We believe there’s no better way to start the day than by eating a donut. Let’s be honest, it’s dessert for breakfast. Donuts are also fun because there’s an endless variety of traditional and modern creations each with their own unique flavor profile and textures. We’ve compiled a list of our favorite donuts in the Bay Area including croissant and donut fusions; mochi donuts; and ube donuts.
Bob’s Donut & Pastry Shop
At Bob’s, you can stop by for a donut and any hour of the day. The 24-hour donut shop offers all the classics including apple fritters, cinnamon rolls, raised donuts, buttermilk bars, old-fashioned, chocolate bars, jelly-filled, and cake donuts. It’s right between Fort Mason, Chinatown, Japantown, and Civic Center; so, no matter where you’re planning to go for the day, you can plan to stop by for some donuts.
Donut Savant
Donut Savant is an Oakland-based bakery best known for their cron’t (a hybrid between a donut and a croissant). They have over a dozen flavors of cron’ts including cinnamon sugar, salted maple, chocolate dust, and vanilla glaze with jam filling.
Johnny Doughnuts
Johnny Doughnuts serves up classic donuts inspired by recipes from the 1920’s. We recommend their raised doughnuts that use fresh potatoes and are topped with glazes like chocolate, strawberry, cinnamon sugar, and lime poppy. This bakery is all about experimentation — they also offer a croissant and donut fusion called the crodough.
MoDo Hawaii
MoDo Hawaii specializes in mochi donuts, each freshly fried and glazed to order. Their flavors include pandan, black sesame, lilikoi, and matcha. They cook up new seasonal flavors every month. In May, they’re offering a honey lavender mochi donut and early grey mochi donut. We recommend their ube and tiramisu donuts.
Stan’s Donuts
Stan’s has been slinging donuts in Santa Clara since 1959. They’re best known for their glazed donuts with a shattering crust of sugar. We also love their old-fashioned and fresh crueller. Every day of the week, their buttermilk donut takes on a new flavor — banana on Sundays, maple on Mondays, Vanilla on Tuesdays, and so on. Cash only.
Eizel’s Bakery
Eizel’s is a bakery pop-up that specializes in unique sweet and savory donuts. We love their creme brulee donut with a crispy, sticky topside and cool, creamy filling. There’s also an ube donut topped with ube polvoron and stuffed with ube jam. For something really unique, get the crawfish donut inspired by the crawfish beignets at Brenda’s French Soul Food.
Dutch Door Donuts
Dutch Door Donuts is way out in Carmel, but it’s the perfect start to any beach day. Their donuts are fried fresh to order which means they’re warm and chewy. We love their unique fruity combinations like tangerine cardamom and blueberry meyer lemon. You can also get a stack of beignets.
