Tabor Bread: einkorn on Monday, buckwheat on Saturday

In a storefront on SE Belmont, Tabor Bread has been turning Oregon and Washington grain into some of Portland's most beloved loaves since Tissa Stein opened the original shop in 2012. The bakery started out in a former medical office at 50th and Hawthorne, where it became one of the city's first retail bakeries to mill its own flour and bake in a wood-fired oven. Baker Rebecca Tosdevin took over in 2022, and the bread is as good as it ever was, long-fermented sourdough that tastes like the grain itself.

Plan your visit around the baking schedule. Einkorn, an ancient wheat, comes out on Mondays, and Saturdays bring the Buckwheat Sesame and Mountain Bread. The country loaf is baked every day, and it's the one to carry home for the week if it's your first time. Einkorn is nuttier and a little fruitier than a standard country loaf, and Tabor has baked with it (along with kamut, spelt and red fife) long enough that it's a regular part of the grain list.

This is the Sunnyside bakery that got Portland paying attention to local grain, and for years the mill and the wood oven defined it. Once Camas Country Mill became more consistent, the bakery let the millers do the milling, and after the 2021 heat wave the wood oven came out of rotation because the heat and smoke no longer felt right. Later came the move from the Hawthorne house to Belmont, and Stein's retirement. Through all of it the bread has stayed true to Oregon and Washington wheat and long fermentation, and the sourdough still tastes like grain with the sourness in the background.

The Belmont shop is a working bakery. Dark-crusted loaves sit on the rack with peel marks pressed into the bottoms, and the crumb is open enough for toast and sturdy enough for a sandwich the next day. There are a few small tables, and the shop smells more like wheat than sugar.

Tabor has always made more than bread, with pastries, cookies, lunch, and now dinner some nights, and the sweets use sourdough too. Look for a chocolate babka with real structure, a chocolate croissant made for people who want more than butter, and rotating laminated pastries with the same grainy depth as the loaves. If there's a seeded or rye loaf out, it makes a delicious second loaf, and since the pastries change, see what's out that morning.

Weekend loaves tend to disappear by late morning, because a naturally leavened bakery bakes a set number of loaves and then it's done. If Saturday is your only chance, make Tabor your first stop instead of squeezing it in after other errands, and make sure you're headed to Belmont and not the old Hawthorne address. Ask what grain is in the loaf you're buying, since that grain and the long fermentation behind it are what keep regulars coming back.

The essentials, from hours to what to order, are on the Tabor Bread page.