumptown). You should go!
Note: it is inside Essex Street Market in the back middle area.

Good bread at great prices and they have mini loaves, but the popular items sell out by the afternoon so get there early. My favorite is the cranberry pecan.

Wow their bread is fantastic! We bought a baguette, a pissaldiere and a nice hunk of onion focaccia. If you are any where close to the lower east side take the time to stop in and stock up on their fantastic breads

Their bread is scrumptious! Get any loaf with sourdough or olives.
I don’t know or care about the rest of their offerings – croissants, coffee, whatever. Give them a try if you’re into that sort of thing. I bet they’re good.

Hand me some butter and I’m moving in.
As much as I love my fancy foods, I could totally live off (good) bread. Pain D’Avignon is a bread mecca. Any kind of bread you want, they probably have it.
I opted for the mini brioche loaf and the mini French white loaf. Only came out to $ 7.50. Reasonable for fresh bread.
I can’t wait to dig in this weekend.

Wasn’t a fan of the croissant, which was a bit dry.

Hands down, the best brioche for French toast you can get in the city. And extremely affordable at around $ 5 for a loaf. Spoil & treat yourself to craft bread. From a midi baguette to sourdough. Anything you buy here will be a great investment towards an awesome sandwich, pudding, or simply with a great olive oil.

I rarely come here but when I do I buy a snack or two to enjoy on the rest of my market trip. I’ve never been wowed, but the breads were decent. It’s been a while (at least a year) and since I was in the neighborhood I thought I’d stop by to buy some bread here and cheese next door at Formaggio’s.
There is generally a long line outside the bread shop, and one person behind the counter (it’s tiny!). Long story short, the two stars are for the breads in the past, zero stars for the service. When it was my turn to order, a woman barged in from the side who was apparently a regular and rudely spoke over me to inquire if they had something. Imagine my surprise when the girl behind the counter actually served her first as I am standing there with my jaw on the floor. No apologies.
After I asked 2 questions while she acted annoyed (at this point there was only one person behind me and I wanted to hurry up) I felt I was bothering the girl who gave me the «f*ck you» smile. Needless to say I went next door and bought bread at Formaggio’s who were only too happy to accept credit cards, and did not emphasize how expensive everything was, unlike here.

A bread store located inside the Essex Street Market. This is the place to go to if you’re in need of freshly baked bread. It’s a super tiny place, but they have a great selection of bread. Also, they make this walnut, chocolate bread/​pastry thingy that is absolutely amazing, and this is coming from someone who is super picky about her sweets. I think the best time to go is in the mornings as all their bread and pastries are freshest then.

Best Croissant’s I’ve Ever Had! I come here each time I am in New York. Their a bit pricey but SO worth it!

Lovely little shop in Essex street market. Baguette with olives, what was it, $ 3?. Ciabatta and Rye sourdough galore. Check out this small but intriguing bread store. You won’t be disappointed with the products. No seating, just buy and go.

Cute bakery.
Tucked inside Essex Street Market, you can find plenty of delicious breads at Pain D’Avignon.
Everything’s fresh and made with quality ingredients. They use organic sugar, wild flower honey, sea salt and Greek olive oil in their breads. The prices are reasonable. I love how they offer loaves in different sizes. Their mini loaves are the perfect serving for 2 – 3 people.
Employees were sweet and quick to wrap up our breads. No seating available. Just grab and go.

My fellow Americans, let’s face it: we don’t exactly have the most decorated history when it comes to making bread. Whether it be the ubiquitous Wonder Bread, a medium which so many of us, at some point in our lives, mistook for the genus «bread,» or the I-don’t-know-what-obscure-dry-ingredient-you-decided-to-grind-up-into-flour-but-it-strikes-me-as-precisely-silly-and-vain bread, guaranteed to be gluten-​free so that those afflicted with Celiac disease (a euphemism for a gluten allergy, or weakness) can still «enjoy» one of the great joys of civilization. Between these two extreme phenomena, is an abyss, inside of which flavor and texture defer to nutrition, gustatory complexity defers to sesquipedalian ingredients, as though us mortals consumed only macronutrients and were indifferent to anything else.
Happily, the Pinocchio of American bread is finally becoming less woody and more real, and beginning to climb out of the aforementioned abyss. Pain D’Avignon is corroboration manifest: despite its name being a little bit snooty (and the capital «D» in «D’Avignon» makes me cringe, an aesthetic monstrosity – loss of a star), PDA boasts of some REALLY solid bread. And I’m not talking about the olive fougasses, or the pain aux raisins, ou bien, le pain chocolat; I think that one problem with the contemporary American understanding of bread quality is that we often judge bread (and pizza, for that matter) by the added decorations and not by the essential substance. If you want to know the quality of a bakery, look no further than the humble baguette. If they can do a baguette REALLY well, chances are the rest of their breads will follow suit.
That being said, PDA has a really great baguette. Beautifully scored and golden, bending slightly upwards at the ends like a great baguette should do, each one individualized by its own idiosyncrasies; the visual sensation is almost pornographic. And for flavor: it’s really amazing what this place can do with flour, water, yeast and salt. A great, crunch crust that yields under easy pressure to a soft, chewy-​melty interior. The balance is genius, something difficult to describe more fully because of its simplicity, so you’ll have to either take my word for it, or, better yet, give it a try yourself.
The breads with more frills, as the ones described above, are also really great, and very fairly priced. The Pane Francese, while simple, is really superb, and their whole grain breads really capture the depth of flavor provided by the actual whole grain. I will say that I have to dock a star because of the quality of the croissants, as indicated by other Unilocalers. While America is certainly coming out of the Dark Ages of Bread, we are still rubbing stones together to try to make croissants. Will someone ever come to save us? Perhaps, but it’s sadly not PDA.
In any case, you should definitely give a visit to PDA. Really cute shop with great breads, and it also means that you’ll be supporting the Essex St. Market! Allez, viens!

While their bread is exceptional, I would not get their croissant. It tasted store bought and really not what I expected from a bakery, though I guess I should head to a French boulangerie like Mille Fuelle for that.
On a brighter side, I grabbed a humungous, hearty, and thick brick of onion foccocia for $ 2 – 3. I’m slowly working on it now at home. It makes great sandwiches and crostinis.

The baguette picholine is what other olive breads want to be when they grow up. Not a lot of visible olive bits yet the flavor permeates… sheer mastery. Team it up with a couple cheeses from the cheesemonger down the aisle in this amazing market and you are good to go.
Also had a ciabatta and the levain (I believe they call it country french). Solid loaves though not as good as the picholine. Prices are very reasonable for the quality… a nice plus that just makes me want to buy more bread!

FORMERLY only wholesale, now in a tiny kiosk in Essex Street market…
Bread HEAVEN…
Decent prices for the quality of bread here.
Pefectly darkly baked.
If you want top of the line…
Baguettes, pecan cranberry, onion rolls etc.
As close to the continent as we get.
…CARB addicts– steer clear as the temptation is overwhelmng.

New to the Essex Street Market– THIS is the place to find a phenomenal baguette ($ 2.75). Perfectly crisp, chewy, fresh baked– reminiscent of Paris. They offer a wide range of breads– from bubbly round walnut raisin buns (perfect for your purchases from Saxelby Cheesemongers!) — to fresh, soft loaves of white and wheat pullman breads (perfect for your fresh cold cuts from Jeffrey’s Meats!). They also carry a slew of ornamentally beautiful breads– from round sourdoughs with beautiful patterns slices in, pre-​baking– to wreaths of crisp, seeded dough.
Initiate Carbo-​Loading. What a great find!!!