She trained in sourdough and pastry around the world. Now, she's opening an SF bakery
Fresh croissants will be on offer at Sol Bakery, opening April 11 in San Francisco. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
Marisa Williams has worked in some of the world's top bakeries and kitchens, from Bay Area institutions like influential sourdough specialist Tartine and the Michelin-starred Mister Jiu's to an ex-Noma chef's Copenhagen bakery. She put 15 years of lamination and bread-baking training to use when she started her line-inducing popup, Sol Bakery, in 2024.
Now, she is opening her own bakery in San Francisco.
Sol Bakery will debut at 1696 Hayes St., in the Panhandle neighborhood, on April 11. Expect a lineup of treats that incorporates seasonal ingredients, such as polenta kumquat cakes, focaccia studded with cherries, and her standout guava tarts and croissants, among other items.
Marisa Williams, left, makes miso chocolate chip cookies as she works alongside lead pastry baker Gina Echeverria. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
Williams is perhaps best known for those guava tarts, which the New York Times named one of the country's best desserts in 2025. She begins making them by spreading almond praline - crunchy, sweet and slightly salty - on a tart dough shell. Then she adds a layer of guava curd, and finishes it with a white chocolate whipped ganache and candied lemon or orange peel. Other tart flavors include passion fruit, which gets a layer of passionfruit jam instead of ganache, and a baked almond cream tart.
Focaccia, another hit item, is made with sourdough and plenty of mix-ins, such as Castelvetrano olives or cherries, folded into the dough. Williams plans to offer focaccia after 11 a.m., and serve it by the square-shaped slice.
There will also be cookies, such as a whole wheat chocolate chip and an oat-coconut creation studded with white chocolate chunks. Williams is a "huge fan of citrus," so a poppy seed cookie, made from a sugar cookie dough base blended with juice and zest, will incorporate seasonal citrus - currently, mandarin oranges. In the past, she has also used Meyer lemons, Cara Cara oranges and yuzu. "It's become a favorite of mine. It's super bright and also has a really nice texture from the poppy seeds," she said.
Sol will sell multiple kinds of cookies, including miso chocolate chip cookies. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
WIlliams did not begin her career in baking. She worked in the arts and design world before landing an internship at a small bakery. She went on to bake at Craftsman & Wolves, Tartine and Neighbor Bakehouse before moving into fine-dining pastry at Mister Jiu's. She next became pastry chef at the Michelin-starred Sorrel. In 2019, she left San Francisco for Copenhagen to work at Mirabelle, among a crop of bakeries from former Noma chefs that took over the Danish capital. A year later, she moved to Berlin to help open a new sourdough bakery, named Sofi, alongside Danish chef Frederik Bille Brahe. She returned to San Francisco in 2023 to work as pastry chef at Outer Sunset favorite Outerlands. She first popped up there before bringing Sol Bakery to other locations.
Working under chef-owner Christian Puglisi at Mirabelle, once a sous chef at Noma, she expanded on her sourdough and laminated pastry-making techniques, which often overlapped. "The croissant dough we made had a high amount of sourdough incorporated, which was new to me," she said.
Sol Bakery's chocolate sourdough cake is a recipe she developed and refined in Copenhagen. It is also one of the items Williams is most excited to add to the menu. She incorporates "a good amount" of her sourdough in the mix to create a moist crumb that balances nutty, tangy and sweet notes. The sourdough helps create a crumb with high hydration, Williams said, which allows the cake to remain fresh for a few days. "It's an item that we will always have and it's one of my favorite cakes," she said.
Sol Bakery catches the eye of Virginia Chu, left, and Teresa Chang walking by the soon-to-open business. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
Sol Bakery's seating will be limited to a small communal table with space for up to six customers, though Williams would like to eventually offer outdoor seating. The beverage menu will include drip coffee using beans from local roaster Grand Coffee, along with tea from San Francisco's Song Tea.
Williams, who grew up in the area, said that she was not looking for a permanent location for Sol Bakery, but a friend let her know that the space, on the corner of Hayes Street and Central Avenue, formerly a coffee shop, was available. She didn't hear from the landlord for months, until they finally responded with interest in her bakery. The news felt too good to be true. "It's a place that's close to my heart," Williams said.
