One of the secret ingredients at Machine Shop is love (no, really)

The two croissants are airy and crisp, so puffed up that they resemble mini footballs. The buttery, laminated layers are coated in sesame seeds and herbs that get everywhere, in a way that somehow renders them even more delicious. Ripping their crackling layers open reveals a tangy, savory cream inside, piped in through a hole stabbed in the bottom by a paring knife. They strike a curious balance between classical technique and seeded, herbal innovation.

It’s nearly impossible to tell the two baked goods apart. But more than a hundred miles separates them — 156 miles, to be precise: one from Philadelphia, and one from Washington, D.C. One is an everything-bagel croissant filled with both goat cheese and cream cheese at Machine Shop. The other is a za’atar croissant stuffed with labneh at Yellow in Washington.

As someone who splits time between Philly and D.C., I quickly found that Yellow was easily the best bakery in town; its three locations have seen relentless queues since opening in 2020. But there were certain pastries that seemed eerily, uncannily familiar. I chalked it up to the ongoing popularity of Middle Eastern pantry ingredients. Still, some seemed really, really familiar — both in terms of the technique and the flavor notes, like a spicy hit of shatta, or a crumble of tangy cheese. When I visited Machine Shop Bakery in the Bok building — also always thronged by devotees — I kept wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me.

“Michael stole the idea from our everything croissant to make their za’atar croissant,” Emily Riddell, the chef and owner of Machine Shop said, referring to Michael Rafidi, the chef and owner of Yellow.

“I think we inspire one another,” Rafidi said.

The reason Yellow and Machine Shop echo one another isn’t just a shared love of za’atar, shatta, and feta — it’s actual love.

Olney native Riddell and Ohio- and Silver Spring, Md.-raised Rafidi met in Philadelphia in 2012 while they were working at the now-closed restaurant the Mildred. Prior to Rafidi’s stint there, he opened Talula’s Garden on Washington Square, while Riddell was at Le Bec Fin. The pair started dating around 2014. Some 10 years later, Rafidi is based firmly in D.C. with their dog, a boxer mix named Kefta, and Riddell travels back and forth between the two cities, spending four days a week in Philly and three days in the capital, sometimes bringing her cat, Minouch.

The couple has racked up a staggering array of awards for culinary excellence between them, with seemingly annual accolades from national publications and the James Beard Foundation. Last year, Rafidi, who also runs La’ Shukran and the Michelin-starred Albi, was named Outstanding Chef by the James Beard Foundation. Riddell’s Machine Shop is a James Beard semifinalist this year for Outstanding Bakery. It picked up a Best New Restaurant award from Eater in 2022 and was named one of the best bakeries in the country by the New York Times last year.

Both are focused on building their communities around their respective businesses. While they are a culinary power couple, known for their respective accomplishments, they’ve largely existed as such under the radar.

Machine Shop, helmed by the thoroughly Philadelphian Riddell, is riddled with Middle Eastern influences. “I’ve laminated harissa into the butter for croissants. People have commented to me about, well, the unusualness,” Riddell said. “These aren’t typical flavors that you’d find in an American bakery in South Philly.” (They have become more common since Machine Shop’s 2016 debut, however, with the opening of bakeries like Majdal, from Lost Bread alum Kenan Rabah.)

A shelf just barely visible from Machine Shop’s counter, behind wide glass windows, is stacked with neatly labeled plastic boxes of Aleppo peppers, three different types of cardamom, cumin, Urfa chili, sumac, and za’atar — the same brand of the spice blend that Yellow uses, one from Rafidi’s Palestinian pantry. “It’s definitely the best I’ve ever had‚" Riddell says of the za’atar.

Yellow describes itself as an “easygoing Levantine-inspired cafe,” originally opened as a sister location to neighboring Albi, a fine-dining restaurant whose pastry program is acclaimed for its halvah bars, baklava, Arab-inflected soft-serve, and masterful brown butter knafeh. Rafidi credits his grandmother for that knafeh and Yellow’s executive pastry chef Alicia Wang for many of the other recipes and innovations, but there are elements of Riddell across his menus. Machine Shop’s epi baguette, for instance, with its sesame-seed coated leaves, snipped and shaped by hand, perfectly matches the one served alongside the hummus at Rafidi’s La’ Shukran because it is, after all, Riddell’s recipe.

The couple constantly trades ideas on purveyors, ideas, flavors, and even merch. Rafidi saw Riddell wear a yellow hat one day and decided to have similar ones made for Yellow, with “Yellow” printed on them.

Pastries on both menus can provoke a sense of déjà vu. Recently at Machine Shop, hollow croissants were baked with green shatta, a Middle Eastern green pepper sauce. They’re layered with feta before an egg is cracked into their bellies, steamed in a combi oven until jammy, then topped with more feta and a few cilantro leaves. It’s strongly reminiscent of Yellow’s jammy egg shakshuka croissant, which is anointed with harissa oil, then also topped with feta and roughly chopped fresh mint.

“I was trying to figure out how to get the right texture on the egg yolk,” Riddell said. “I asked, ‘How do you keep the egg from being overbaked?’ Michael suggested that I steam the eggs after I put them into the oven.”

Rafidi and Riddell constantly bounce ideas back and forth, but rarely do they cook together in public. There has only been one joint pop-up, in October 2023, when the teams at Machine Shop and Yellow collaborated on offerings like hummus, pita sandwiches, and fig tarts. “It was a huge success,” Riddell said. “We took a lot of the pastries that they make at Yellow but put them with the dough that we use here.”

There are no concrete plans for now, but Riddell hinted at the possibility of hosting another collaboration in the near future. And while the couple still live in different cities, there’s at least one other way they’ve come together: When I first spoke to them it was a day after the Washington Commanders lost the NFC championship to the Philadelphia Eagles on their way to a Super Bowl victory. I asked the couple how they felt about the loss. “Michael is an Eagles fan now,” Riddell said.