The pastry bar is lined with a visual feast of fruit, cream and chocolate-covered confections. A nearby wall boasts an assortment of European breads — slender baguettes and hearty round loafs, all with golden brown crusts, smooth, cracked or striated. Shelves display dozens of varieties of doughnuts and rolls both savory and sweet.
As strollers pass Saint-Germain’s Bakery’s new location at Ala Moana Center, between See’s Candies and Makai Market, they stop in their tracks to gaze at the myriad of tantalizing treats. Step inside, and the aroma of dough rising in the oven fills the shop. But who’s going to stop at sight and smell, when the bakery delicacies are teasing the taste buds?
Take for instance, Saint-Germain’s novel item, Cream Croissant Donut ($3.50 each) being offered to customers for the first time today (Aug. 18).
“We also have Croissant Donuts without the cream ($3 each),” says bakery spokesman Norikazu Miyata. “Doughnuts are very popular. They’re made of flour, they’re fried and they’re usually soft. Cream Croissant Donuts are also fried, but they’re made with croissant dough, so they’re buttery and flaky.”
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- Cream Croissant Donut ($3.50)
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- Walnut Bread Loaf ($5.25)
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- Traditional Seigle Loaf ($3.75)
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- Dutch Bread ($3.25)
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- French Bread Epi ($3.25)
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- Product controller Kuni Ota
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- An assortment of bread.
Miyata says the shop will give its Croissant Donuts a three-week test run, and if they’re as irresistible as he expects them to be, all of the company’s seven locations on Oahu will begin carrying the hybrid specialty.
Now, Miyata is hoping to get word to Saint-Germain’s local clientele about the new shop, which just opened in May on the makai side of the mall.
“We are also on the (mauka) side, between Foodland and the post office,” he says, “but people still think we’re in Shirokiya. They don’t know about our new location.”
Shirokiya was Saint-Germain’s very first location, opening in 1977. Two thriving locations have since taken its place, with the mauka shop sporting a bright, casual look and the newer shop having a more “chic, upscale look,” as Miyata describes it. No matter the location, “We don’t carry any items over to the next day,” notes Miyata. “We bake every morning entirely from scratch, with no preservatives, because we like to serve everything to our customers very fresh.”
Saint-Germain’s Bakery
Ala Moana Center
1450 Ala Moana Blvd #1063
955-1711
7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday-Saturday
8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday
Ala Moana Center, Honolulu, HI 96814
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