After two years of sellouts, this restaurant's baking side hustle is becoming a full-blown bakery

For the past two years, a line snaked down the block many weekends for "Saturbakes," a pastry and bread popup run out of a side door of the kitchen at Octavia in San Francisco.  Pastry chef Melissa Loar's hyper-seasonal creations - pear-cardamom monkey bread,  rye-chocolate persimmon brownies - became so popular that now she and Octavia chef-owner Melissa Perello are opening Lorella, a full-time bakery.

Lorella is set to debut this fall at 2139 Polk St., previously the Bagelry, in Russian Hill. Expect seasonal breads, laminated pastries, and desserts made with local fruits, vegetables and grains. It will be open daily and will also produce bread for Frances and Octavia, as well as other, yet-to-be-announced retail stores The bakery's opening was first reported by the San Francisco Standard. 

The weekly Saturbakes began in spring 2024, inspired by demand for Octavia's sourdough bread and Perello's desire to give Loar a creative outlet beyond producing plated desserts for Octavia. Saturbakes often sold out of pastries, which have included savory items, such as barbecue pulled-pork croissants and a scallion pancake-inspired focaccia, and sweets, such as twice-baked stonefruit and almond croissants. The owners told the Standard that they plan to serve pizza, cakes and ice cream at the new bakery.

Perello previously served as executive chef at several now-closed, formerly Michelin-recommended San Francisco restaurants, including Charles Nob Hill and Fifth Floor. She opened her first restaurant, Frances, in the Castro District in 2009. She followed it in 2015 with Octavia, which received a Michelin star shortly after opening; it maintained that rating until 2021, when it re-opened following a pandemic hiatus.

Loar joined Octavia in 2021 and leads the restaurant's pastry and dessert program. She previously worked at several Chicago restaurants, including the steakhouse Swift & Sons, the Mediterranean-inspired Somerset and Michelin-starred Boka.

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