La Brea Bakery has announced that it is partnering with Nancy Silverton to celebrate the brand’s 30^th anniversary. Silverton founded the bakery in Los Angeles in 1989, and is credited with bringing the artisan bread movement to the United States. During her tenure at the bakery, La Brea Bakery gained both local and national attention for its old-world baking techniques by employing the traditions of true artisanal bread. To this day, the bakery uses Silverton’s original sourdough starter in the entire lineup of breads.

La Brea Bakery first opened its doors on South La Brea Avenue in 1989. Within a few short months, lines formed around the block as customers hoped to get their hands on one of the bakery’s coveted baguettes. In the early 1990s, a larger bakery opened in central Los Angeles to serve growing demand from stores and restaurants across southern California. The bakery’s archetypal breads—which included the French Baguette, Rosemary Olive Oil, Country White Sourdough and Whole Grain—quickly grew to include more varieties and new flavors.

In the late 1990s, La Brea Bakery opened its second café at Downtown Disney in Anaheim and, shortly thereafter, the breads became available on a nationwide scale. Despite its growth, the team behind La Brea Bakery has never lost sight of the original artisan baking process, which the brand upholds today.

“We’ve grown tremendously over the last 30 years – not only in distribution, but also in our bread selection,” said Jonathan Davis, senior vice president of research and development at La Brea Bakery, who has been with the company since its opening. “While our core breads remain our biggest sellers, we’ve expanded the bread program in recent years to include gluten-free breads, take & bake varieties and our Reserve program, which is our farm-to-table portfolio. It’s been a remarkable experience to have witnessed the bakery evolve into what it is today.”

To commemorate this milestone, Nancy Silverton is working with La Brea Bakery to develop new, special edition breads. La Brea Bakery Founders line is set to launch later this year and will include items featuring ingredients like sprouted grains, alternative flours and, as always, Nancy’s original sourdough starter.

“I originally opened La Brea Bakery because I wanted to create authentic artisan breads—the artisan bread movement hadn’t yet arrived in the United States,” said Nancy Silverton. “Within a few weeks of opening, we were selling out of our baguettes and loaves before the end of the day. I didn’t anticipate the bakery would get such a strong fan following so quickly – it was such an amazing opportunity to be in the kitchen with people I loved making great bread, and I’m very much looking forward to revisiting my roots and partnering with La Brea Bakery for the 30^th anniversary.”

To learn more about La Brea Bakery’s artisan breads, visit www.LaBreaBakery.com.