Hollywood Has a Swiss Bakery Hidden in Plain Sight

On an unseasonably cold May morning, a small crowd gathers around a white Spanish-style apartment building at the southern edge of Hollywood. At the top of the landing, a pair sits at a small patio table, hunched over steaming mugs of coffee and plates of pastries. At first glance, it looks like the patio could be theirs. Behind them, a window is cracked open to create a pass-through of sorts. Through the window, Jonas Fischer, Nick Langley, and Esmé Jackson, work in unison out of the home’s tight checkered-tiled kitchen kitchen to take and fill orders for toasts, pastries, pour-over coffee, and espresso drinks. During the rest of the week, the trio works in film production. This is Brötli, a pop-up Swiss bakery, hidden in plain sight in the middle of a Los Angeles residential neighborhood.

Fischer spent the height of the pandemic like many did — baking sourdough bread. He had been baking on and off for close to a decade, but with work in film production slow, he started delivering loaves to friends on his bike and having people over to share his baking with. While splitting a loaf with Langley, the two got to talking about how much they missed Berliners, a brioche doughnut filled with jam, or another sweet filling, often found in Scandinavian and Nordic countries. Fischer grew up in Zurich, Switzerland, and Langley lived in Germany for some time. Setting out to make their own Berliner, they began to experiment with dough. Slowly, the idea of Brötli began to form.

Around the same time, Fischer, and his wife Jackson moved into their new home in Hollywood. The white two-story building has a picturesque red-tiled balcony and wrought iron railing. In the front, a set of light green windows open directly from the kitchen onto the balcony. Sitting around the kitchen table, the triumvirate realized that they should combine the bread distribution that Fischer had been running, with the Berliners they had been working on. Three days later, in early June 2023, Brötli opened its window for the first time to the public.

The first few weekends that Brötli opened were mostly friends and family, but slowly, curious people from the neighborhood stopped by. Jackson designed signs for the front railing, and a stop sign at the end of the block, letting guests know they were in the right place. In the year since, the trio has watched the bakery turn into a local favorite, gaining a dedicated following of regulars. “There is a little contingency of people who are really loyal,” Langley says. “We see Laura walking up, and we’re already slicing off the toast that she always gets. It’s grown organically in that way where it is a little community, and that’s that’s my favorite part about it.”

The menu has grown from just Berliners and sourdough to include other baked goods like croissants, cardamon buns, baguettes, and butterzopf, a Swiss braided bread. Currently, Brötli operates on Saturdays, but not every Saturday, announcing updates on its Instagram. Once in a while, the bakery also offers a limited service of coffee and a single pastry on Fridays. Sometimes the team decides to open the bakery for the weekend on a whim, with just enough time to do the required full day of preparation before opening the following day.

Guests order off a handwritten menu posted next to the window, before hoping to claim the single wooden Ikea bistro table on the balcony. When that’s taken, diners spill out onto the sidewalk digging into buns between sips of their drinks. Still, Brötli is one of the only bakeries in Los Angeles that specializes in Swiss and German baking; cardamom buns can be found at Clark Street Bakery, while vegan bakery truck Black Forest is one of the only other places to get a Berliner.

Going into its second year, the team behind Brötli has realistic dreams for its growth. Opening a permanent location outside of the house isn’t on their radar, but buying a new mixer is. “I think any little thing of equipment that we buy that makes our life easier is nice,” Fischer says. “It’s just like improving what we have, and getting the word out to more friends of friends and people who enjoy this kind of stuff.” The team isn’t sure how long Brötli will last but has no plans of closing the window anytime soon. “Our motto is we’ll do it as long as it’s fun,” Langley says.

Brötli operates out of an undisclosed location in Hollywood. To get the address, reach out to the bakery on Instagram after it announces it will be opening.