Lou the French on the Block: French Bakery in Burbank

Lou the French on the Block is a small French bakery and coffee shop at 4007 W Riverside Dr in Burbank, on the Toluca Lake border, that opens only three days a week: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 8 am to 3 pm. The owner is Laurent "Lou" Correa, a former professional basketball player from France, and the weekend line on Riverside Drive has been a fixture since 2016. If your french bakery near me search happens on a Friday in the Valley, start here.

Correa's path to baking is unusual even by LA standards. According to Wikipedia's entry on the bakery, he played small forward professionally in France for seven years, stands 6 feet 6 and is of Senegalese descent, and first got to know French cooking at a basketball boarding school. A hip injury ended his playing career. He moved to the United States in June 2012 after winning the green card lottery, and taught himself to bake by watching a chef at work and studying YouTube videos.

The bakery's own About page fills in the next steps. After arriving in Los Angeles, Lou spent two years making pastries for the families of a French school, then in 2014 launched a catering business called Chef Laurent & K that worked across the city. In 2016 he opened his own French patisserie and coffee shop in the Burbank and Toluca Lake area, which Wikipedia says he started with his wife, Karima, in June of that year.

The mission statement on the website is short and sounds like him: bringing our French touch to your block, one pastry, one coffee, one sandwich at a time. The same page promises genuine ingredients and the care of a high-end traditional French bakery, and says Lou takes pride in sharing a heritage rooted in Paris. The name is the whole concept, a French neighbor running the corner bakery on a Burbank block.

The weekend-only schedule concentrates everything into a short, busy window. The Los Angeles Times wrote that each weekend patrons enthusiastically line up on Riverside Drive for coffee and pastries, and called Correa truly the man on the block, a line the bakery quotes on its media page. The paper also pointed to the French-style sidewalk seating as a good place to people-watch or decompress after the week, and those few tables fill fast on Saturday mornings.

US Magazine, quoted on the bakery's media page, said Lou has the best almond croissants, and that is the order most first-timers make. On the Square menu the almond croissant is $6 and the chocolate almond croissant $6.50. A plain croissant is $5 and a pain au chocolat $5.50. Wikipedia notes that Correa makes his croissants softer and chewier than traditional ones, so expect a tender crumb rather than a shattering, brittle shell.

Lunch has its own timing. The quiche du jour, served with a side salad for $13, is listed as available after 10:30 am, and a whole quiche is $56. A mixed green salad with mustard dressing is $11. The baguette sandwiches are made on site, and the location page warns that the kitchen closes at 2:30 pm for sandwiches, half an hour before the doors close. Coffee is simple: a drip coffee or espresso is $4, a latte $5.50 and a café au lait $5.

For a slower drink, the menu also lists a chai latte at $5, a hot chocolate and a cortado or flat white at $4.50 each, and a cappuccino or Americano at $5. Bottled Fiji water is $2.75. The bakery even sells its own T-shirt for $45 through the Square store, along with gift cards for anyone hooked on the almond croissant.

Skipping the line takes planning, because online orders need 48 hours' notice. The Square store spells out the cutoffs: order by Wednesday noon for Friday pickup, by Thursday noon for Saturday and by Friday noon for Sunday. Without a preorder, the realistic strategy is to arrive at the 8 am opening, especially on Saturday, when the line is longest. Catering for parties is handled separately through the bakery's catering page.

Other local outlets have echoed the praise, and the bakery collects their lines on its media page. Toluca Lake Magazine wrote that honoring baking traditions while following their instincts is proving to be a successful recipe, and My Burbank called it the spot for the best weekend pastries in Burbank. Ventura Boulevard magazine said it deserves more attention than many of the area's high-profile neighbors, which is a fair point on a street full of studio-adjacent restaurants.

The bakery sits a short walk from one of the Valley's best-known landmarks, Bob's Big Boy at 4211 W Riverside Dr, the 1949 Googie coffee shop where classic car owners gather on Friday nights. Johnny Carson Park, a small creekside park with walking paths, is a few minutes south along Bob Hope Drive, and the Warner Bros. lot sits just east on Riverside. Pick up a bag of financiers and a coffee, then walk the residential streets of Toluca Lake.

Address: 4007 W Riverside Dr, Burbank, CA 91505. Hours: Friday, Saturday and Sunday 8 am to 3 pm; the kitchen stops sandwiches at 2:30 pm; closed Monday to Thursday. Online orders at louthefrenchontheblock.square.site need 48 hours' notice, with noon cutoffs on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Croissant $5, almond croissant $6, pain au chocolat $5.50, tartelettes $5.50, quiche with salad $13 after 10:30 am. Seating is a handful of sidewalk tables.