The Croissant That Put Arguello on the National Map
Armando Lacayo left finance for laminated dough. A decade later, the Inner Richmond still queues for it.
Arsicault does not look like a bakery that once stopped the national food press. It is a small room on Arguello Boulevard, a few steps off Clement, with a display case, a family delivery cart from France, and a line that forms whether the fog is in or not.
Armando Lacayo opened it in 2016 after a career managing money, teaching himself croissant from books until the layers behaved. Bon Appétit named it the country’s best new bakery that year, citing pastry so flaky it seemed slightly implausible. The name is not a branding exercise: Lacayo’s great-grandparents ran Arsicault Boulangerie in France in the early 1900s. A photograph from 1907 hangs near the old cart.
What has lasted is not the award. It is the hours — they still sell out — and the neighborhood’s claim on the place. People come from the Sunset and from downtown, but the regulars are Inner Richmond: a kouign-amann, a quiche, coffee drunk standing up because the room was never built for lingering. Lacayo has said he makes what he likes and will never make a cupcake. The city, picky in the way he wanted, has agreed.
Go early. The croissant is the point, but the almond and the ham-and-cheese disappear just as fast. This is not a destination you dress for. It is a destination you time.