Zak the Baker Was OK…this time…

Zak the Baker is a highly rated bakery located in the Wynwood area of Miami. It is also in the Michelin guide. I recently went there for breakfast. The place is very popular so I would recommend making a reservation. We started with a turnover filled with guava. I’m not really a fan of sweet pastry in the morning, but there are exceptions (like for the occasional cinnamon bun or anything maple syrup). In this case, I didn’t like the sweet and sour nature of the filling (this was recommended by our server), but the crust was above average.

We were sat at a table by a window with a view into the bakery. It was really cool to see the people working hard rolling dough, and taking stuff out of the oven. Anyway, my wife and I shared a bagel with salmon and the grilled cheese and tomato soup.

The bagel was ok but lacked the chewiness of a New York or Montreal bagel which I love! I would not get this again. Same for the grilled cheese. The cheese should be stronger in flavor. The soup was too thick and had too much acidity. I like creamy smooth tomato soup. I consider both dishes to be average. My benchmark for grilled cheese and tomato soup is the one at the cafe at the Wynn Hotel in Vegas. If you are there, trust me, you should get it.

Overall, service was ok. It was really slow and they also mixed up our drink order. I had asked for 2 cortados with oat milk. They brought one regular one and said they would make a new one. The second one never came until 20 minutes later after we followed up. At that point they brought us one that was probably sitting on the pick up window a long time as it was almost room temp and the foam on top was already blended into the drink. Anyway, despite these mishaps and the food, I would still go back and give it another shot. On a second visit, I would try more simple baked items like bread, cinnamon buns, croissants etc just to make sure that we didn’t order the wrong thing on our first visit.