Paris has never exactly been short on carbohydrates worth crossing town for. There are croissants that shatter on contact, baguettes still warm from the oven and enough butter-rich brioche to derail even the most disciplined breakfast plans. But right now, Parisians are lining up for something a little different: salt bread.
Known as shio pan in Japan and sogeum-ppang in Korea, the small, golden roll has become one of Asia’s biggest bakery obsessions — and now it has officially landed in Paris. Somewhere between a brioche, croissant and dinner roll, salt bread is soft and chewy inside, crisp underneath and unapologetically buttery, with a scattering of salt across the top.
The Viral Bread Paris Can’t Stop Eating
The technique is deceptively simple. The dough is rolled around a piece of butter before baking. As the butter melts, it pools beneath the bread, essentially frying the bottom while leaving a hollow, buttery pocket inside. The result is the kind of texture combination engineered for social media: glossy on top, pillowy in the middle and deeply crisp underneath.
While the bread originated in Japan before becoming hugely popular in South Korea, its Paris moment has been accelerated by Salted Boy, a new bakery and coffee shop in the city’s 3rd arrondissement devoted entirely to the trend. After selling more than 1,000 salt breads during a two-day pop-up earlier this year, the team opened a permanent location at 4 Rue Réaumur on September 1.
The classic version costs €3.50, while a chocolate-coated version is €4.50. There are also dips including pandan, cream cheese and chocolate, with the team already experimenting with both sweet and savory variations.
Paris Is Giving Salt Bread Its Own Spin
Salted Boy isn’t the only place getting involved. At La Petite Manis, a French-Indonesian coffee shop near the Louvre, salt bread comes in variations including honey, seaweed, cheese and kaya pandan. Japanese bakery Best Bread Boba in the 10th arrondissement also serves freshly baked shio pan alongside its signature shokupan.
Perhaps that versatility explains why salt bread feels like more than another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it TikTok food trend. It can be breakfast, a snack or the foundation of a sandwich; sweet, savory or somewhere deliciously in between.
Paris may never give up the croissant. But for fall 2026, there’s a new buttery bread competing for space in the pastry bag.
New York Is Already Obsessed, Too
The obsession isn’t limited to Paris. New York is having its own salt bread moment, with bakeries across Manhattan putting the pastry front and center. In the East Village, Justin’s Salt Bread opened in late 2025 as the city’s first bakery dedicated entirely to the Japanese-style roll, serving its freshly baked shio pan with sweet cream, chocolate and matcha dips. Over in Koreatown, Salt Bread Ko specializes in the Korean version, baking batches throughout the day and experimenting with flavors including black tea, maple cinnamon, cheese garlic and matcha cream. Even Dominique Ansel has embraced the trend at his Asian-inspired Greenwich Village bakery Papa d’Amour, where a “Salt Bread Bagel” gives the viral pastry a distinctly New York twist. Salt bread may have traveled from Japan to South Korea before becoming Paris’s latest bakery fixation, but its arrival in New York suggests this buttery little roll is quickly becoming a global phenomenon.
