The Best Bread in New Jersey

It's the base of some of our favorite foods. I'm talking bread.

Some may say "bread is bread." Those people would be wrong.

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The quality of bread can make or break some of our favorite foods.

Take subs for example. That's right, I said subs. Now is not the time for the sub vs. hoagie debate.

The meats, cheese, veggies, and toppings on a sub could be superb.

If the Italian bread isn't crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and "made-that-day" fresh, the sub isn't worth making.

Food & Wine recently went state-by-state to find the best bread in the land.

Some of us have had some extra time over the past two years to refine our baking skills and try new things.

Food & Wine's David Landsel made a very good point.

The quiet revolution taking place within American bread baking may have predated the pandemic, but this strange moment saw the whole thing go wide. By now, we all know the story—cooped up at home, everyone with a working oven became a sourdough expert, until many of us realized just how much work it could be. That hunger for outsourcing, coupled with bakers also being cooped up at home with time on their hands, led to an absolute explosion in the cottage baking industry, with some of the best bread many of us will have ever tried coming out of the kind of oven you can buy with a few clicks.

When F&W narrowed in on New Jersey, we got the story of Rick Easton.

Rick's establishment started in Pittsburgh. After a time, plans were made to relocate to Brooklyn.

They never made it to New York.

Instead, the home base was set up in the shadow of The Big Apple, Jersey City. The rest is history.

Bread and Salt was Food & Wine's pick for the best bread in New Jersey.

it's the place to go when you want a really serious loaf of Italian-style bread, here referred to matter-of-factly as "regular bread," because Bread & Salt is just that kind of place, doing exemplary work, without a lot of fanfare, apart from the attention it continues to get.

Only true Italian restaurants have the perfect bread dipping oil. How many of these Jersey favorites have you been to?