El Chico Bakery

This is hands down my favorite bakery in St. Louis! Such a gem to be found on Cherokee Street, I visit every time I’m in the area. The traditional wedding cookies are delectable, but my personal favorite are the fruit empanadas. I reccommend visiting the bakery first thing in the morning, because as the pastries fly off the shelves your options become increasingly limited (they’re such a hit!!). Sometimes the card swipe machine doesn’t work, so plan on paying with cash just to be safe. The employees are patient & considerate & will recommend the best picks of the day. You can’t go wrong with anything from El Chico, enjoy!

The proprietress is incredibly friendly and happy.
I got two cookies: peanut butter and oatmeal; some strawberry-​filled rolled pastry and a round vanilla (they also had chocolate) cake-​y thing covered with powdered sugar.
All were very dry, crumbly and tasteless.
I think there’s not much sugar used in Mexican pastries.

They have a booth at the Hispanic festival downtown and a coworker and I got a couple of their cookies each. I got the M&M and she had the peanut butter. Both were so dry and flavorless, when you broke a piece off they just crumbled to pieces. The lady running the booth was very friendly but I wouldn’t go here again.

I have never had a tamale despite living in Houston for nearly 4 years. Yes, that is quite a shame. Anyways, I had made orders for tamales for myself & for friends who are from Texas last week. I read somewhere that they sometimes sell out fast. They only sell them on the weekends. In any case, make an order by Friday morning & you are good to go. 1 tamale is about a buck & some change, & 6 tamales are about $ 6 & some change. The verdict: I took my very first bite of the green salsa chicken tamale & was wowed. My taste buds exploded with the high amount of spicyness. That spicyness lingered in my mouth for a while. Seriously. This thing was really spicy. Even more spicy than my mom’s curries! The red salsa pork tamale was less spicy. Like about 90 times less spicy than the green salsa tamales. It had a tiny really tiny kick to it. I felt it for about 1 minute. That was it. No mouth burning, lips numbing with fire. The tamales comes in 4 flavors (red salsa chicken, red salsa pork, green salsa chicken & green salsa pork).

I visited this bakery with some of my girlfriends during an annual «dessert tour» that we take throughout STL. We had just finished up at Diana’s Bakery, which I have to say is superior, so this place just didn’t impress.
Everything in the case looked pretty good, but there wasn’t a huge variety, and the bakery itself was a little dark and uninviting.
We may have just come at a bad time (late Sunday morning) but I have to say, I probably wouldn’t come back.

El Chico’s is a friendly little Mexican bakery located on Cherokee Street which serves a variety of common pastries such as empanadas, conchas, cookies and cakes. I love going to Mexican bakeries to try random little treats! Unfortunately, the selection at El Chico’s is limited, but the staff is friendly and the place is worth checking out. I tried a peach empanada and another sugar coated pastry, both of which were delicious. They also have tamales on the weekends which are good to take home and snack on. I had a pork tamale which was nice and flavorful, but the masa corn dough overwhelmed the small amount of pork inside. The layout of this place is quite simple with a small seating area to the side, but they have a very cool painting on the wall. I’m hoping this place can thrive with the other competition on Cherokee. Three flavorful stars!
Tamale photo:

Amazing bakery! From the buttery sugar cookies to the flaky empanadas (pumpkin is incredible), you can’t go wrong — everything is fresh, moist and flavorful. They also sell bags of day old sweet bread for a dollar and these make the absolute best french toast or bread pudding!
The real star of the show for me is the Tres Leches (three milk) cake. It’s almost indescribable if you’ve never had it, but trust me, if you’re looking for a b-​day cake, call and order this!
You do have to order this cake at least one day in advance but you will be amazed at it’s moist deliciousness and the cake will win you many «ooohs» and «aahhs», no matter who or what event you buy it for! I always order mine with strawberry filling, but to each his own!
They also offer tamales on the weekends if you’re looking for a sweet and savory one stop shop!

Easily the best buttery sugar cookie I’ve had in a looong time. And it’s HUGE. You can easily split it between multiple friends.
Super friendly people working the counter, too bad I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, I might have been able to maneuver my through the counter full of items easier… not that anything I got was bad, it was all delicious. And SO cheap.

I was in there for Halloween and did not see any coconut conchas. The lady working gladly prepared me some fresh ones. Thanks so much! Your’s are the best and I can’t find coconut anywhere else! I will be returning soon!
4 stars for freshness and hospitality. Plus unlike the other bakeries they have a place to eat. Didn’t see any tamales though. Guess I should have asked.

This place is so authentically Mexican that they don’t even speak English :) I discovered that asking questions about the pastries was pretty futile; the counter lady knew «sponge cake» and «strawberry,» so I just pointed and took my chances. Everything I tried was yummy and the pastries are huge and cheap — can’t go wrong with that.