It’s worth heading to Shiok just to be delighted by Cherish Finden’s stunning cakes. Inspired by her Singaporean childhood, the pastry chef sells pineapple-jam stuffed, cookie-like treats. Little travel cakes are iced oblong confections in flavors such as sticky toffee pudding (it tastes just like the famous British dessert) and yuzu. Best of all are the dessert “tins” for £16 ($19), featuring paper-thin white chocolate shaped and decorated to look like cans, including a partially open lid.

This bakery mixes traditional French baking with Asian styles and flavors from co-founders Alix Andre and Ellen Chew. Among their engaging takes on classics are croissants made from expertly laminated pastry in flavors like cappuccino and sausage with Japanese barbecue sauce. The highlight, though, is the bestselling honey butter toast (£4.90). It’s a thick slice of fluffy Japanese milk bread with a crust of crunchy honey in an ideal balance of textures and sweetness.

Cédric Grolet is the world’s pastry magician; His cakes, made to look exactly like oranges and supersized hazelnuts, have become a social media favorite. On display, like jewelry in a boutique, is a sampling of his outrageous pastries. Whether you should pay £25 for the cakey hazelnut cookie is your choice. But the vanilla flower — a cake covered with white-cream flower petals and filled with milk jam and praline on a crispy pastry crust — is an outrageously good treat.

Before January, if people knew this shiny gourmet food stop opposite Green Park it was for elegant take-away sandwiches and pastries. Then the Cube croissant hit the display case, and London went nuts. Head baker Mustapha Ait Elaouam offers the geometric delicacies in only a handful of flavors, including chocolate and matcha. The oversized squares boast crispy swirled sides, a thick cream filling and just enough glaze to sweeten and flavor the pastry.

Covent Garden now has a destination for elegant Japanese patisserie, a spare shop and outpost of the original location in Ealing. For matcha fans, there are such selections as tiramisu (£6.20) and a swirled sponge roll that blends the green tea with cream for a lightly sweet and bitter filling. The Japanese breads come in options like the marron bread, which is simultaneously light and rich with a pureed chestnut stuffing (£3.90). It’s a joy to rip apart.

At the end of an unpromising-looking alley in Dalston, Dusty Knuckle functions as a premier bread supplier to top London restaurants. The bakery, from founders Max Tobias and Rebecca Oliver, whose second outpost opened in Green Lanes last year, also has the option of croissants, morning buns and chocolate chip cookies. The feta, fennel and honey swirl, which goes for £4.50, is a sticky, flaky masterpiece that may be the best pastry in town.

This pink pastel-fronted bakery in north London is worth making the trek to Crouch End. Originally started as a lockdown project by Sophia Sutton-Jones and her husband Jesse, it has become a destination for its sourdough loaves as well as the chocolate-strewn babka cruffins (£4.40). Also currently available is the light, seasonal blood orange danish, filled with sweet cream and pistachios. It’s good with the expertly brewed coffee made from Gentlemen Baristas beans.

The singular pastries from the Philippines aren’t sufficiently well known in the UK, and family-run Kapihan is expanding their profile. Specialty options include the sweet, restorative malted karamelo latte with housemade coconut caramel malt syrup. Coconut also figures in the bibingka, the Filipino rice cake with an engaging, chewy, mochi-like texture that’s strewn with strips of tender young coconut.

Marmite fans should be familiar with Pophams and its signature offering, a pinwheel made from laminated dough and infused with the funky British spread, chunks of sweet, sauteed spring onions and Schlossberger, a nutty, locally made cheese that melts over the top (£5.90). It’s the kind of food that gets you out of bed on a hungover morning, as is the streaky bacon-and-maple bun. That’s mixed with such new, unconventional offerings as sea buckthorn and chocolate pistachio pastry.

The diversity of pastries packed into this compact storefront on Peckham Road is astonishing. In one corner, there’s sugar-dusted morning buns with a crunchy caramelized base (a bargain at £2.50) alongside vibrantly colored rhubarb custard tarts and chocolate-orange twists. Rebecca Spaven and Oliver Costello opened last spring under the name Frog Bakery before switching to Toad. They feature trays of savory snacks such as pork rolls stuffed with red cabbage kraut and dripping with melted cheese.

Buns From Home is another lockdown baking success story. Barney Goff started making buns for his neighbors and ended up crowdfunding to start a shop in Notting Hill. Now there are six branches all over London, from Holland Park to Bank. The pint-sized spots specialize in only one thing: sweet and savory versions of the namesake buns. Among the plump, golden-brown options are an exceptional, sweet and spicy cardamon bun and the classic cinnamon version.

The handsome new Birley bakery in Chelsea is outfitted with hand-painted red and gold murals on the walls and a ceiling decorated to look like the sky. The long display case has a wide range of executive pastry chef Vincent Zanardi’s offerings, from morning pastries to afternoon tea staples. The cream-filled, chocolate-iced Guinness cake, for £6.95, is very good, and so are the tender orange-cinnamon madeleines.

On a Covent Garden side street is the new location of the inspiring and well-named Fair Shot cafe, dedicated to training people with learning disabilities to be baristas while keeping London caffeinated. Behind the counter in the sunny, high-ceilinged space is an array of baked goods including straightforward pain au chocolat, danish and red velvet cake. Besides sweets, Fair Shot delivers good news: So far, 21 young adults have been employed, thanks to the organization.