Justin’s Salt Bread, a new bakery in New York City, serves only one food item. Its namesake pastry is a golden-brown horn, glossy-topped and with a glitter of salt. It tears apart to expose not the honeycomb interior of the ideal croissant, but wisps of bread around what some call salt bread’s signature “butter hole” — the result of wrapping enriched dough around a butter block, which effectively fries the base as it bakes. It creates a bottom so crisp and brown that, just looking at it, that classic TikTok knife-scrape suddenly seems compelling.

Justin’s, which opened in late December, is currently the only brick-and-mortar bakery in the city that specializes in salt bread, and — at least in the bakery’s early days — it takes a minimalist approach. There are no flavors or fillings here, just small cups of sweet cream that can be added on the side for dipping, to balance the salty bread. “I don’t want to do everything,” says founder Justin Lim. “I want to do one thing and I want to be the best at one thing, and salt bread is my favorite bread.”

The whole world is, increasingly, taking notice of salt bread. The trend swept Asia first; it originated in Japan, where it’s known as shio pan, and gained traction in the mid-2010s. The Japanese bakery Pain Maison is one of the best-known sources of the style, as early as around 2014, and it’s the main source of inspiration for Justin’s, which cites the bakery on its packaging. From there, the trend made its way to Korea, where it became known by the term “salt bread,” and its popularity there grew in the early 2020s as bakeries like Jayeondo Salt Bread became viral destinations and taste-tests of inventive takes on salt bread from Korean purveyors swept social media. Japan might have created it, but Korea popularized it.

Home-cooking creators also contributed to the trend’s success. Erin Lim of Erin’s Cozy Kitchen, who previously ran a salt-bread-focused cottage bakery in Austin, consistently gets views in the millions when she features salt bread in a video. Now, the bread is poised to sweep the United States as a slew of salt-bread-centric bakeries open and existing shops work it onto their menus.

The comparison between salt bread and croissants seems unavoidable for bakers. And not just in appearance alone: The dough doesn’t need to be laminated like with croissants, but the pastry is still laborious since each roll must be shaped by hand. “I saw the potential for salt bread to be like the Asian version of a croissant,” says Gemma Lee of Out of Ordi, a home-bakery-turned-brick-and-mortar shop in Los Angeles. While most social media-driven food trends are fleeting, Lee saw salt bread’s relative longevity in Korea as a sign that it would be worth investing in the concept in the United States.

As with croissants, salt bread is now also subject to more maximalist renditions: Out of Ordi offers versions topped with pollock roe mayo and seaweed, and filled with corn-flavored cream. Out of Ordi positions its salt bread as “not a traditional Korean bread but rather a trendy adaptation that’s been embraced by Korean bakeries and food lovers.” Salt bread’s success then — as something attributed to modern Korean bakery culture — represents the shifting nexus of culinary influence. In Korea, bakery culture has seen a boom in recent years as the country’s bread consumption increases; bakeries are now major drivers of national tourism, according to a recent report from the Korea Times.

Croissant, salt bread: The metaphor sets itself up easily. On one hand is the old stalwart, France, inextricable from modern cuisine as we know it, though arguably no longer at the forefront of trendsetting. On the other hand is Korea, which is actively reshaping global culture in multiple mediums.

“‘If France once symbolized refinement, Korea now symbolizes dynamic modernity,” Jungyoon Choi, a culinary researcher and Korea chair for the World’s 50 Best Academy, wrote via email. “Korea has become a powerful cultural distribution system… Through K-content and cafe aesthetics, the Korean reinterpretation [of salt bread] — which is more stylized and texture-forward than the [Japanese] original — travels faster. People aren’t just importing a recipe; they are importing the ‘Korean bakery mood.’” As of 2023, Korean bakery exports like Paris Baguette saw the greatest global success in the American market. Even the flattened croissant trend a few years back originated in Korea.

Existing bakeries are feeling some pressure to feature salt bread, too. Sweet Rabbit Bakery in Chicago, which opened in 2023, started serving a salt-bread bagel earlier this month. “Initially, we tried to do shio pan itself,” says owner Andrew Cheng. Taking advantage of the trend was easy since the bakery already makes milk bread. But the bread’s croissant-like appearance confused customers who were seeking out croissants. Bagels, which the bakery doesn’t otherwise offer, became the solution, Cheng says. The bakery now offers plain salt-bread bagels and salt-bread bagels stuffed with garlic cream cheese — a nod to the viral Korean cream-cheese garlic bread. Similarly, Dominique Ansel’s Papa D’Amour in NYC recently launched a salt-bread bagel.

Of course, also like croissants, salt bread is becoming a canvas for more flavors. In San Francisco, Isaac Taitano is now known for his salt bread, which he sells through his bakery Tano. Taitano didn’t initially plan to serve an array of salt bread — he also makes scones, cookies, and other pastries — but after an ube version that paid homage to his Guamanian roots found wild popularity, he began to experiment with other options. Now, Tano offers salt bread stuffed with garlic cream cheese, kaya jam, and guava cream. He’s testing panko-crusted, Japanese-curry-filled salt bread and salt bread flavored with black sesame, and he welcomes his team to contribute ideas from their own cultures.

It’s a funny trajectory for Taitano, considering that croissants are actually his specialty. But when planning the bakery, which currently operates inside the coffee shop Paper Son, Taitano’s startup costs didn’t allow for a dough sheeter to laminate large amounts of croissant dough. Salt bread emerged as an alternative since it didn’t require the same equipment.

Now, though, salt bread feels inseparable from Tano. Taitano is now in the process of expanding in a larger space, where he’ll have the room and the funds for a laminator. “I’ve always been tempted to take off the salt bread and just go to croissants, but I feel like salt bread really made my brand the way it is today,” he says. “I think when I do [make] croissants, I will keep salt bread, too.”

And that seems like the future of the American bakery: salt bread and croissants, side by side.