Ken's Artisan: the country loaf on NW 21st

On Northwest 21st in the Northwest District, Ken's Artisan Bakery bakes the country loaf that other westside bakers have been measured against for years. Bread people have wondered whether the shop holds up now that Ken Forkish isn't behind the bench, and it does. Go to the bakery on Northwest 21st (Ken's Artisan Pizza is a different place), get the country loaf, and then take a look at the pastry case.

Forkish opened the shop in 2001 in a renovated carpet warehouse at 21st and Flanders. He'd left high tech, studied French methods, and wanted a Portland boulangerie that took levain bread as seriously as pastry. In the early years retail bread sales lagged behind all the praise, but he kept baking, and the country loaf turned into the westside loaf other bakers had to answer. He also wrote the celebrated books that taught a whole generation of home bakers to weigh their flour and wait. He's retired now, and longtime employees Randy Dorkin and Theo Taylor run the place.

Inside, the walls are brightly colored and there's plenty of window light, with a communal table and some two-tops. Your eye goes straight to the bread display, where blond and darker country loaves are stacked up as the decor. The three-kilo country blonde boule is almost comically large, the kind of round you photograph before you cut it, and the bâtards have a deep golden crust with a little flour left in the score. The pastry case sits right next to the bread, so the shop smells like butter and levain at the same time, and it feels like a true neighborhood bakery.

Don't confuse the bakery with Ken's Artisan Pizza on the eastside. Visitors have ended up in a different neighborhood with a different menu, asking for a morning bun. The bakery is on NW 21st in the Northwest District, and while there's also an Annex a few doors down for later in the week, the original bakery is the one to visit.

Get the country loaf, the house levain (the blond and darker country loaves have been the signature from the start). Buy it as a bâtard if you want a week of toast, or get the bigger boule if you're feeding a table. Then give the pastry case a real look, because Ken's has always been as much a laminated-pastry shop as a bread shop. The goat-cheese-and-leek croissant is the savory one to get, the passionfruit escargot is a spiral pastry for when you're tired of cinnamon buns, and the Oregon croissant is filled with marionberry and hazelnut. If there's a morning bun out, add one.

A baguette is a good second pick if you already have a country loaf at home, since Forkish built the place on levain breads and baguettes together. Mornings are the nicest time to go, when the neighborhood fills up with people getting coffee and people buying bread. Forkish isn't behind the bench anymore, but the people baking now already knew his dough, and if you've read Flour Water Salt Yeast and want to see where it came from, this is the place.

The essentials are on the Ken's Artisan Bakery page.