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A friend of my editor who recently arrived in New York City asked, “What’s the best croissant in town, or better yet, where can I get at least a decent one?” Clearly, his expectations were not especially high. Rather than making a couple of off-the-cuff suggestions, I resolved to do some digging.
The croissant is technically a yeast-leavened pastry using laminated dough. As it is formed the dough is doubled upon itself over and over to create a flaky, multilayered final product. Croissant means crescent in French, referring to the traditional shape of the pastry. Though we think of croissants as Parisian, in Paris they are associated with Vienna.
I soon set about the pleasant task of croissant-tasting, and here are my impressions of most of them, with Eater staff chiming in here and there.
Le Pain Quotidien is a long-running Belgian bakery chain that opened its first location in the U.S. on Madison Avenue as a destination for New Yorkers, but ended up being not always so great. Its specialty has always been breads, of which the croissant is a species. Though misshapen, this elongated and burnished croissant is still formidable, more flaky than buttery. $4.
This croissant copped from the Oculus branch of Épicerie Boulud in the vicinity of the World Trade Center looks like it might have seen better days, with a flaking-off nose. No matter, it is also somewhat flattened by its very nature, and the taste is spot-on. $4.25.
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French pastry shop Chanson offers two sizes of croissant that might have been made from pre-fab pastry, they’re so soft and undefined. One is bigger than average and has the texture of bread; the smaller is certainly cute to look at, right? Both fall in the lower ranges of acceptable due to lack of definition. $4, $2.50.
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The offshoot of a fancier restaurant just off Madison Avenue is a pleasant and very French place to sit and drink coffee. Cafe Bilboquet’s is perfectly fine if unexciting, and one is more likely to turn one’s attention to the crusty almond croissant or the wild blueberry scone.
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With hundreds of locations across the USA including 30 in NYC, Korea-based Paris Baguette is a behemoth of a production bakery and one can’t help but weep for the artisanal croissant bakers when these examples are so cheap and good. Nevertheless, differences of a negative sort, such as a certain dryness and sponginess, can be discerned. But boy are they big! $3.09.
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This croissant at Ole & Steen is as big and pale as a wiffle ball, with no heft. You could throw it and no one would notice if it hit them. From a Danish bakery that otherwise makes excellent, well, Danish, filled with things like jelly and custard. This seems almost like an intentional slap in the face to the French. $3.95.
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French Toast is a relative newcomer to the Woodside-Jackson Heights pastry scene, much easier to get to than the fabled Cannelle. The croissants are a shade smaller than usual, light and exceedingly squishy. Which means, I suppose, a prodigious quantity of butter but lacking a certain crustiness. No matter, the taste is completely up to par. $4.
Years ago, I was a big fan of Cannelle, a French bakery in an obscure corner of Jackson Heights rather hard to get to from the train. So, I went to the branch in Long Island City, and the croissant didn’t match my memory of it. It was inexpensive, with a crackly outside and an inside that was airy but lacking in rich flavor. An eminently edible croissant, but not a distinguished one. $3.25.
This slender example has a crisp, caramelized exterior, and relatively dense flesh. It is more buttery than usual and has an elegant shape and heft. This is a perfect breakfast croissant, but not much of a sandwich croissant, and keeps longer than usual due to its high fat content, via Amadou Ly, formerly of Tribeca’s fabled Arcade Bakery. This is the best croissant in the city. $6.
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The croissants at Aux Merveilleux de Fred are baked periodically during the day, so you may get a warm one. They are compact, to be sure, and shaped like a well-worn armchair, but extremely buttery and done to a perfect shade of reddish brown. They rate third best among the best in the city. $3.90.
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If you like your croissant soft, almost squishy, this one is for you. The inside of Barachou’s croissant is dense and rich, and provides tensile strength with no crunch or crackle. This West Village bakery specializes in tiny cream puffs in a myriad of flavors, and their French flan and cinnamon buns are justly celebrated. $4.50.
Breads is very much of the current bake-it-to-dark-brown school, and breads and pastries tend to come out that way, including its celebrated babka. These croissants are smaller than usual, and more flaky too, so they wouldn’t be a good choice for a sandwich. But for eating with a cup of strong dark coffee, it could be just the thing. $4.50.
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Croissants are one of the staple offerings of the flimsy metal breakfast carts that park in Manhattan’s commercial neighborhoods from early morning till the pastries run out. The croissants are outsize, and not really croissants but oddly shaped loaves of bread. Still, at the low price they have merit, especially when wolfed down at your desk with a mediocre cup of coffee. Pro tip: Ask that they be buttered. $2.
Claude Le Brenne, from Brittany, started his patisserie in 1982, replaced decades later by his assistant, Pablo Valdez, when Claude retired to France. This croissant has long been considered one of the city’s most authentic, elegant in its simplicity. It’s a little smaller than average, a little denser, plain-tasting with a slightly sweet aftertaste — it really doesn’t need butter or jam. These croissants rate second best among the three best in the ciyt. $3.25.
Buvette’s croissants are minis, and are sold two to a plate. They are consciously based on a retro French model, and taste very much like croissants I remember eating in France: plainish in taste, evenly textured no matter what part of the croissant you bite into, and made to be spread with butter and jam. $9.
Petit Chou, an East Village favorite where sweet and photogenic pastries are dispensed, comes from Paris-trained Bassim Nasr. The croissants, which boast French butter, are shaped like home plate at Yankee Stadium, but are nonetheless well-textured and have just the right amount of moistness. $4.
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La Cabra has a reputation for baking its croissants dark, but this one is somewhere between medium and dark, with an orangish cast. It is flakier than usual, so that when you bite into it a rain of flakes falls from the bottom, but you’ll find yourself sweeping up the flakes afterward and eating them one by one. $4.50.
The croissant at Librae is linear and torpedo-shaped, with no flailing arms. The pastry is of the deep-brown variety, and tastes slightly sweet. The exterior is crisp but the inside soft and of medium density. At the hump, the bottom of the interior is more cakey than at the top. A croissant with a diversity of attractions. $4.50.
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With a prominent nose and arms outstretched, this croissant from very French East Village bakery Le Fournil is supremely buttery and done to a turn. It may be the best in the East Village. It is of average size and slightly denser than perhaps desirable. $4.
As an exemplar of the caramelized school of croissant, Lafayette’s is unsurpassed, remaining moist inside, very dark and dry outside, with a slightly scorched butter aftertaste. I didn’t like it at first bite, but found myself reaching into the bag as I walked down the street, taking bite after bite till it was gone. $4.50.
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Pastry Danish C&B is a bakery and breakfast sandwich shop just off Tompkins Square, a neighborhood favorite. The croissants are massive and extravagantly formed, but a little on the dry side — which is not a detriment when used for one of the cafe’s excellent breakfast sandwiches. $4.25.