Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My next guest set out on a very specific quest to find the best free restaurant bread in America, and she believes she's found it. Caity Weaver is an Atlantic staff writer who covered 13,000 miles and surveyed more than 500 people in her search for the best free bread in the country. Her research brought her to chain restaurants, small franchises where the bread is thrown at you across the room, and a $700 meal in Las Vegas. Her journeys and findings are now recorded in the very funny article for the Atlantic, which came out today, and she joins me now to discuss. Hey, Caity.

Caity Weaver: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, where's the best free bread you've ever had? We're talking about the basket you get before the meal arrives. Bread can be defined in many ways. Rolls, biscuits, slices. Our phone number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, but it has to be bread that you did not pay for. What was the impetus for this article?

Caity Weaver: Mental illness, I would say. I have been obsessed with this question for literally years because I think it first came to me because I was eating a free bread in a restaurant that I really liked, and I just thought, "Oh, this might be the best free bread in America. Wow. Am I eating the best free bread right now?" Then I thought, "What if I'm not? What if there's a bread out there that is even better that I don't know about?"

It was one of those questions that, it's like, how could anyone ever know the answer to this? It would just bother me. I would sit with it and think, "What is it? What is it? Am I ever going to have it?" When I started my job at the Atlantic, actually my very first meeting with the EIC, he asked what I wanted to write about, and I blurted out this question. He was like, "Okay, go do it."

Alison Stewart: Wow. Well, you spoke to bread experts along the way. I believe one was William Rubel.

Caity Weaver: Yes.

Alison Stewart: How were experts you consulted in this article helpful, or maybe unhelpful, to the mission?

Caity Weaver: Ooh. Well, you know what? I realized, as I was trying to track down people to talk to, that it's very hard to find people who are-- You can find, of course, bakers and people who know a lot about bread and people who make a lot of bread, but in terms of thinking of bread as kind of a historic cultural thing spanning all of human history, and also specifically people who know about free restaurant bread, there are not many of those. Even the bread experts I talked to were like, "That's not like a subfield of bread that we care about, know about."

I felt like I-- God love these people, they were very helpful in the sense that they could tell me a lot about the history, and they could tell me what is a technically good bread. Like, if you're making this kind of bread, it should have holes that are this big, or if it has no holes, it means it's this kind of bread. Now, I absolutely have forgotten most of the things they told me, they're in the article, but in terms of-- They were also actually, I found, quite reluctant to name a best free restaurant bread. I think maybe they were too close to it. It's like asking them to pick a favorite child.

Alison Stewart: Yes, it was interesting. One expert said, "I think you need to think about your favorite versus the best.

Caity Weaver: Yes, that.

Alison Stewart: What did you think of that advice?

Caity Weaver: Well, he was absolutely right that I was using them interchangeably, but I do think that if you ask enough people their favorite of something, you could kind of reasonably assume that has to be at least one of the best. Probably everyone's favorite can't be the worst, at least.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to Atlantic staff writer Caity Weaver about her article, I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. We're taking your calls. What is the best free restaurant bread you've ever had? We're talking about what you get before the meal arrives. Bread can be defined in many ways. Rolls, biscuits, slices, whatever you would call bread, but it has to be free.

Caity Weaver: Yes.

Alison Stewart: You can't pay for it. Our phone number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You surveyed 555 people. What contact? How did you find 555 people to talk to about bread?

Caity Weaver: Completely psychotically, I would say. This was not the most scientifically rigorous structuring of this survey. I started by just asking every single person I knew and badgering them to tell me. Then I would just ask people I encountered. If I was in an elevator with you, I was going to ask you. If I was waiting for a table at a restaurant and you were also there, I was going ask you.

I should say I got 555 usable answers. I got a lot of junk answers from people that I couldn't use because they would tell me a bread that they loved that they had paid for. That's not what I asked. They would tell me bread that they loved from a bakery. That's not what I'm talking about. I got exactly 555 that I could use.

[crosstalk]

Caity Weaver: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: No, go ahead.

Caity Weaver: I was going to say, the other thing we did that was very helpful was the Atlantic had put links in a couple newsletters and tweeted it out, so I could reach people who I was not just happening to encounter in Santa Fe, where I live, or who I had already met. That was helpful to hear from some other people.

Alison Stewart: One of the funniest pieces of the article is when you reached out to celebrities-

Caity Weaver: Oh my God.

Alison Stewart: -to ask what their favorite bread was.

Caity Weaver: My enemies.

Alison Stewart: They're your enemies. Tell us why they're your enemies.

Caity Weaver: These people do not want to tell you what their favorite bread is. I don't know why they are guarding this information so closely. Here's the thing. They could have straight up lied to me. They could have said anything. I wouldn't know if it's the truth as written in their hearts. Their publicists just did not want to pass this question along. I got exactly one celebrity to reply to me. He's the only good celebrity in the United States of America, and his name is Mr. Stephen King. His name is correct, he is a king for telling me his favorite free restaurant bread, which is in Florida.

Alison Stewart: Well, it was also just funny because they were like, "It's not really the right time." When is the good time to talk about bread?

Caity Weaver: We have no interest. They're too busy. How busy are you that you can't answer this question? It doesn't take that long. Say anything. Say anything.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Dan in Astoria. Hey, Dan, thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Dan: Hey, there. I had two places that I wanted to remind us of, one of which might still be doing it. The other one seems to no longer be around New York for the best free bread. First, Così. In the old days, the Così chains in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, other cities had some of the best savory bread up front that I'd ever had. Really good stuff.

Caity Weaver: Very salty.

Dan: The other place that I think we don't get a lot in New York, but that has had the best bread consistently whenever we've gone there, Texas Roadhouse dinner rolls in a honey cinnamon butter flavor. It was incredible. When I used to stay there, they used to have sawdust on the floor all the time, and that was always a thing you could always rely on with Texas Roadhouse, was sawdust on the floor and the honey cinnamon butter rolls. I haven't been to a Texas roadhouse since moving back to New York, so I'm not sure about that. Those are always my two favorite free breads.

Alison Stewart: I appreciate your enthusiasm for this topic, Dan. Thank you for calling in.

Caity Weaver: I will say Texas Roadhouse people are very enthusiastic. That is a very common response.

Alison Stewart: This says, best free bread ever is at the American Bounty restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America. Let's talk to Jennifer in Montclair. Hey, Jennifer, thanks for calling All Of It.

Jennifer: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Jennifer: Yes, just about three nights ago, I was having dinner and the free bread came to the table and we ate it. I thought to myself, "This is the best free bread I've ever had." This was at Giotto in Montclair. It's a little trattoria on Church Street in Montclair. The bread was amazing.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much. Let's talk to Frank in East Islip. Hi, Frank. How you doing?

Frank: Hi, it's East Islip, but that's okay.

Alison Stewart: Thank you. I was trying to get it out. I'm sorry. I was having the brain thing happening there.

Frank: No. This is a great topic, by the way. There's a place in Great River, one town over from East Islip, and they give you these poppers. They're giant poppers, about 5 or 6 inches in diameter. They look almost like muffins, but they're very hollow on the inside. They're baked on the outside with some type of a glazing. They give you just honey butter, and it's absolutely delicious. Before, during, after dinner. They give them to you for nothing. It's a very expensive steakhouse, but nonetheless, this is a great-- Now, one of their competitors down the street, Tellers, they don't even give you free bread anymore. They give you a table charge. I refuse to go there.

Alison Stewart: Good. Caity, what did you learn about restaurants while researching bread?

Caity Weaver: Well, I have to say, first, people from Long Island, I have family on Long Island, they are some of the best people to ask this question to. They know their free bread. I bet that that bread that was just mentioned is fantastic. What did I learn about restaurants? Well, one thing I learned was that they really, ideally, from the restaurant's perspective, the bread should be carefully timed. I had never really thought about this. I go, they bring the bread when they bring it. I want them to bring it as fast as possible, but it kind of arrives when it does.

I spoke to a chef for the story, and he was explaining to me that really, from the restaurant's perspective, they want you to get the bread after you have ordered, not before, because they want you ordering from a place of maximum hungriness. If you sit down and get that bread right away, all of a sudden, maybe you don't need a starter. Maybe you can just skip to the main. Ideally, you're absolutely famished. Order the whole menu, and then they say, "Oh, do you want some bread?" But they're tricking you because they've made you wait until you've already decided what food you want.

Alison Stewart: Back in the day, though, people wanted you to eat bread in taverns. What was the story behind that?

Caity Weaver: Okay, trying to find the history of, where did free bread come from, was very, very hard to do. It's not something that it appears there's much scholarship on, but restaurants have only been around in the United States. I think I have this date right. It's definitely right in the story, if you read it, because that's been fact-checked. This is just off the top of my head. I believe the first restaurant opened in the US here in New York in the 1830s, so pretty new.

By restaurant, I mean a place where you order a la carte off a menu, pay for specific items. Before that, it was a little bit more of, you could always make food at home if you can cook, which I can't. That would have never been an option for me at any point in history. Besides cooking at home, you could also go to a tavern or an inn, and when you were there, you were just going to get whatever they were serving.

It was a flat charge, everyone's getting it. "If you want the food, you're getting what we've made, and here's how much it costs," and those meals would include bread. It would behoove them to have you eat a lot of bread, because then if you're filling up on bread, which is fairly cheap, you're not going to want a huge portion of meat. You've eaten a lot of bread.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Megan in Murray Hill. Hey, Megan, thanks for calling all of it. What's the best free restaurant bread you've ever had?

Megan: Scarpetta on 29th and Madison. Their bread comes warm directly from the kitchen, and it's three different types. One's a regular bread. One's a focaccia. Then the best one is this salami and mozzarella stuffed bread. Yes. It comes with butter and tomato sauce and I think olive oil, if memory serves. But it's free, it's hot. It's the meal in and of itself.

Alison Stewart: Ooh, thanks for calling in.

Caity Weaver: I want to go there right now.

Alison Stewart: Are you okay with the mixed bread basket?

Megan: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: How do you feel about the people who come by to give you one at a time?

Megan: As long as they don't mind coming back to give you one at a time a lot, I'm totally fine. If that's how they want to spend their time, go right ahead, but they'll be making repeat trips.

Alison Stewart: This says, "RMP Ratner's on Delancey Street. We would go as a family when I was little, and the first thing my mother did was empty the basket of rolls into her purse and then have the chutzpah to ask for another basket.

Caity Weaver: I love that. You know what? You should be testing the generosity.

Alison Stewart: This says, "The free bread at Blue Hill at Stone Barns was the best I've tasted, but given their prices, was it really free?" The answer is no. That cost is kind of invisibly distributed across all the other menu items, but it feels free. This one says, "Seashore Restaurant on City Island, they give you beautiful bread and breadsticks. Love it."

Caity Weaver: Do breadsticks count?

Alison Stewart: Absolutely. I'm letting people define bread however they want. How much is the right amount of free bread at a meal, though, in 2026?

Caity Weaver: There are places, like Red Lobster, the free bread they give there, I think is the best thing on the menu. I go to Red Lobster. Red Lobster, to me, is a cheddar bay biscuits restaurant, and then I have to pay for other items while I'm there to get the biscuits, but I'm going for the bread. I think if the bread is what you want, no amount of it is too much.

Alison Stewart: Yes. You write about the chain restaurant popularity paradox. What is this paradox? Since you mentioned Red Lobster.

Caity Weaver: As I was collecting data for my survey, I expected, and this bore out, that chain restaurants would probably get the most votes because a restaurant that has 900 locations, people are going to be more likely to have been there no matter where they're from in the country than a place that only has one location. I had to figure out an equation to account for that and not necessarily penalize a restaurant because it wasn't a chain.

The place that I ultimately name as having the best free bread only has-- it's technically two restaurants owned by the same person in two different cities, and they serve the exact same bread. They were disproportionately nominated. They were up there with the big dogs, with the chains, but they were not a chain, and enough people still name them to make it into the top 10.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's see what it is.

Caity Weaver: Should I say what it is or should people read the article?

Alison Stewart: Oh, okay. You think about that while I take more calls. Let's talk to Aaron on line five from Kearney, New Jersey. Hi, Erin. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Erin: Hello. Thank you so much for taking my call. My suggestion is in Newark, New Jersey. It's called Sol-Mar. It's a Portuguese restaurant in the Ironbound neighborhood. I think they serve the best dinner rolls. It's a little bit crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. I go to Sol-Mar, [unintelligible 00:14:46] fantastic seafood, but I go there specifically for their bread, so I suggest going to Sol-Mar.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling. Let's talk to Michelle in South Orange. Hey, Michelle, thank you for making the time to call All Of It.

Michelle: Ah, thanks for answering my call. This is something that doesn't exist anymore, which makes me very sad, but they had the best sourdough bread. Big, giant hunkin slices served with salty butter. Was McCormick and Schmick's, the seafood restaurant that was in Manhattan and in New Jersey, where I used to live in another area. I would just be so excited when my ex-husband would say, "Let's go there," because I knew I was going to get that sourdough bread. It just was thick and crusty on the outsides of the holes and just, ah, I can taste it now.

Caity Weaver: I could taste it, too, and I never even had it. It sounds so good.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to Caity Weaver about her article in the Atlantic. It's called, I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. I'm not going to tell people what it is. They'll have to read your article.

Caity Weaver: Yes, read it. I will say, I deliver on that promise. I say I'm going to tell you what it is, I tell you what it is.

Alison Stewart: Let me ask you about a presentation, though. In Lambert's Cafe, they lob bread across the room to diners. First of all, where is that restaurant?

Caity Weaver: There are three locations. There are two in Missouri, and I went to one in Foley, Alabama.

Alison Stewart: Why did they lob bread products at me?

Caity Weaver: I guess because it's fun. I will say, these breads, when they come flying, you discover, are surprisingly hot, are shockingly hot. Luckily, their aim is very good. They've been doing it this way for years. They have an eye for how good are you going to be at catching this? Should they throw it gently underhand? What are they doing? That's just how they do it, so there's bread flying around the room, arcing through the air like beautiful shooting stars of bread. Did I love the rest of the food? It was okay. Would I go back? Yes.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Judy calling in from Brooklyn. Hey, Judy, what do you have to say?

Judy: Thanks. Brooklyn now has a lot of Turkish restaurants, and the Turkish bread is wonderful. The best one, the restaurant closed, though, Coney Island Avenue, Sahara, but second best is Opera on Emmons Avenue and Sheepshead Bay. They do fill up the bread basket if you finish it while you're eating.

Alison Stewart: That's important that they fill the bread basket.

Caity Weaver: Absolutely. Agreed.

Alison Stewart: What did you learn about Americans while you were doing this?

Caity Weaver: Ooh, I learned that they love free restaurant bread. They absolutely want bread that they have not paid for, and they want that bread to be warm. That is very important. Honestly, if you have a restaurant and you're giving out bread, if you could just figure out a way to heat up that bread a little bit, people will be so happy. I noticed that, as I was getting all these answers, there were a few words that people used over and over again to describe their favorites. Temperature, warmth was something that came up a lot. I talked to a food scientist about why that is, and she had a scientific explanation for it. It actually literally does taste more flavorful and good to us if it is warm because it's releasing scent molecules, I think. It's in the article. Again, that part's fact-checked, but, yes, I learned that people want free, warm things.

Alison Stewart: Our final call is Patty calling from Wilson, Connecticut. Patty, what do you say? What's the best bread?

Patty: Bertucci's. Those roles are just so awesome. We miss them a lot because there was one that was pretty close to us. My kids, when they were younger, used to beg just to go there for the rolls, and they would be so filled up, so I understand the point. I can't wait to read this article. It's my favorite thing, the free bread.

Caity Weaver: Oh, I love hearing that.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling in. Finally, Caity, do you feel that your findings are final, or is there room for the best bread challenge to change in the future?

Caity Weaver: You know what? I am pretty confident that I have nailed this. I think I got it. I'm pretty sure I found it. I could be wrong. You know what? If I find out that I'm wrong, I will campaign to issue a retraction, but I'm pretty sure I nailed it. I got to say, I asked a lot of people.

Alison Stewart: You're going to have to read about it in the Atlantic. It's by Caity Weaver. She wrote the article, I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. Congratulations on finding the best free bread.

Caity Weaver: Thank you. My life's work.

Alison Stewart: That is all of it for today. Coming up tomorrow, we'll talk about New York City's best dive bars. Call in and shout out your favorite. Plus, the creators of the East Village cookbook will join us in studio. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening, and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here next time.

 

Copyright © 2026 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of programming is the audio record.