Christina Wood
Sacro Bosco and Temple Pastries | Seattle, WA
December 2025
Christina Wood grew up in the Indiana countryside in a Protestant family. Her father’s work as a pastor eventually brought the family to Florida, where Wood attended the University of Florida. She second-guessed her decision to study accounting and began working at a bakery in Gainesville after graduation. It wasn’t long before Wood packed up her belongings and, on a whim, moved across the country to Seattle to make a career out of baking.
Wood found a job at Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle, where she pushed herself to learn everything she could from Chef William Leaman. After a few years, she went to Cafe Besalu in Ballard to work for Pastry Chef James Miller, who taught her old school French pastry techniques, including lamination and how to make the perfect croissant. When new management took over the cafe, she decided to leave and start working for herself.
Temple Pastries was first born as a pop-up in 2018. Wood started in farmers markets in Columbia City before selling wholesale pastries to dozens of coffee shops around the city. Knowing she needed a bigger space for production, Wood signed the lease for her first brick-and-mortar in 2019. After closing the wholesale business during the pandemic, she opened the storefront in October 2020. Since then, Temple has expanded its in-house offerings, and diners can now find options beyond the popular baked goods—from ice cream to Roman-style pizzas, which Wood serves at Temple through her new night time concept, Sacro Bosco.
