Tous Les Jours at Flock: cloud cake after the neighborhood shops close

We do not usually send people downtown for a bakery run, because the good laminated work lives in neighborhoods and the office towers empty out before a croissant should, but Tous Les Jours is the exception we keep making, and not because it is trying to be a Portland indie! It is a French-Asian bakery cafe from the Korean chain (tljus.com), tucked into Flock on the ground floor of the Ritz-Carlton block, with a street door at 900 SW Washington as well as a pass-through from the food hall. We FINALLY walked both doors, and the hits are HERE.

That double door matters more than it sounds. You can treat this like a destination from the sidewalk, or you can wander over after kimchi fried chicken or dim sum and pick up a box, which is exactly the food-hall move we love. We can also see the bakery through a run of vertical slats from the Flock side, cakes stacked in those tall white boxes, strawberry cream croissants blushing pink in the glass, milk buns that look soft enough to leave a fingerprint. The case is smaller than a full-size Tous Les Jours — this is not the suburban flagship with a wall of milk bread — but we still found croissants, curry and kimchi croquettes, milk bread, a strawberry pastry, and the cloud cakes the chain is built on. Seating is food-hall seating, not a quiet marble table. You are getting a tray, a drink, and a place to sit among the other Flock vendors, and honestly that slightly chaotic hall energy is part of why we come back!

The other reason we come here is the CLOCK. Most Portland bakeries are a morning sport. This one stays open later — Flock lists coffee and pastry service into the evening, Sunday through Thursday into the night and even later on Friday and Saturday — so we can actually buy a cloud cake after a matinee or a late lunch. That is RARE in this city. We use it. The pastry counter does not always match vendor last call, so we check the shop, not just the food-hall board.

Cloud cake FIRST. That is the chain’s signature for a reason: sponge and whipped cream, not a buttercream fortress, light enough that a slice does not end the day, and it looks almost like a white pillow sitting on a cake board. If they have a whole box cake, that is the office or birthday move, and we have watched people walk out with those tall white boxes like they just won downtown. Then the strawberry pastry and a milk bun, because this is a Korean bakery even when the signage says French, and the milk bread is the thing people who grew up on it come back for — pale, squishy, a little sweet, the opposite of a dark Portland country loaf. Savory is not an afterthought! Curry and kimchi croquettes are the order if you are making a meal of it, crisp outside, hot filling, the kind of thing that makes a food hall stop feel like dinner. Croissants are here too; they are competent laminated pastry, not the reason we crossed the bridges, but they sit well next to a coffee if you are only grabbing one thing. We usually leave with a mixed bag: one cloud slice, one croquette, one milk bread, and whatever strawberry item is still in the case.

Do not expect the full national menu. This location is a smaller case, and we have seen the shelves look a little sparse even earlier in the day, which is the food-hall footprint, not a slight. Limited seating means we do not plan a long hang. Grab, sit if a table is open, or walk it to the sidewalk. This is a chain, and we say that without apology, because consistency is the point. You come for the cloud cake and the later window, not for a chef manifesto. Parking downtown is the usual downtown problem; we transit or we budget time for a garage. If you want a quiet neighborhood bakery, go elsewhere. If you want a French-Asian case after 5 p.m. in the middle of the city, this is the one we use!

More on the bakery: Tous les Jours