20 Loaves We Love

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The hand-shaped, wood-fired potato-thyme fougasse from Hungry Ghost Bakery in Northampton, Massachusetts, has a pillowy texture reminiscent of focaccia and a wonderfully herbacous taste.

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With a moist crumb and pronounced crust, Tartine's country bread is the gold standard for artisan loaves in San Francisco and beyond. Remarkable.

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Iggy's in Boston makes one of our favorite sandwich breads, the fluffy and pliant pan Francese.

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The seeded fougasse at Standard Baking Company in Portland, Maine, tastes like the best everything bagel on earth: chewy, fragrant, great with good butter.

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Keith Kouris's two Long Island Blue Duck bakeries feature a vast range of international breads, but their dense Finnish-style sour rye is our favorite, particularly with a ripe, creamy cheese.

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Think of the heavenly, crisp caramelized cheese atop a casserole; that's what the Asiago-Parmesan bread by Lionel Vatinet at La Farm in Cary, North Carolina, tastes like.

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The fragrant rye ficelle Zachary Golper makes at his year-old Brooklyn bakery Bien Cuit is worth the trip to the borough.

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Of all the creative loaves at Santa Monica's Milo + Olive, the cinnamon sugar brioche is our favorite. Think French toast.

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The wood-fired, earthy-tasting country blond boule at Ken Forkish's 11-year-old Portland, Oregon, bakery has the perfect crumb-to-chew ratio.

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Edmund and Kathleen Weber bake this rustic air-pocketed pumpkin seed campagna at their Petaluma, California bakery, Della Fattoria.

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The moist, briny three-olive batard from Seven Stars in Providence, Rhode Island, is the platonic ideal of this style.

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Long fermentation is the key to the fine flavor of this epi baguette, from Pain D'Avignon in New York City.

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We're crazy about Berkshire Mountain Bakery's Bread and Chocolate, a sourdough boule studded with bittersweet Callebaut chunks.

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The amply charred, smoky truccione sare from Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City embodies baker Jim Lahey's classic-but-creative style.

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Acme's organic walnut levain is our favorite loaf from the seminal bakery in Berkeley, California.

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The chewy pain de seigle, a wheat-and-rye sourdough boule from Balthazar in New York City, just might be the perfect table bread.

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The chewy, aromatic Russian pumpernickel at 86-year-old Manhattan stalwart Orwasher's is old-world perfection, and our choice for a pastrami sandwich. (We also love their chardonnay miche, made with grape yeast.)

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Gerard Rubaud, a French baker in Vermont, mills the flour for his insanely delicious organic levain.

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The slightly tangy, rugged whole wheat sourdough from New York's Bread Alone makes a stellar PB&J.

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The fresh local flour used at Grand Central Bakery in Seattle and Portland is one reason the airy Como loaf (perfect for bruschette) is so insanely delicious.