A great pastry shop is always a happy thing, and although Paris may have store windows filled with lemon tarts and chocolate croissants that make you forget how to spell the word C-A-L-O-R-I-E-S, primo bakeries are harder to find on this side of the Atlantic. Unless you happen to be in Santa Monica.

And if you are in Santa Monica—or anywhere west of downtown Los Angeles—your GPS should have a saved setting to point you toward Huckleberry Bakery and Cafe the very moment you realize you suddenly need a blueberry muffin that nearly oozes purple juice when you bite into it.

For a while, pastry chef Zoe Nathan created her sweets for Rustic Canyon restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica where her husband, Josh Loeb, was (and still is) the chef. (They were set up on a blind date by their mothers—don’t you love those kinds of stories?) But a conventional restaurant couldn’t contain all that talent, and when Rustic Canyon stopped its Saturday morning breakfasts, locals fretted at their lack of access to Nathan’s good stuff. In short, the natives were restless.

So ever since Huckleberry opened just a few blocks toward the ocean on Wilshire from Rustic Canyon, the lines form early (especially on weekends) to fill bags with Valhorona chocolate croissants. Not to mention plum and grape tostada with brown sugar crème fraiche ice cream and toasted almonds.

Here, behind the glass cases, are piles of freshly baked breads, muffins, croissants and obscure sweets that will cause you to shift impatiently from foot to foot until you get to the head of the line. How does Niman Ranch maple-bacon biscuits sound? Or try the mini kouign amanns, a gorgeous concoction of sugar and butter that traces its lineage to Breton, France.

It’s not all about the pastry, though. There are eggs for breakfast and soups, salads, flatbreads and rotisserie chicken for lunch, all sourced, when possible, from the local farmers market. Weekdays, Huckleberry is open 'til seven, weekends 'til five. Opening time is 8 every morning, but showing up on weekends at 7:30 a.m. is a good idea. Trust me on this.