Love Philly? So do we. Let’s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today.
This week, Atlantic writer Caity Weaver wrote an article proclaiming that the best free restaurant bread in America was right here in Philadelphia: the cranberry walnut loaf in Parc’s bread basket.
Undoubtedly, Parc’s bread basket is a banger. What is better than enjoying a glass of wine on the square with some Parisian-inspired loaves? Still, do you agree… Is the walnut selection really the best complimentary bread in the United States? Is it even the best in Philadelphia?
For her article, Weaver toured the country trying bread from high-end spots like Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas — to beloved national chains like Red Lobster and the Cheesecake Factory. (We do love cheddar bay biscuits and brown bread.)
Parc’s cranberry loaf ultimately reigned supreme due to its unique appeal and its “ability to harmoniously convey the sensation of eating an entire meal, with dessert, in every bite.”
High praise indeed!
“It is fitting that the best free restaurant bread in America should contain cranberries,” Weaver writes. “They are indigenous to North America. If you were going to design a restaurant bread specifically intended to appeal to 21st-century Americans, you might well create this exact foodstuff: It is a very chewy sourdough, with a thick, crispy crust that is chocolate brown in color.”
Philly restaurateur Stephen Starr told The Atlantic that Parc gives away slightly under half a million dollars in free bread every year. (And that’s not factoring in the butter.) However, even if it was the “dumbest move we ever made” financially, according to Starr, he couldn’t imagine charging for the bread.
“We just wanted it to be joyful,” he said.
By the end of Weaver’s article, it becomes clear that the best free bread does not just have to do with the recipe.
Part of the reason Weaver chose Parc’s bread is precisely because the restaurant is in Philly — her father’s hometown. She visited a few weeks after his passing, and her experience goes far beyond sustenance and flavor.
“I am seated near a family: a mother, father, and college-age daughter,” she writes. “I can hardly look at them, even as I can’t keep my eyes off them. Veiled by Parc’s low lighting, I allow myself to sink into a luxuriant, tear-flooded sadness.”
Enjoying bread, after all, is not a science. Perhaps, your favorite free bread is at your family’s go-to restaurant, where the smell of a particular yeasted dough can take you back to your childhood days.
“Immediate family members frequently identify the same bread as their favorite, as if this has been determined by group vote,” Weaver notes. “Many people can only recall breads eaten as children.”
My personal favorite free restaurant bread comes from From the Boot’s location in Lafayette Hill, which offers soft, extremely buttery and garlicky, tear-away knots that come warm — and which I gobbled up all the time as a kid.
We at Billy Penn are curious what your favorite complimentary bread in the city is — no national chains, just local spots. We’re asking readers to share their favorite free restaurant bread in Philadelphia and tell us what makes it so special.
