Best Bakery 🥐

Tucked into a 1,000-square-foot storefront on Upper King, Welton's Tiny Bakeshop has built a quiet but devoted following on the strength of one principle: do less, do it by hand, do it well. Hannah and Zachary Welton — who met in the Husk Charleston kitchen and spent a year and a half cooking at Hartwood in Tulum before opening their own shop — work with regional grains and naturally leavened doughs across a lineup that turns over with the season.

The signature is the cardamom kouign-amann: lamination so precise the layers shatter into glass-like flakes, sweetened just enough that the cardamom and the butter both have room to be themselves. It's the kind of pastry that locals who've spent time in Paris talk about with a slight sigh of relief. The salted honey pie — Hannah's Hartwood-era invention — and a rotating cast of savory hand pies and morning buns round out the case.

Tiny is in the name for a reason. The shop holds maybe a dozen people standing, the line forms early most weekends, and the pastries sell out before the 1pm close more often than not. It's a neighborhood bakery in the most literal sense — and Charleston locals have voted it the city's best.

"Tiny is in the name — less than 1,000 square feet — but there is a whole lot of love and attention to detail every step of the way." — Welton's