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Kouign-amann pioneer Brian Wood expands into retail with Starter Bakery in Oakland, Calif.

The pastry chef hopes to open multiple locations in the Bay Area

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

April 25, 2023

Brian Wood helped introduce the San Francisco Bay area to the Kouign-amann, a buttery laminated pastry from France’s Brittany region, when he started wholesaling it from his Starter Bakery in Berkeley, Calif., in 2010.

Now the pastry chef has entered the retail world with a public-facing Starter Bakery that he opened in Oakland, Calif., a few miles away from his production facility, at the end of February.

The 2,000 square-foot shop offers the bread and Viennoiserie for which Wood is known, as well as other desserts, plus sandwiches, salads, pies, and a robust coffee program. Cakes will be available soon, Wood said.

The pastry chef studied cultural anthropology in college, but was always interested in cooking. He soon found that frenetically paced restaurant kitchens didn’t suit his own personality, so he turned to baking. He worked as a restaurant pastry chef, a chocolate production manager, an instructor at the San Francisco Baking Institute, and a research & development consultant for larger wholesalers before going into his own business. He also is the co-author of Advanced Bread and Pastry: A Professional Approach, published by Delmar Cengage Learning in 2009.

Wood recently discussed his new bakery, his reasons for entering the retail space, and his plans for expansion.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage.

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN.

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2^nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends.

Bret Thorn’s Experience:

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
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