Matilda's Bakes Four-Day Croissants at the Santa Monica Airport

Matilda's, a bakery and coffee bar at 3200 Airport Ave in a renovated 1940s building at the Santa Monica Airport, soft-opened in fall 2026 to 45-minute lines. Its pastries are laminated by hand in small batches and spend four days going from mix to counter, most of it fermenting, while the bread uses organic ancient grains from Hayden Flour Mills in Arizona and imported French flour. Founding baker François Pied grew up in southern France and trained at École Lenôtre in Paris.

The menu runs from butter, almond, chocolate and ham and cheese croissants to a passion guava danish, sausage rolls, a shakshuka danish and baguettes served with a menu of eight butters. Coffee comes from Caffe Luxxe.