Article by Kate Bratskeir
I hadn’t planned to make my first visit to Paris a comprehensive croissant research trip, it just happened. The catalyst was a croissant from Boulangerie Chevalier, a bakery in St. Germain that I stopped into immediately after checking in at my hotel in the sixth arrondissement — really just because the windows looked charming. Fresh off the plane, I was cloaked in eau de middle seat, yet the first bite was a transformative experience that cut through my same-clothes-different-day fog.
The pastry was simple, clean, crisp and soft, almost motherly in the way it nurtured my mouth. These buttery flakes that dissolved on my tongue gave me a sense of home. But I’d never once eaten a croissant in Paris before.
In the following two food-packed days, I consumed close to a dozen croissants, each one at least as good as the one before it. This grossly indulgent behavior was out of character for me: Before arriving in Paris, I’d eaten fewer than a dozen croissants in my lifetime.
After Paris, I crossed the border to Italy, where the magical quality of the croissant instantly plummeted. Yes, the first one I tried was in the Naples airport, but it was, by comparison, rotting garbage. The next and last croissant I ate outside of France was in Positano, a village on the Amalfi Coast known for its regional seafood and stellar pastas. The pastry crunched between my teeth like sand.
So what is it, exactly, that makes the croissant — which originated in Austria — so much better in Paris? I enlisted the help of several experts to confirm what I know in my gut is true: You’ll never have a croissant as good as one you have in Paris.