How a Vietnamese Bakery Started by Refugees Became a New Orleans Destination
On the outskirts of The Big Easy, people will line up down the highway for Dong Phuong Bakery’s king cakes and more.
Photo courtesy of Dong Phuong Bakery
Every year in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, lines start to form outside Dong Phuong Bakery, an unassuming shop located along the highway that connects New Orleans to Bayou Sauvage.
It’s as much of an unexpected sight for those driving towards the wildlife refuge as it is for the bakers working inside. The growing lines have become the norm since the bakery launched king cakes in 2008, but seeing customers make the 30-minute drive from downtown New Orleans (and sometimes even further) still takes Linh Tran Garza by surprise. “We’re almost to the swamps!” jokes Garza, daughter of the bakery’s founders.
Dong Phuong has been a part of her family’s life for as long as Garza can remember. Her parents, Huong and De Tran, took over the restaurant in 1982 from its previous owners. Garza’s paternal grandmother, Lieng Tran, had been an employee at Dong Phuong, then one of the few Vietnamese eateries in the greater New Orleans area.
Photo courtesy of Dong Phuong Bakery
The Tran family had a simple goal in mind: to make a living and support their family, having arrived as South Vietnamese refugees just a few years prior. Huong leaned into skills she had picked up from her dad, who owned a bakery and noodle shop in their hometown of Sóc Trăng, a province south of Saigon. “Before [the bakery], my mom was just making pastries like a home baker. She would just bake and deliver to the very few Vietnamese grocery stores that were in the area at the time.”
Having a professional kitchen allowed Huong to expand her offerings, but she stuck to what she knew best: traditional Vietnamese and Chinese pastries such as mooncakes and bean cakes. But De knew, from a business perspective, that they’d need other products to help Dong Phuong grow. In the nineties, De set out to make French bread, despite having little baking experience himself.
“My dad was an avid reader. He went through a lot of books and just did a lot of experimentation,” says Garza. “Once he was able to perfect the bánh mì bread that we still use today, our market expanded pretty quickly because it was more of a known product. Everybody has bread.”
Photo courtesy of Dong Phuong Bakery
Dong Phuong began selling bánh mì baguettes at its own shop and wholesale to other bakeries and restaurants in the area. Today, customers can purchase standalone loaves or enjoy the crusty, yet airy baguettes as part of Dong Phong’s housemade bánh mì (there’s also a restaurant by the same name run by Garza’s uncle). The bakery is also stocked with Huong’s traditional Vietnamese pastries — except during king cake season, when all efforts turn to the seasonal specialty.
Although customers now come from near and far for Dong Phuong’s signature laminated king cakes, the idea originally came to Garza to meet the needs of their community after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. “A lot of bakeries did not come back and our customers were just like, ‘Can you make me a king cake because my kid got the [plastic] baby?’ We started it just for fun and to give the Vietnamese community a source for them.”
Photo courtesy of Dong Phuong Bakery
Tran had become more closely involved with the family business after De passed away in 2004, eventually taking on the role of president. Her accounting background helps with the number-crunching, but she also oversees marketing and innovation. When they decided to take a stab at king cakes, Garza channeled her dad’s entrepreneurial spirit. “As part of my R&D, I went and bought a lot of king cakes from different bakeries. My mom and I tried them out and we’re like, ‘Well, it’s brioche dough.’ We can do that.”
For their first attempt, Huong — who still oversees all of Dong Phuong’s baking — simply used the bakery’s existing brioche dough. “But when we tasted it, it was too heavy and too sweet,” recalls Garza. So they switched gears and started experimenting with the dough they used for danishes, laminating it with shortening to achieve lighter layers. The icing became a cream cheese one to add a savory note that would appeal to the palate of their Vietnamese clientele.
“I ordered a hundred boxes that year and I seriously did not think we were going to go through that the whole season,” says Garza. But interest picked up, first by word of mouth, later in local publications, and in 2018, a James Beard American Classics award. “It just blew up. People were scalping the cakes and we could see the line going all the way out to the highway.”
Sam Hanna/Photo courtesy of Dong Phuong Bakery
Today, a team of 65 cranks out 1,500 king cakes daily during the bakery’s peak season. “It’s just nonstop baking, proofing, baking, proofing, throughout the whole day to meet the needs. We shut down everything else, except for bread, sandwiches and meat pies. If you go to the store during king cake season, all our shelves are empty.”
Dong Phuong now makes king cakes in a variety of flavors and continues to experiment while staying true to the family’s Vietnamese and Southern roots. “We’re always looking into making new products. This past year, we launched a durian king cake for a week. It was very exciting to see the Vietnamese, the Thai community, the Southeast Asian community get all excited.”
Once king cake season wraps up, the bakery returns to its normal day-to-day operations. Things pick up again in the fall during the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, when the demand for mooncakes increases. Dong Phuong makes three types: traditional golden-crusted mooncakes, snowskin mooncakes and Vietnamese pia mooncakes filled with a mix of sweet or savory fillings.
Photo courtesy of Dong Phuong Bakery
In between those busy seasons, Huong continues to make the Vietnamese pastries that started it all. “She likes to make street snacks, like this great waffle that she only makes for Mother’s Day just to give out to other moms because it takes too much time. Even though it was not her professional choice growing up, she has embraced it,” says Garza of her mom’s dedication and passion. “She’s still so humble and she takes a lot of pride in her work. It makes her so happy to see people enjoy the products that she makes.”
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