Publican Quality Bread in Chicago

Publican Quality Bread has supplied their baked goods to restaurants and other wholesale clients throughout Chicagoland for many years, but it was only last year in June 2022 that their own retail location finally opened. It’s led by Head Baker Greg Wade, who received the James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker in 2019. The bakery carries (locally grown and ground) whole grain breads, as well as pastries, sandwiches, and La Colombe coffee. Copies of Greg Wade’s recent book Bread Head are also available for purchase.

I visited the bakery last fall and tried a few pastries and two loaves of bread.

The Cinnamon Roll ($5) was unfortunately my least favorite item. The cinnamon roll itself was dense and chewy, and despite its appearance it surprisingly didn’t have a strong cinnamon flavor. However, what really bothered me was the cream cheese frosting, which was excessively sour and surprisingly waxy. Maybe I just got unlucky, but this was quite disappointing.

The savory snail available when I visited was a Tomato and Cheese Snail ($3). From the name I expected a laminated pastry, but it was an enriched bread shaped like a snail. It was very cheesy, and I liked the crispy cheese skirt on the bottom, but unfortunately the top was a bit burned. The tomato wasn’t noticeable, but it was a nice cheesy snack.

The Kouign Amann ($5.50) wasn’t the most buttery or flavorful kouign amann (I prefer the one at Kasama). The texture was quite flaky and light, but the kouign amann was also light on flavor. I liked the crisp caramelized layer on the bottom though.

My favorite pastry was the Chocolate Morning Brioche ($6). The crust was slightly crispy, and the interior was rich and soft. It wasn’t not overly sweet or overwhelmingly chocolatey. There are candied citrus peels inside were a nice surprise and went together well with the chocolate. I would recommend getting this pastry but not any of the others that I tried.

Fortunately, the breads I tried were great, and I enjoyed them much more than the pastries. (I guess they’re named Publican Quality Bread, after all.)

The Honey Oat Porridge ($9) is a sourdough loaf made from wheat, Ackerman Farm oats,Wisconsin Kallas honey, and salt. The crumb was very soft and fluffy, and moist and elastic. I really like this type of delicate, almost lacy, elastic crumb. The flavor was also great: creamy, lightly sweetened with Wisconsin Kallas honey, and with just enough tang from a 30 hour fermentation. I really liked it.

The Malted Rye ($10) is made with rye (from Spence Farm), wheat, malted rye, and malted barley flours, and is fermented for 60 hours. The smell and taste were both very flavorful—I really enjoyed this loaf. The interior of the loaf is soft, and the crust is crisp and thin (though not as thin as the porridge loaf).

In conclusion, although my experience with the pastries was mixed, I really enjoyed the bread that I tried and definitely will be back for more if in the area again—it’s some of the best bread I’ve had in the Midwest. I also love how they use locally-milled whole grains from local farms. If you can’t make it to their retail location, they do wholesale to many restaurants and retail locations in the Chicagoland area, and I think their breads are definitely worth seeking out.