Croissant appears as a signature dish in 1 France cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Croissant · Paris
The Parisian croissant is a laminated butter pastry, hand-rolled into a crescent, proofed slowly and baked to a deep amber shell with honeycomb crumb. Eaten warm with a noisette in the morning.
Croissants arrived in Paris from Vienna in the 19th century, via the city's Austrian-bakery wave that brought the kipferl shape to French laminated-dough technique. The modern butter-laminated form was canonised by Parisian boulangers in the 1920s. The annual concours de la meilleure baguette tradition pushed quality across the city's 1,500-plus boulangeries; the croissant followed. Du Pain et des Idées in the 10e plates a Sunday-only croissant; Poilâne sells a copper-coloured version from its Cherche-Midi shop opened 1932; modern bakeries like Mamiche and Boulangerie BO run weekday croissants that sell out by 11:00.
Where to eat in Paris:
- Du Pain et des Idées
- Poilâne
- Mamiche
- Boulangerie BO
- Stohrer