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Here's Why DeLuxe Might Be the Best Bakery in Iowa
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By Jamie Dutton | Feb. 23, 2026
DeLuxe sits in Iowa City’s Longfellow neighborhood, just southeast of downtown, in a building that used to be a neighborhood grocery store. Jamie Powers opened it in 2003 with the straightforward idea that a neighborhood should still have a place like this: the kind of bakery people can go for sticky buns, scones, and special occasion cakes.
Then the accolades started pouring in. The online reviews. The attention from the local press and influencers. Now, just three years later, Powers finds herself as a semifinalist for the James Beard Awards Outstanding Bakery category, national recognition for what was once just a humble neighborhood spot.
Powers grew up in Iowa City and graduated from the University of Iowa, then moved to Chicago and started at Bistro 110 waiting tables before she ever got near the ovens. When the managers needed kitchen help, she learned on the job, and then moved to Denver to work at The Brown Palace Hotel and Gateux Bakery. She came back to Iowa City and baked DeLuxe orders out of her basement for about nine months before she opened the shop in November of 2003.
The pastry case here does not need a theme night or a branding campaign. It needs butter, patience, and the nerve to keep doing the classics well. DeLuxe leans into viennoiserie—croissants and laminated things that look innocent until they ruin the rest of the day’s plans. The menu backs that up with specifics like kouign amann, a cinnamon bun croissant built from croissant dough rolled with cinnamon-brown sugar filling, and a Nutella croissant that sells itself without having to wink about it.
Landing on the James Beard Awards semifinalist list isn’t the conclusion for Powers. For an Iowa City baker that just imagined this as a neighborhood project, that’s a pretty clean arc, one more step to show that she’s built DeLuxe into something special.
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