{"id":406545,"date":"2026-07-21T13:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/406545\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T13:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:24:16","slug":"one-of-sfs-best-pastry-chefs-is-opening-a-bakery-in-russian-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/406545\/","title":{"rendered":"One of SF\u2019s best pastry chefs is opening a bakery in Russian Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published Jul. 21, 2026at6:00am<\/p>\n

Melissa Perello has always loved dessert. A warm slice of Medjool date cake with maple ice cream, known as lumberjack cake, has been on the menu at her restaurant Frances since it opened in 2009. When she followed up with Octavia (opens in new tab)<\/a> in 2015, she added loosely set possets and rustic galettes. \u201cIt\u2019s part of a well-rounded dining experience,\u201d Perello says. \u201cDessert is one of the parts of dinner that I\u2019m looking forward to the most.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s tripling down on sweets with Lorella, a Russian Hill bakery that will serve croissants, sourdough, and more.<\/p>\n

\"\"A crowd outside Octavia for a Saturday bake sale in 2025. | Source: Camille Cohen for The Standard<\/p>\n

Slated to open before the holidays, Lorella is a joint project with pastry chef Melissa Loar. Lorella is a mashup of their last names \u2014 not to be confused with Italian restaurant Sorella down the street or Argentinian fusion Morella in the Marina. Loar, who is from Chicago, baked at Swift & Sons (opens in new tab)<\/a>, Somerset (opens in new tab)<\/a>, and Boka (opens in new tab)<\/a> before joining Octavia in 2021. She has always dreamed of opening her own bakery and has been testing the appetite at her \u201cSaturbake\u201d pop-ups at Octavia. For years, the restaurant\u2019s regulars have knocked on the takeout window begging for bread, but the restaurant could spare only a few loaves a day. When the monthly bake sale launched in spring 2024, the line wound round the block.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published Jul. 21, 2026at6:00am Melissa Perello has always loved dessert. A warm slice of Medjool date cake with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[22660,32135,26297,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-406545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bakeries","tag-boom-loop","tag-russian-hill","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}