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Bonfiglio Bread: The Hudson Valley Bakery Worth the Drive

Name: Bonfiglio Bread
Address: 748 Warren Street, Hudson, NY, 12534, US
Telephone: 518-822-0277
Price range: $

October 1, 2015 · Updated July 20, 2026 · 6 min read

How does an artist who sculpts works of art from industrial pieces become a baker sculpting dough into the edible art of melt-in-your-mouth breads and croissants? Ask Bonfiglio Bread owner Gabriele Gulielmetti — Gaby — and he says it’s all because of Rachel. Rachel Sanzone is his partner and the bakery’s co-founder, the one with the idea and the recipes. They left Manhattan more than a decade ago — Gaby from his sculpting studio in Brooklyn, Rachel from a biodynamic farm she’d been working after finishing a history degree at Stony Brook — and landed in Hudson, New York, where they built something from nothing that has outlasted leases, relocations, and every prediction about what a small artisan bakery in a Hudson Valley river town could sustain. Bonfiglio Bread is back at 748 Warren Street, open Thursday through Monday, and it remains one of the most seriously made bakeries in the Northeast.

Key Takeaways

◆Bonfiglio Bread is back on Warren Street — and better than ever — After relocating to Athens NY and a brief closure, Gaby Gulielmetti has returned the bakery to its original home at 748 Warren Street in Hudson. Now operating as Bonfiglio Bread with a Mediterranean-influenced menu, it is open Friday through Monday 8am–4pm. The rye bread, the croissants, and the kouign amman are the things to seek out first.

◆The story starts with a sculptor, a biodynamic farm, and 1am free bread at a local bar — Rachel Sanzone tested her early recipes by showing up at a Hudson bar around 1am and handing out free pear-cinnamon-swirl bread to whoever was there. The response was immediate. Within weeks there was a line outside their house where they’d installed two used pizza ovens in the basement. The loyal following they built in those early days never went away.

◆The process is as serious as the bread tastes — European butter at 82% butterfat for the laminated doughs. Stone-ground flour from Champlain Valley Millers in Vermont, ground cold and slow so the flour doesn’t oxidize. Dough hydrated at 70–85% and allowed to sit for 48 hours — 24 in bulk, another 24 after molding — in a cold room so it stays dormant and develops properly. A multi-tiered stone deck oven with steam injection. Nothing is rushed because nothing that is rushed tastes like this.

◆Hudson’s best chefs send their customers here — Chef Devon Gilroy of The Corner calls Gaby’s rye bread “easily the best in the Hudson Valley.” Chefs Nick and Sarah Suarez of Gaskins call it “the best breakfast around, without a doubt.” Chef Stephen Browning of Prairie Whale praises the pork belly sandwich with pickled onions and nice greens: “Simple, but well done.” When the people cooking the best food in a town send you somewhere for bread, you go.

From Brooklyn to Hudson — The Origin Story

Gaby Gulielmetti was a sculptor in Brooklyn working with industrial materials when Rachel Sanzone — his partner, a history major who had spent time working a biodynamic farm — persuaded him to leave the city and try something entirely new. They moved to Hudson, New York around 2010, self-taught bakers with no professional kitchen experience, no commercial equipment, and no investors. What they had was a commitment to making bread the slow, right way — and Rachel’s instinct that if the bread was genuinely good, people would find it.

The testing happened at 1am in a local bar. Rachel would show up with free pear-cinnamon-swirl bread and hand it to whoever was there. The response confirmed what she suspected. People wanted real bread — not the grocery store kind, not the chain bakery kind, but bread that tasted of flour and time and attention. Word spread quickly. Within weeks there were people lining up outside the couple’s home, where they had sourced and installed two used pizza ovens and built a mini-commercial kitchen in the basement. The basement couldn’t contain it for long.

After several short-term locations in the area, they settled into 748 Warren Street in Hudson — a storefront on the town’s main cultural artery, where Bonfiglio and Bread (Bonfiglio is Gaby’s middle name and his paternal grandfather’s name) became a genuine destination. They built a loyal following, attracted wholesale accounts at Helsinki Hudson and the Hudson Farmers Market, and earned the respect of every serious cook in the region. Then came a lease expiration, a move across the river to Athens, a brief closure, and the return to where it all started.

The Process — Why It Tastes the Way It Does

Gaby approaches bread the way he approached sculpture: every element of the process matters, nothing is arbitrary, and the results reflect the care put into every decision along the way. The specifics of what goes into a Bonfiglio loaf are not accidental.

How Bonfiglio Bread Is Made

The flour — Semolina from North Dakota, King Arthur flour, and organic flours from Champlain Valley Millers in Vermont. The miller matters: stone grinding has to be cold and slow so the flour doesn’t oxidize. Oxidized flour produces flat, forgettable bread. Cold-ground flour retains the grain’s full character.

The butter — European butter at 82% butterfat for the laminated doughs (croissants, kouign amman, Danish). Local Cabot unsalted butter for the breads. The higher butterfat content of European butter produces a richer, more pliable dough that layers differently than American butter — which is why a Bonfiglio croissant has the shatter and chew of a good Parisian version rather than the soft, undifferentiated texture of a mass-produced one.

The hydration and time — Dough is hydrated at 70–85% to allow the protein to enrich and the sugar to break down slowly. It is not over-kneaded. It sits in a cold room — 24 hours in bulk, then molded into loaves and another 24 hours of cold rest. The total process from mixing to baking is two days. Patience is not optional; it is the ingredient.

The oven — A multi-tiered stone deck oven with steam injection. The stone decks provide even, consistent heat from below; the steam injection creates the crust — the deep caramelization and the crackling exterior that is the signature of a properly baked loaf. The steam keeps the crust supple enough to expand during the first minutes of baking before setting into the final structure.

What to Order

Production at Bonfiglio runs from 300 items on a weekday to more than 600 on weekend days. The range includes baguettes, ciabattas, seedy loaves, cinnamon-swirl breads, sourdoughs, croissants, Danish, and the kouign amman that is the bakery’s most distinctive product. The food menu — Mediterranean-influenced, built around the breads — includes sandwiches, egg dishes, and pizza made with baguette dough.

What Is Kouign Amman?

Kouign amman (pronounced KWEEN ah-MAHN) hails from Brittany, France. The name means “butter cake” in Breton. It is made with a laminated dough — similar to croissant dough — in which butter is folded into a yeasted dough in layers, producing a pastry with a tender, rich, buttery interior and a crunchy, deeply caramelized crust. At Bonfiglio, the kouign amman dough serves as the base for croissants, Danish, and pies as well as the pastry itself — a single laminated dough platform for multiple products, all sharing that distinctive ratio of butter richness and caramelized crust.

What to Order at Bonfiglio Bread

The caraway rye — The bakery’s most celebrated bread among Hudson Valley chefs. Deep flavor, proper crust, a seeded interior that earns the caraway rather than just including it. Chef Devon Gilroy of The Corner calls it easily the best in the Hudson Valley. Go early — it sells out.

The croissants — Made with the kouign amman laminated dough and European high-butterfat butter. The gold standard for what a croissant should be in the Hudson Valley. If the rye is gone, the croissant will not disappoint.

The pain à l’ancienne — A slow-fermented baguette style using cold-retarded dough for extended flavor development. More complex and more flavorful than a standard baguette, with a crust that has genuine chew and an interior that stays interesting to the last bite.

The pork belly sandwich — House-brined pork belly, pickled onions, fresh greens. Chef Stephen Browning of Prairie Whale specifically endorses it: “Simple, but well done. The chef really gets the whole acidity, mayo — balancing it out.” On house-made bread, that balance has nowhere to hide and nowhere to fail.

Visit Bonfiglio Bread

Address: 748 Warren Street, Hudson, NY 12534
Hours: Friday–Monday, 8am–4pm
Phone: 518-822-0277
Web: bonfigliobread.com

Hudson is a two-hour drive from Manhattan and a natural stop on any Hudson Valley wine country itinerary. Warren Street is the town’s main cultural corridor — galleries, restaurants, antique dealers, and Bonfiglio Bread anchoring the food end of the block. Go on a Saturday, buy a loaf of the caraway rye and a kouign amman, and find somewhere quiet to eat them before the drive home. You will not regret either.

Artisan Bread

Bonfiglio Bread: The Hudson Valley Bakery Worth the Drive

From Brooklyn to Hudson — The Origin Story

The Process — Why It Tastes the Way It Does

What to Order

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