Best Breakfast In Bed: Milo and Olive (or the Pastry Shop Nearest You)

jgarbee

Blueberry crumb tart & chocolate croissant at Milo and Olive

Cooking up breakfast in bed for someone -- a baking-heavy repast beyond scrambled eggs and French toast -- is often one of those great weekend ideas that comes to an abrupt halt when you pull out that 4-hour-plus recipe for homemade croissants. These are the times when turning to the best bakery in your neighborhood, say, Milo and Olive, is an obvious yet often overlooked choice for early morning takeout. And as it doesn't involve cooking, whomever is the recipient of your breakfast-in-bed generosity now has absolutely no excuse ("How do I scramble eggs again?") not to reciprocate, a pretty great bonus.

The other bonus of early Saturday morning takeout, in addition to no traffic and that cost-effective dine-at-home appeal: You get to brew your own favorite style of coffee. Right. If you're already getting takeout, why would you want to brew your own coffee?

It's one of those ironic side effects of significant improvements in any field (no coffee plantation puns intended). We all now have a very strong opinion about what style of coffee we do and do not like, be it nostalgic, mass-produced drip at our decades-long favorite Formica-counter bakery haunt, "artisan" coffees brewed with hyper-local beans, or so we are told, at the prettiest new pastry shop, espresso or French press pots wherever it may be. Besides, the pennies you save on making your own coffee can go toward those pastries that you are very glad you did not get up at 4 a.m. to make, or so we like to tell ourselves as we add another chocolate croissant to our order.

jgarbee

Milo and Olive quiche, chocolate croissant, ham & cheese croissant, blueberry tart

At Milo and Olive, for example, you can create an entire savory-to-sweet early-morning meal for multiple tasters, as we recently did. Start with a slice of the custardlike quiche with a hybrid flaky tart/brioche-style crust ($6.50) and a savory ham & cheese croissant ($3.50, both pictured above). They're among the better values on the menu, and better still, they rank up there among the best slices of quiche and croissants that we've ever had (Read: We remember each bite in vivid detail, which is rare for 8 a.m. on a Saturday). After that "main" course, you can move on to a chocolate croissant, a blueberry tart, maybe a doughnut or whatever sweets are calling out at you from the case of your local bakery. An excuse for an all-pastry meal, in essence.

And sure, there is much Twittering about Milo and Olive's impending curbside delivery. Or perhaps your local bakery already delivers. Lucky you. But then again, we'd hate to miss out on all the pressing-your-nose-against-the-glass fun, which is much better, for real croissant fans at least, than staying in bed.

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