Which Restaurant Serves The Best Free Bread In America?

Caity Weaver is a journalist who lives for a food quest. Her latest adventure has her crisscrossing the country in search of the best free restaurant bread in America. Now, after polling hundreds of people and traveling 13,000 miles, she’s convinced she’s found it.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round. The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship, full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood, to Kraft burgers and Kraft beers, to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood

• 0:43Dan Pashman?

  shacks to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment. At the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long. Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com. I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese. And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for

• 1:27Dan Pashman?

  easy weeknight dinners.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Here's the promise you and I must cling to across the thousands of words that follow.

• 1:45Dan Pashman?

  This is Katie Weaver. She's a staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine. She's reading from the beginning of her recent cover story.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  At some point within this text, I will reveal to you what, after 555 responses, 13,000 miles of travel, and months of monomaniacal research, I have determined to be the best free restaurant bread in America. I will not attempt to slither to the moral high ground, arguing that best is a meaningless measure, or insisting that all bread is dear in its own way. Even if you attempt to betray me, for instance, by merely scanning the text that follows for the phrase, "Here it is, the best free restaurant bread in America," I will uphold my end of the bargain.

• 2:28Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I am Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Katie Weaver writes for The Atlantic. Over the years, she's also written for The New York Times, GQ, and Gawker. She specializes in two things: celebrity profiles and going on quests. She's interviewed Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Cardi B, and Justin Bieber, among many others. And her quests include an attempt to quit sugar, which became a journey into hell. She tracked down a mystery inside a glitter factory, and once spent 14 hours at a TGI Fridays that promoted endless appetizers. I find Katie's writing to be sharp, incisive, and very funny. And as a guy who spent three years trying to invent a new shape of pasta, you know I love a quest. So when I heard that Katie had set out to find

• 3:13Dan Pashman?

  the best free restaurant bread in America, I knew we had to talk. My first question: Why? Why? Why is this something she needed to find out?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  The answer is very simple. It is my own mental illness. The direct inspiration was a restaurant that I have been to now a few times in Atlanta that had a really great free bread. And every time I ate it, I would think, oh, my God, this bread's so good. I would say, this is the best free restaurant bread in America. But I didn't actually know if I was right. And the thought that there might possibly be another bread out there that was even better, but also free, just kind of drove me crazy. Every time I remembered it, every time I ate this bread, I would think, this is the best, but what if it's not the best?

• 3:56Dan Pashman?

  As she said, Katie collected suggestions from 555 people: friends, family, strangers, anyone she encountered. She also reached out to many in the food world, including me. And as she collected her responses, she noticed a pattern. The people she talked to fell into three different categories.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  So the first type, this is the type with which I identify, is people who can answer the question right away. I thought that almost everyone was going to fall into this category. It ended up being by far the smallest category. I thought pretty much everyone would have an answer to this question. It turns out, most people don't.

• 4:29Dan Pashman?

  I'm proud to say that I am in that first category. My immediate answer was the bread at Charlie's Crab in Palm Beach, Florida. When I was a kid visiting my grandmother, I went to town on those rolls. I remember them being sort of like focaccia, but more buttery and salty, maybe with some Old Bay-type seasoning. Sadly, though, Charlie's crap has closed. So I went with the buttery, garlicky rolls at La Scala in Comac, New York. Anyway, Katie and I are the types who know our answers to this question. The second group?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  This was by far the largest group. People who know that they've eaten bread at restaurants. They're pretty sure that's happened in their lives. Can't really recall any specific scenario. Can't really think of any of the restaurants. Or if they can, it's like, I guess that bread was okay. But there's nothing that really stands out to them.

• 5:17Dan Pashman?

  I have a very hard time relating to this group. I don't know where my wallet or keys are most of the time. I once spent five hours at a police station reporting my car stolen, only to realize I just forgot where I parked it. But I remember every good, free restaurant bread I've ever had. Katie's third group?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Many of them said verbatim the same thing, which was, it's too much pressure. They, you know, maybe even thought of a bread that was really good, but they just couldn't be absolutely certain that it was the best. And so they didn't even want to answer the question. They would just get kind of scared and outright refuse to answer. This was many adults in my life.

• 5:52Dan Pashman?

  You describe this type of person as a tragic, paranoid, though occasionally brilliant figure.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yes. A couple of my colleagues at The Atlantic, who I consider to be truly brilliant people, just could not bring themselves to answer this, could not answer it.

• 6:11Dan Pashman?

  Katie took all these poll responses and tallied up the results. She would use this poll as a guide to determine what places she should go to. Still, in the end, she would be the one to crown the winner.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  I was just confident that as soon as I put the best bread in my mouth, I would know. I really believe in myself. I'm an only child.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  So I don't really second guess my opinions or my decisions. So I said, I'll know when I have it.

• 6:36Dan Pashman?

  It was a little shocking to me that Katie didn't have any kind of criteria for judging the bread itself. No categories, no numeric scale, nothing. She and I differ in that respect. And yet there were certain things she was looking for.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  There was one small set of tests that I gave to every restaurant where I got bread, and that is I asked for it before I sat down to see if they would bring it right away. I asked for at least one, you know, round of seconds. And then I also asked for some to go to see like, how free is this bread? Are they going to give me more free bread on my way out when they know they're not going to make any more money off me?

• 7:09Dan Pashman?

  So how free was one of the criteria?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yes, how free, exactly.

• 7:12Dan Pashman?

  How much of the free bread can you get?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Exactly. And what I found was it seems the limit does not exist. All the places I mentioned were very generous with their free bread. It did not seem like a huge deal to them to give me one on the way out.

• 7:26Dan Pashman?

  Did you say that you asked for the bread before you even sat down at the table?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Definitely before I ordered. Sometimes it would be like, as I'm sitting down, I would say, you know, I'm starving. Could I get a little bread? Just to see, okay, how fast are you going to bring this? Because I spoke to a chef for the story who explained to me that restaurants really, ideally, do not want you to start eating the free bread until after you've ordered, because they want you to order from a place of maximum hungerness. And so as soon as you start tucking into that bread, maybe now you don't need an appetizer. Maybe you don't want dessert.

• 7:55Dan Pashman?

  How important to you was it that the bread was served warm?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  That, I would say, was very important to me. You know, I spoke to a food scientist for the story who explained to me that because of the way taste perception works and scent molecules, bread that is warm literally does kind of have more taste to us. So I think it's pretty much always going to be the case that the best bread will be warm. And I also know from the data I gathered, the temperature of the bread being warm or sometimes even hot was something that a lot of people mentioned over and over again. If they mentioned a temperature, it was warm or hot. No one ever said, oh, I really love the cold bread at this restaurant.

• 8:33Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Absolutely zero people said that. People like warm bread. And if bread is warm, I think people will forgive a lot of sins.

• 8:40Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, I think that's definitely true. When the bread is warm, people forgive a lot. Like, it's nice to get warm bread, but it can kind of trick you into thinking the bread is like a higher quality than it is, because when it's warm, you're kind of like, oh, my God, it's warm, it's fresh, this is incredible. My wife has dabbled occasionally in making bread in like, in a bread maker in our house, like... She'll be the first to tell you like she's not like a a super hardcore bread expert, you know, but even that bread, which is very basic is amazing when it comes out of the oven and is fresh.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  If I were your wife, I would kill you the way you're talking about my bread.

• 9:12Dan Pashman?

  I think that she would agree. I think you're like, but a few hours later, I'm sorry. It's not the greatest.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:21Dan Pashman?

  Did you judge the breads at all on the accompaniments? Like if they came with olive oil or butter or like a flavored or seasoned accompaniment?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  So this is something that came up a lot in my questioning of people because some people, and I would include my husband in this group. He named as his best free restaurant bread, a place here in town in Santa Fe where I live. And that man was really going off the butter because the bread is fine, but it's a special butter. It has green chili in it. And I'm not here to find the best free restaurant butter in America. I'm not here to find the best olive oil in America. I really wanted it to be about the bread. So when I was doing my own testing, I really tried to specifically focus on the bread if I'm eating the bread with no accompaniments. Is it still the best?

• 10:07Dan Pashman?

  I would judge a place very harshly. I do judge a place very harshly. If they serve the bread with cold butter. Like when the butter is so cold that you can't spread it. To me, that's just a real, a real negative and kind of makes me doubt everything the restaurant is doing.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Cause it does seem like something that's pretty easy to accomplish, just having butter be room temperature. So yes, I agree. It's a lot of people, you know, people who would mention butter. No one said it has nice cold butter. They would always say the butter is so soft. It's really smooth. It's spreadable. I will say actually the place that I ultimately selected as the best free restaurant bread in America. My second round of breads from there did not really arrive warm, but it was still fantastic. It was good enough to overcome the temperature.

• 11:00Dan Pashman?

  When Katie asked me to suggest a place with great free bread, my first thought after Charlie's Crab was actually the Cheddar Bay biscuits at Red Lobster. But I felt like a lot of people would have that answer. And I was right, a lot of people did. And those biscuits and everything about Red Lobster hold a very special place in Katie's heart.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Red Lobster was the restaurant that my family would go to when cousins were in town or if we had something big to celebrate. So I would go there, you know, for every graduation. I have so many memories of being at Red Lobster that it kind of all blurs into one, like, years-long memory. Were we ever not at Red Lobster? My mom really liked seafood. She also was very cheap, so she would... I don't think she ever would get a lobster at Red Lobster. She would get like whatever the cheapest fish was that they had. My dad did not suffer from that same personality trait. He didn't mind getting the expensive items.

• 11:53Dan Pashman?

  What was your dad's go-to order?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  His is harder because my mom, she just always knew she was gonna go for the cheapest thing. Like, he would maybe get a lobster, but he was more... He was kind of open to like, what does he feel like that day? But it wouldn't be... He certainly would not shy away from getting the most expensive thing if that's what he was feeling like that day.

• 12:11Dan Pashman?

  What was the role of free restaurant bread in general in your family growing up?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  If a restaurant had good free bread, we knew about it. And we were the kind of family who... I mean, I don't know that I ever even went to a restaurant with my parents that charged for bread. We certainly would not have paid for it. But it's the kind of thing where I just know automatically at Benihana, they charge for refills. And so we'd sit down and my mom would say, "You're getting one soda." So you choose when you want it. You're only getting one.

• 12:39Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  So, you know, free restaurant bread is something that was... That was an important part of a meal for us.

• 12:46Dan Pashman?

  Your mom passed away a few years ago. You wrote an obit for her that was sort of incredibly sweet and also hilarious. Sort of went viral. And you write that her true joys were helping people and anyone, anywhere, saving money.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, definitely. And I have inherited that too. I mean, not helping people, I'm not here to help you. But I do love hearing about people saving money. And even now, my friends sometimes will text me if they, you know, get a really good deal on like a TV or if they find $10 on the sidewalk, they will send me a note. And I'm like, "Oh, I love hearing about it." It makes me so happy. It's like it happened to me.

• 13:28Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Katie embarks on her quest when she tries the free bread at a place in Vegas where dinner for one costs over $500. Then she goes to the chain restaurant that received the most votes in her poll. Stick around.

• 13:45Speaker 02

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• 13:52Dan Pashman?

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• 15:24Dan Pashman?

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• 16:33Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sportful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, I traveled to Houston, which has taken in more Afghan refugees than any other American city. And when refugees arrive, Omer Yousafzai is there to welcome them. He's the owner of the Afghan Village Restaurant, which has become a community hub and gathering place for Afghans and non-Afghans alike. Omer got the idea for the restaurant while working as a defense contractor in Afghanistan, when he was getting a little bored of the food offered at the military base.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Probably if my supervisor hear what I did, they will not like it. We were not allowed, but we would still bribe the locals, literally give them extra money. They would bring food from outside, and $20, $30 will buy food for 10 people. And everybody in that area would come and share.

• 17:19Dan Pashman?

  So the American soldiers, what were their reactions?

• 17:22Speaker 03

  They said, if we eat this food seven days a week, we will never get tired of it.

• 17:27Dan Pashman?

  Omer tells me about how he recruited his mother to help with the recipes during the early days of the restaurant, and why he offers some people meals for free. That one's up now. I hope you'll check it out. Okay, back to Katie Weaver's search for the best free restaurant bread in America. There were lots of places people recommended her when she polled those 555 folks. One of the most luxe was Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas, where she had the degustation meal for $525 per person. And the bread service there was not something they took lightly.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  So they bring out a beautiful, overflowing bread cart that has 16 varieties of bread. And you can pick whichever ones you want, as many as you want. It was absolutely humiliating to have to say to these people, I would like one of each. Because some of the breads are really quite similar. But they didn't blink it that they said, no problem at all. So I, I got so much bread that they had to actually divide it into kind of two portions. They did one that was just the rolls and one that was just slices of bread. It felt insane, but you know what? They let me have as much as I want.

• 18:39Dan Pashman?

  I imagine like bringing a second table over and like attaching it to your table. So they can spread.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  They would have had to do that if they hadn't divided it in half. So they came up with something that slightly preserved my dignity.

• 18:53Dan Pashman?

  You also, for that one, you booked your reservation at 9:15 PM, so you could be as hungry as possible.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yes. That was a mistake.

• 19:04Dan Pashman?

  Why?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  I, oh my gosh, I was just so absolutely famished. And this is a restaurant, I think, because it is very fancy and expensive. They really want you to feel like you're getting what you pay for. So there's a lot of pageantry, there's some explanations, they're really taking, they want you to feel like they're really considering you as a person. And I was like, don't consider me as a person, just bring the bread out as fast as you can, please, I am starving. And I also just love bread so much that I repeatedly noticed that I was throwing bread into my mouth like before I even remembered to taste it. And my notes would say like, remember to taste the bread. So I would have to get more and I would have to think, okay, now I'm really going to pay attention when I eat this and not just inhale it in three seconds.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Since the bread was effectively unlimited, I could make this mistake as many times in a row as I chose.

• 19:52Dan Pashman?

  And you did.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  And there was always more bread behind it. And I did, and I did. But I always, in the end, eventually remembered to kind of slow down and taste the bread. I will say that I never again repeated the exact mistake of Jaurier Robichon. I never had as late a dinner as I did that first time.

• 20:10Dan Pashman?

  Right. At that place, they had olive bread, rosemary brioche, basil focaccia, walnut raisin bread, two different cheese breads, multiple baguettes. What were your thoughts? Where'd you come away from after all that?

• 20:23Speaker 01

  So this was a little tough because the only other thing about getting the tasting menu is you get so many courses. So by the end, I was so stuffed full of delicious food. I was like, I hate my life. I hate that I have been forced to go to this fancy restaurant in Las Vegas for free and eat a sumptuous meal on my employer's dime. I am the most persecuted woman in America for being made to do this. I was just so full and it was not helped by the fact that I had had like more than 16 breads because I kept getting seconds of things. Mistakes were made. Mistakes were made by me. Mistakes were made, everyone want to point fingers? We could say by them by giving me the option of having so much bread by not stopping me. When I said, can I have all these?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  They should have said, no, are you crazy?

• 21:09Dan Pashman?

  The original restaurants in America were inns and taverns that started opening up around the 1830s. And those places didn't have menus. You paid a flat price, they served one thing on a given day, and it always came with bread. Over time, restaurants evolved into places offering different items at different prices, but the expectation of bread with every meal remained.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  You know, it's just a way to kind of earn goodwill among your customers. People appreciate when you give them free bread. And there are also, you know, some more practical reasons. It can help you pace the meal. If your servers are, you know, covering a lot of tables and maybe the service is a little slow, it can sort of temporarily satisfy your customers, make them think that they're being attended to. Not every restaurant does it today, but when I was interviewing people and polling people, I found that people really miss free bread. They are angry when restaurants that used to have it don't have it anymore.

• 22:06Dan Pashman?

  In her piece, Katie cites industry data that in 2012, 6% of restaurants charged for bread. By last year, it was more than 30% charging for bread. She says some people think the change has to do with the rise of celebrity chefs. Their names are so associated with their restaurants, they feel like they have to have over-the-top bread options, which becomes very expensive. Maybe that's true. I think the biggest factor is all the economic pressures facing restaurants today. Back to Katie's quest. There were three chain restaurants that a lot of people recommended. She started with the one that got the most votes.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  The number one answer was bread from the Cheesecake Factory, and specifically brown bread from the Cheesecake Factory. I would say the bread was faintly sweet, came out warm. But really, its defining characteristic for me is that it is brown. It is one of the brownest things you'll ever see. Just like a lump of brown bread.

• 22:58Dan Pashman?

  If I saw any kind of dark brown bread, I would assume that it was some kind of whole-grain something. It's shocking to me that a bread that has even the slightest veneer of healthiness, first of all, would be a star at Cheesecake Factory. Second of all, it would be so high in her poll.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Well, I think that's the thing, because it's sort of, you see the brown and you think, well, that's gonna be somewhat good for me, it's brown. But then it's actually very soft, it has a bit of sweetness, as I said. You can slather it in butter. So it's not actually that healthy, but I think especially if you're going to Cheesecake Factory, planning to have a huge meal, you think, well, let me have a little of this healthy bread to start. Uh, not quite. Turns out, not quite.

• 23:37Dan Pashman?

  Katie liked the brown bread, but not enough to crown it the winner. Next stop, Texas Roadhouse.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Okay, that bread is gorgeous, I would say. It's like a sort of perfect little soft, kind of rounded, square shape. And what they do at Texas Roadhouse that I appreciate is they bring the bread with you to your table. So you are not without bread at Texas Roadhouse for one second.

• 24:01Dan Pashman?

  When you say they bring the bread to the table with you, like what? Like they have a bread warmer at the host stand? Where's the bread coming from?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yes. Yep, literally that. You walk in, the breads are next to you. When it's time for you to go to your table, they will grab one.

• 24:15Dan Pashman?

  Like with the menus, they're grabbing bread?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  With the menus, yep. I will say, did not love my meal there, would go back for the bread. Even though it wasn't my favorite bread. I have low standards, so I'll go anywhere, I don't care.

• 24:27Dan Pashman?

  And of course, we can't forget about the beloved bread from Katie's childhood, Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits. She had to do a proper evaluation, though, in the context of all the other free bread she was trying. And?

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Oh, it tasted fantastic, as they always do. They taste exactly how I remember them from childhood, but I also, I probably eat them every year, I would say, at least once. I really enjoy them. Now, Red Lobster did not receive the most votes numerically in my poll, but of the chain restaurant breads, it is my personal favorite.

• 25:02Dan Pashman?

  But would it end up winning Katie's overall competition? Too early to tell. She still had more places to hit up. Because while chain restaurants got a large share of the votes, most people actually recommended little-known indie restaurants. So there were tons of places that each got one vote.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  And I wanted to try to find a way to kind of represent all these stray votes without going to the, like, hundreds of restaurants that received one vote. So I said, I'm gonna pick one that has the best name. And I think Dancing Bear Appalachian Bistro is the best name on my list. I was tickled by it. I loved it. I said, I wanna go wherever that is.

• 25:37Dan Pashman?

  The Dancing Bear Appalachian Bistro is in Townsend, Tennessee, a city of 550 people and the gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  And it turns out, this bread was fantastic. I loved it. It was a cornbread, and I usually don't love cornbread, but this cornbread was so good. The butter that it was served with was beautifully whipped. They really kept it coming. They let me eat a lot of that bread. One thing that I really loved about Dancing Bear was they felt so generous, almost crazily generous. Not only were they, like, keeping that bread coming, but at the end of the meal, you know, the waiter brought out the dessert menu and said, but also, we just have smores outside. If you wanna just go make smores for free. And when I interviewed the folks at this restaurant, I was like, is this a front for something? Do you not have to make money?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  And they insisted to me that they're not a front. I didn't investigate that further, but they said, we make... But they pointed out that because they are in the woods, they're a bit of a drive. They say, you know, people are kind of, they're really driving to get here. So, once they get here, we don't want them to feel nickled and dimed on everything. We want them to feel welcome. We want them to have good memories. And so, the generosity with the free bread, I think, is a big part of that. And they are, you know, making these little cornbread and little cast iron skillets and slicing them up and putting them out. And it's just, it's lovely. That was such a nice experience going to this restaurant I had never heard of in a town I had never heard of. And it turns out the bread is fantastic.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  It was great. I really loved it.

• 27:18Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Katie fulfills her promise when she reveals the best free restaurant bread in America. Stick around.

• 27:30Speaker 02

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• 27:35Dan Pashman?

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• 28:05Speaker 04

  Your care changes lives. At Fidelity, we help put that same care into your financial future. Get support through your employee benefits with free tools and resources to help you tackle debt, save, and invest with confidence. Learn more at fidelity.com/healthcare. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

• 28:29Speaker 05

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So, grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app at participating McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Inc.

• 28:58Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. As Katie said at the start, this mission of hers was inspired by eating the bread at a place in Atlanta and thinking, "This must be the best free restaurant bread in America." That place is a steakhouse called Bones. Of course, it had to be on Katie's list of contenders. But after traveling the country, eating so much great bread, would the free stuff at Bones be as good as she remembered?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  So, I actually don't mention this in the story. I made a reservation and I was bringing a friend who lives in Atlanta but had never been. And I was so excited to show her, "Oh, my gosh, this is the best bread. You're gonna have so much fun." They sat us maybe like 45 minutes late for our reservation and in that time hadn't, didn't offer like, "Oh, here's some bread. Here's a little snack. Here's a drink." Nothing. So, I was kind of like, "Okay." That, I actually was again starving as I had been in Las Vegas.

• 29:46Dan Pashman?

  That's bad service.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, that was, I was kind of like, "Okay, I'm a little bit embarrassed that I've talked this restaurant up so much to my friend." So, we order our meal, bread comes out, it is great. It's a very, I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase this because the words that are coming to mind are like, "basic" and "simple," and I guess it is, but it's, it's a really just kind of perfect, straight-up bread. It's a lovely little golden ball, a nice little, you know, big, like maybe grapefruit-sized, roughly, ball of bread. That was nice. And I, I got a lobster entree at this restaurant and it's not like, it's a nice restaurant. It's like a steakhouse.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  So, I was splashing out on this meal and I was also sucking down my favorite drink, Diet Coke. And when the bill came, I saw that I had been charged for every Diet Coke. And I can put Diet Cokes away. I had four Diet Cokes. I could not believe that I was charged $4 for each one. It felt so, it just felt... It, you know, free bread, I think ideally feels sort of generous and like a nice gift. And this, this felt like, what the heck are you, I'm buying a lobster dinner. You can't spot me if you diet coke. So I, I, it really, it soured the, the restaurant for me. The experience was just not great, but it just put such a, such a nasty taste in my mouth

• 31:10Speaker 01

  that I was like, as much as I love this bread, I kind of don't ever even want to come back here. But I should say in their defense, they did let me take a bowl home when I requested to. So they were, they were generous with the free bread, not so much with the sodas. And I was just so infuriated by that soda policy. And I said, I can't come back here.

• 31:31Dan Pashman?

  There's another through line in Katie's story. In the midst of her quest, her father's health was declining. One day she went to visit him. As soon as she walked in the door, she noticed something.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Uh oh, smells like red lobster in here. He had ordered a, an admiral's feast from our lobster for himself. You know, initially, when I walked in and I saw that he had gotten a feast, I thought, oh, that, you know, that's good. He's eating a bit because he hadn't been eating very much. But then I saw that he, you know, hadn't, my dad, everyone in my family, myself included, can really put away food. And he hadn't eaten as much as I would have normally expected him to. And he actually had not even finished his cheddar bay biscuits, which was very unusual. And he and I talked about this and he was saying that, you know, food just lately hadn't tasted the same to him.

• 32:18Dan Pashman?

  And what, what did you think when you heard that?

• 32:21Speaker 01

  It bought me out. I, I want him to, you know, enjoy his meals. So I asked him, you know, what does it taste like? And I believe he said it tastes like, kind of like sawdust, but he just, you know, I think as you can tell from the way I talk about free bread, food is something that my family really derived a lot of joy from, from my entire life. And I could tell that it wasn't, it wasn't bringing him joy anymore. It was just something like to, to eat because he had to eat, but the, the taste wasn't, wasn't there. So I could tell that, you know, he, he was really not doing too well at that point.

• 32:58Dan Pashman?

  A few days later, Katie's father died. He was on her mind when she visited one more restaurant on her list. I asked Katie to read from the end of her piece about that final place. It's called Park in Philly.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  My visit to Park, a few weeks after my father's death, is the first time I go to Philly, his hometown, without his knowledge. I am seated near a family, a mother, a father, and college-aged daughter. I can hardly look at them, even as I can't keep my eyes off them. Veiled by Park's low lighting, I allow myself to sink into a luxuriant, tear-flooded sadness. My parents will never again shout to be heard in a winter-crowded restaurant, or identify the cheapest mom, or most expensive dad, entree. They will never again call into a McDonald's drive-thru speaker the beverage order coda that I have never heard anyone outside my immediate family utter, and a cup of free water.

• 33:48Dan Pashman?

  You have the stated reason for your quest when you set out on it, Katie, that there's this place in Atlanta, and you thought it was the best, but you didn't really know for sure. But reading this and hearing about your family ordering the free cup of water, it sounds like there's a larger driving force behind this quest. It almost sounds like this was the quest you were born for.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Possibly. This might be why God put me on this earth. And now I'm done, and I guess I could go at any moment. And you know what? I've had a lot of fun. I had a lot of great bread. I wouldn't even be mad.

• 34:25Dan Pashman?

  Yeah. Well, I hope that doesn't happen anytime soon. But whenever it does, I'm sure there'll be a lot of free bread waiting for you.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  God, I hope so.

• 34:34Dan Pashman?

  That was Katie Weaver. Her story in The Atlantic is, I'm kidding, we're gonna end there? Of course not, we have to reveal Katie's big winner. Here we go. So, most of the top vote-getters in Katie's poll were chains. Then there were tons of indie places that each got one vote, 226 of those, to be exact. But there were only two places that were not chain restaurants that were named often enough to make the top 10. One was Park in Philadelphia, and the other was Le Diplomat in Washington, DC. Both of them have this beloved cranberry walnut loaf. Upon investigation, though, it turns out both places are owned by the restaurateur Stephen Starr. So it's the same bread. Plot twist.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  People really went crazy for it. There were very passionate descriptions of this bread. And I would include, you know, those details in kind of my own private notes section. And people were really just raving about this bread. So I decided to go try it. Let me go see what this bread is all about. And I loved it. It's so good. It's crazy how good this bread is.

• 35:37Dan Pashman?

  Can you describe it to me?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Yes. It's a kind of rustic loaf and it is studded with cranberries very generously to the point that some people thought that they were like cherries. It has a fairly sweet taste, but that sweetness is sort of counterbalanced by the kind of very chewy bread and the nuts. It has a pretty thick crust. It's more like it's sweet and it's savory. And so it just kind of combines to form one perfect whole. It's almost like you're getting an entire meal with every bite of this bread because it's sort of hitting so many different taste sensations in your mouth.

• 36:18Dan Pashman?

  You're talking about, there's this balance of flavors that makes it kind of feel like a whole meal in one, but also it sounds like it's going to have a lot of different textures. You're going to have kind of the juicy pop of the cranberries, the crunch of the nuts, and then the crustiness of the outer part of the bread with the doughy chewiness of the inside of the bread. Like every texture is in a single bite.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. Yeah, you're getting a lot of taste, you're getting a lot of textures, but they're not discordant. They're all, it's sort of like you're moving, you know, like the movements of a symphony. Like you're really, you're getting to enjoy these nice discreet things that all work together very harmoniously.

• 36:53Dan Pashman?

  And you talked to the owner of Park, who says that at a cost of about 60 cents per basket, with 10,000 customers a week, Park gives away slightly less than half a million dollars in free bread every year.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:09Dan Pashman?

  That's not including the butter.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:13Dan Pashman?

  So like, does he think it's worth it?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  I think he does. He told me that, you know, he's thought in the past about charging for it. And every time he kind of thinks about it, he decides that he just can't because it's such a part of the experience of going to these two restaurants where it's served. It's something that people really love. I think that's the right call. I think if he started to charge for it, people would absolutely flip out. He would burn through a lot of goodwill. That's the thing is, once you start giving away free bread, it's hard to stop.

• 37:41Dan Pashman?

  So Katie, after 13,000 miles traveled and a lot of bread eaten, who won?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  The winner was this cranberry walnut loaf at Park and Le Diplomat in DC. It is fantastic. And one thing that's been fun, now that the story is out and people, you know, can read it and see what I selected, I've heard from so many people who I hadn't heard from initially who are saying, "That bread is absolutely fantastic. You made the right call." I agree. And I was already confident in my choice, but every person I hear from who says that they love the bread makes me feel like, "Oh, thank God, I got it right."

• 38:18Dan Pashman?

  That's Katie Weaver. She's a staff writer at The Atlantic. Check out her cover story in the May issue of the magazine. Next week on the show, we're live from Boston. I talk with Matt Shearer, aka Reporter Matt, about his viral Dunkin' Donuts stories. Ian Kosz joins us to tell us about how Julia Child convinced Americans to eat monkfish. And cookbook author Omi Hopper discusses her new cookbook, all about Puerto Rican cuisine. That's next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's show where I traveled to Houston, which has taken in more Afghan refugees than any other American city. And when refugees arrive, Omer Yousafzai is there to welcome them. He's the owner of the Afghan Village Restaurant, which has become a community hub and gathering place. I went there to meet Omer and to eat. It's a great story. It's up now. I hope you'll check it out.

• 39:01Dan Pashman?

  And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful.

• 39:29Dan Pashman?

  This episode was produced by me along with managing producer

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 39:32Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer

• 39:33Speaker 06

  Andres O'Hara.

• 39:34Dan Pashman?

  It was edited by

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Camille Stanley.

• 39:36Dan Pashman?

  Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sparkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Christopher David from Washington DC, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 40:04Speaker 07

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• 40:35Speaker 04

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