The best places to buy croissants in Paris

France’s most in-demand viennoiserie and a buttery, flaky emblem of the country – the croissant needs little introduction. Laminated to perfection at numerous top-flight boulangeries and stellar pâtisseries, the crescent-shaped pastry is a shortcut to the Parisian experience. The only issue for croissant-seeking travellers is where to find the best versions.

Perhaps owing to its omnipresence, the croissant has spawned more spin-offs than any other pastry – beginning with the cronut, the storied doughnut-croissant hybrid created by French-born, NYC-based chef Dominique Ansel. In its wake, hybrid creations with playful portmanteau names have continued to pep up the Paris pâtisserie scene – the cruffin and crombolini were recently joined by the current it-croissant: the crookie. Whether you’re a traditionalist or keen to brave the queues to try a rarer breed, here are the most talked-about croissants in town.

Maison Louvard

Go for: the crookie

It might not win any beauty contests, but that hasn’t stopped the crookie becoming social media gold. The idea for the croissant-cookie hybrid came to inventor Stéphane Louvard in 2022 after a particularly successful batch of croissants. For fun, he split them in two, stuffed them with chocolate chip cookie dough and rebaked them just enough for the cookies to set. Two years on, demand for the sweet treat skyrocketed after a viral TikTok post, and now the bakery makes up to 2,000 crookies each day. So far, so gimmicky, you might think – but not only have Maison Louvard’s croissants regularly topped official lists of the city’s best, the crookie itself is made of stellar ingredients, such as Xoco Gourmet’s Mayan Red chocolate and prime Charentais butter. Add in the labour involved (each crookie takes three days to make), and you won't be surprised by the hefty price tag, coming in at €5.90 – triple a regular croissant – but, you are effectively getting a two-for-one deal.

Address: 11 Rue de Châteaudun, 75009 Paris
Website: maisonlouvard.fr/boulangerie

Boulangerie Utopie

Go for: sourdough croissants

Launched by two ex-Maison Ladurée pâtissiers a decade ago, Boulangerie Utopie is leading the current wave of bakeries giving dedicated pastry specialists a run for their money. Pretty much everything here is excellent: the eye-catching activated-charcoal baguette and black sesame roulé are the undoubted icons, but their croissants (also offered in chocolate and almond guises) are properly innovative, too. Perfect for those who dislike the excess grease and flake of your average croissant, their sui generis sourdough rendition begins with tangy Mointagu butter; a sourdough starter is then added to the dough, creating a complex croissant that’s simultaneously very soft inside and perfectly crispy on the outside. You’ll need to get there earlyish; stocks are limited and while this is very much your neighbourhood bakery, the cat is definitely out of the bag.

Address: 20 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris
Website: boulangerieutopie.com

The French Bastards

Go for: the chocolate cruffin

The nominal bastards (that’ll be connards in French) behind this six-strong Paris mini-empire are three friends who, pining for French bread and pastry during long stints living abroad, returned to open a place of their own. Traditionalists look away: this is a place where classics are treated to a dose of “food porn”, as they put it; a place where your pain aux raisins is more likely to feature currants, where a loaf of bread might come charcoal-black, and where the croissant is restyled to resemble a muffin – “cruffin” – though they do condescend to create regular croissants too. The chocolate cruffin is the golden ticket: the chocolate-laminated dough is stuffed with dark chocolate ganache that oozes from the pudding like lava flow. Yes, the hipster levels are sky-high, but if food porn is your fetish, this is where to get your fix.

Address: 61 Rue Oberkampf, Paris 75011
Website: thefrenchbastards.fr

Pierre Hermé

Go for: the Ispahan

Pierre Hermé is, of course, best known as the king of macarons, but as a former winner of paper Le Figaro’s best croissant award, you’re in safe hands when it comes to viennoiseries, too. The chef’s standout croissant, much lauded by those with a taste for the exotic, replicates the flavours of his namesake Ispahan macaroon, which was created back in the 1990s as a homage to the highly fragrant Ispahan rose. Ideal for summer months, it consists of a buttery croissant topped with a rosewater glaze and raspberry flakes and filled with raspberry and lychee jelly, plus rose-scented almond paste. If all that sounds cloyingly sweet, Hermé somehow pulls it off in style – perhaps no surprise given that the “Picasso of pastry” has long stood apart for his adventurous flavour profiles. An added boon: such is the Ispahan’s success the same trio of fruits has also inspired cakes, ice-cream, tea and jam.

Address: 72 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris
Website: pierreherme.com

La Maison d’Isabelle

Go for: pure butter croissants

They’re not shy about advertising their wares at this hallowed Latin Quarter address: you can’t miss the black awning proudly bearing the “best croissant in Paris 2018” accolade that still sees queues snaking down the street. Those who make the pilgrimage (the average waiting time is a tolerable 10 minutes) leave convinced; when it comes to pure butter croissants, Isabelle’s tick all the boxes. By the official rules of the best croissant contest, much weight is given to appearance and the first thing you’ll notice is the croissants’ generous size; entries must also use Charentes-Pouitou AOC butter, which the bakery blends with organic flour from Moulins de Brasseuil. The result, a flaky-layered joy, walks the perfect line between chewy and fondant. It’s tribute to them, too, that the price is just €1.20 – comparable with bog-standard bakeries – especially given this isn’t a cheap part of town.

Address: 47ter Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris 75006
Website: instagram.com/maison_isabelle_paris

Philippe Conticini

Go for: XL croissants

Philippe Conticini, founder of the sadly shuttered Pâtisserie des Rêves, is no stranger to experimentalism: back in the ’90s, he came up with the idea of presenting dishes in verrines – vertical glasses – rather than horizontally on plates (thus anticipating the still annoyingly ubiquitous mason-jar food trend, though that’s hardly the chef’s fault). Conticini's latest innovation eschews hybrid pastries and bold flavours in favour of ramping up the croissant’s scale. As big, or bigger, than a loaf of bread, the mammoth XL croissant (slightly confusingly, the same-sized pastry is billed in his London shops as the croissant XXL) weighs 1.5kg, has 3000 calories, and will set you back a not inconsiderable €32. You might need to call in reinforcements to make the most of one – and while they’re made in-store every day, given the concomitant hype, it’s best to pre-order on their website and collect in-store to be sure.

Address: 37 Rue de Varenne, Paris 75007
Website: philippeconticini.fr

BO&MIE

Go for: the New York Roll

Founded by two former alumni of the famed Ferrandi cooking school, this slick boulangerie is known for its take on the US-born New York Roll or cromboloni: wheel-shaped croissant dough filled with pastry cream and topped with ganache. Less croissant, more artwork; the ganache drips down the pastry’s side like paint; rolls come in equally desirable raspberry or vanilla versions – the former all-tart raspberry confit and icing, with crispy raspberry pieces on top, and the latter embellished by a wicked dark chocolate ganache and chopped almonds. If this threatens to spike your sugar levels, they also do a swift trade in bicolour croissants that bear colourful stripes advertising the raspberry or praline inside. While the original Étienne-Marcel branch listed here has some seating, their roomiest local outpost is on the Rue de Rivoli – a handy spot for breakfast before hitting the nearby Louvre.

Address: 18 Rue de Turbigo, 75002 Paris
Website: boetmie.com

Maison Doucet

Go for: the almond croissant

Newly crowned as makers of the best butter croissant in Paris, this hard-working family bakery, founded in 2013, has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight. Their refreshingly low-key social media presence (at the time of writing, their Instagram followers are still, amazingly, in the very low triple digits) translates to far fewer madding crowds – as does the out-of-the-way eastern Paris locale. The award-winning butter croissant might seem the obvious thing to go for – far crispier than your average croissant, it has a gorgeous golden colour – and, given they’ve doubled production to meet the new demand, you’re still in with a good shot of bagging one. Yet even better is the in-house almond croissant. In the days before cronuts and co. stormed the internet, the almond croissant lorded it over the Paris pastry scene; Maison Doucet’s is as good as they get (they’re also banking on the flan as their next prize-winner). 

Address: 234 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, 75012 Paris
Website: instagram.com/maison.doucet.paris75012