After hosting a couple years of pop-ups around Los Angeles, with a few surprise Bay Area appearances in San Francisco and Vallejo, chefs Rocky and Daniel Breiz opened Brique French Toastery inside LA’s Westfield Century City mall last November. The couple originally hail from the Bay Area and look forward to bringing the concept up north. They should thrive anywhere they open.
The original Brique Rock Toast is a four-inch thick slab of brioche French toast topped with peanut butter coconut maple syrup, vanilla bean whipped cream, and toasted coconut chips. And after finally trying it at the Century City a few weeks back, I ordered two more delivered to my door in San Francisco via a new partnership with South Bay company Locale. Brique also recently partnered with Goldbelly to ship nationwide. (Please don’t judge me for being a little bit ridiculous and flying French toast up from Los Angeles, for it yielded this important news for us all to enjoy in the future.)
Rocky Breiz is the personal chef of another Rock: the man born Dwayne Johnson. And while the French toast is a variation on something Breiz always made for her family, it evolved into the viral sensation known as Rock Toast after she started making it for Johnson’s cheat meal days.
Brique’s first location is built as a to-go concept. The product has a suggested shelf life of three days, though they’d probably freeze pretty well. The shop also sells smaller, pre-dressed snack bites. Rock Toast isn’t petite, but it is much lighter and fluffier than you might expect. I expected to eat half and save the rest for the friend I was staying with, but I ended up deciding to buy her one for herself before I even took the first bite.
The toppings, which you add on yourself, really set it off. That peanut butter coconut maple syrup should definitely be bottled and sold far and wide, and the toasted coconut chips add a crucial crunch.
Daniel Breiz told 48 Hills that the plan is to open a Northern California location “sooner rather than later.” As of press time, he didn’t answer a followup email speculating whether Brique might expand further with Westfield malls and eventually end up in the Westfield San Francisco Centre or Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara. But we’re keeping our fork and knife at the ready for wherever they land.
Devour more food finds on Tamara’s site California Eating.
