A Guide to the Best of Southern California : FOOD : Rolling in Dough

You probably won’t mind having to elbow your way through a crowd just to take a number at Porto’s Bakery. Waiting can be a pleasure when the fragrance of freshly baked breads--Cuban, with its crispy crust and soft but not chewy center, French, wheat, white and so on--is in the air. And if the aroma inside this large store-front bakery doesn’t make you drool, the prices will. A small round of French bread (sliced upon request) is only 55 cents; large loaves cost $1.25.

Rosa Porto started the family business, which moved from Silver Lake to Glendale 10 years ago, with recipes she perfected while baking for friends in her native Cuba. She and her husband rely on daughters Betty and Margarita and son Raul, several of their aunts and even an 88-year-old grandmother to help keep the bakery cases full. A favorite Porto ingredient is guava. It crops up as a filling in flaky strudels, croissants and layer cakes and as a topping on cheesecakes.

Besides bread and these irresistible combinations of fruit, frosting and pastry, the family makes hot Cuban appetizers and sandwiches, priced from 35 cents for a meat pie to $2.50 for a thick, submarine-sized stack of roast pork, ham and cheese.

Porto’s Bakery, 327 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale; (818) 956-5996.