[DINNER PARTY]
Whether you're hosting for the holidays or a guest asking the infamous question of what to bring, 27th Street Bakery should be on your shopping list this season
Welcome to chef/lifestyle expert Jazz Smollett’s new column, Dinner Party, a corner of UpRising to ponder all things food and culinary culture. Hope you’ve got an appetite!
Walking into 27th Street Bakery is like entering your grandmother’s kitchen during the holidays.
This family-run business planted roots in Los Angeles in the 1930s, when Harry Patterson and his wife moved from Shreveport, Louisiana, during the great migration of Black folx in search of more opportunity on the West Coast. He brought along family recipes and beloved flavors reminiscent of Southern cooking.
Patterson started with a full restaurant but the desserts became a mainstay. He later converted it into a bakery and gained a reputation for serving the best homemade pies in the city. Now run by third-generation owner Jeanette Bolden and her husband, Al, the landmark bakery is still the largest independent producer of sweet potato pies in the West, attracting customers from far and wide nearly a century later. The bakers still adhere to Patterson’s ethos of never cutting corners. (“We put the home back in homemade,” Bolden says.)
27th Street Bakery’s incredible offerings include their bestselling Sweet Potato Pie, Alberta’s Old-Fashioned Pecan Pie (named for Jeanette’s mother, second-generation owner), the dual-layered Sweet Potato Pecan Pie, and Sweet Pumpkin Pie (as they like to say at the bakery, “Sweet potato and pumpkin, together at last!”). Don’t forget the delectable cakes; Caramel Cheesecake and 7Up Cake are both winners.
If baking from scratch isn't in the cards, you don’t have to settle for a generic grocery store pie. Get over to 27th Street Bakery in L.A. to savor desserts baked with love for the holidays.
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