Willa Jean is a trendy Southern café with a light-filled space, serving up biscuits and grits alongside decadent baked goods and inventive cocktails.
"Willa Jean is a modern bakery famous for its traditional cinnamon king cake, which is creamy and sweet with a caramel and cream cheese glaze, adorned with sugar sprinkles and white chocolate pearls." - Ashley Day
"Willa Jean in the CBD dazzles with her uber-moist caramel crunch king cake, swirled through with cinnamon and drizzled with a cream cheese glaze. The cakes are artfully finished with thick icing and sugar pearls, one of the prettiest in town. The $40 cakes must be ordered three days in advance for daily pick up at Willa Jean between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. beginning on January 6 through Mardi Gras." - Beth D'Addono, Clair Lorell
"Chef Ryan White continues in chef Kelly Fields’ James Beard Award winning footsteps at this Southern bakery and restaurant in the CBD. Willa Jean, besides being all about the biscuit, conjures comfort food to the 10th power, dishes like chicken and waffles and grandma’s sausage gravy. And those shrimp and grits, swimming in an etouffee gravy floating with a perfectly poached egg." - Beth D'Addono
"Chef Kelly Fields earned the prestigious James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Pastry Chef award in 2019 for her restaurant Willa Jean. She sold the restaurant in 2021 and moved to Provincetown, home of natural beauty, coastal gastronomy, and vibrant queer culture. But Willa Jean’s biscuit situation — those shrimp and grits, that fried chicken sammie — is chef Kelly all the way." - Beth D'Addono
"Breakfast service done well is a cheerful, life-affirming start to the day, and Willa Jean does it with aplomb. There’s a range of decadence happening across the main food menu. At the healthy end of the spectrum, there are grain bowls and the omnipresent avocado toast with poached eggs. On the more sinful side, there is the pimento cheese dip, the griddled banana bread with whipped butter, and the city-appropriate hangover bowl, with braised short ribs and grits. However, the most indulgent dish of all just might be the béchamel- and gruyere-drenched Croque Madame. And don’t forget to take out some of their delicious cookies as you leave. It’s a great change to the usual sausage and eggs of regular diners, in a space that’s at once welcoming and functional." - Paul Oswell
