The 11 Best Croissants of the Right Bank of Paris

Which side of town has the most addictive croissants?

Bien­v­enue à Paris — home of the no-holds-barred pas­try game. Play­ers know that Paris is to pas­try what Colom­bia is to cocaine. Here, Boulangers are like a cross between rock­stars and king­pins, up all night for the love of the game and the non-stop gush­es of cash that come rolling in every morn­ing from being a top Parisian bak­er. There is a nev­er end­ing War on Drugs, but in Paris, pâtis­serie is our drug.

(Also drugs are our drugs, not gonna lie. ) 

But it’s eas­i­er to map out the best of the best of French crois­sants in the City of Bread than it’s been to stamp out the world’s appetite for pills, weed and blow. So let’s do the former. 

Read on for the crois­sants we DARE you to try and find which is the best crois­sant in Paris. 

Who makes the BEST croissant in Paris?

The ques­tion of who bakes the best crois­sant in Paris is a one that has caused a lot of inter­net chatter. 

So I slammed my fist on the table and said, Enough! Ça Suf­fit! It’s time to cut through the noise like a hot knife through but­ter. (Our metaphors get bet­ter, thank you for your patience…) And I start­ed ham­mer­ing out the DEFINITIVE guide to where to get your morn­ing crois­sant — from award-win­ning spots with beau­coup gilt lau­rel leaves shin­ing through to their win­dows, to the hid­den gems that our Parisian neigh­bors hold close to the vest.

Incom­ing flex — not only am I a true crois­sant junkie, (I hit the brakes and park my bike any­time I see an intrigu­ing bak­ery…) I’ve been on TV for this! Carb-starved trav­el­ers pelt us with beau­coup 5‑star reviews after our juicy romps and ram­pages among the deli­cious­ness of Paris!  There’s a rea­son peo­ple call on us for the insid­er-knowl­edge of French food-scene. My team and I are Deep In The Game as some of the most pop­u­lar French Food Cura­tors around. 

But nonethe­less, we are pumped to spill our secrets all over the inter­nets like the but­tery exhi­bi­tion­ists we are. It will take an army of shrinks or an army of bak­ers to snuff out our desires, so let’s go with ~bak­ers~ as a crois­sant is still cheap­er than a one-hour ther­a­py ses­sion, despite the efforts of nation­al­ized health­care and Cedric Gro­let.

It’s impor­tant to note that, as there are sim­ply so many crois­sants that can be classed among the ‘best’ we have split this Best Crois­sants in Paris Guide-to-End-All-Guides into two install­ments for you, dear rav­en­ous read­er, to use do your own ‘crois­sant walk’.

So whichev­er side of town you are on, Right Bank or Left Bank — we are there for it.

For now I will share the best crois­sants of the Right Bank of Paris, then in the fol­low­ing install­ment, the Left Bank. (These are not neigh­bor­hoods, but rather a side of the riv­er Seine, which bisects the city. And one bank is not more posh or desir­able than the oth­er, it’s Paris, there is beau­coup chic to be found on both sides of town. )

The People Have Spoken

This 2‑part mas­terlist was curat­ed by me and the rest of the Curios­i­ty Col­lec­tive team and test­ed on about 3,000 rav­en­ous trav­el­ers plus ran­dom French boy-/girl-friends and the like.

Now the the­sis:  pic­ture the axis of the crois­sant spec­trum: Bready vs. lay­erey (com­put­er insists this is not a word…I guess it is now.) is one line, then, moist vs.  flaky as the oth­er — does it have ele­gant arch­es (on the moist side) or flaky con­fet­ti explosion?

This is get­ting slight­ly more sci­en­tif­ic than I had planned…

When we bak­ery cura­tors at The Curios­i­ty Col­lec­tive do a Best Crois­sants of Paris Walk, we poll every­one at the end to see which boulanger is the People’s Choice. Putin may have all the propane but we still have some bak­ery democracy.

Some­times there are sur­pris­es, like how peo­ple from Latin Amer­i­ca con­sis­tent­ly pre­fer the (to me) sweet and rather bread‑y crois­sant from Ter­roirs de l’Avenir.   (Update Decem­ber 2022–they appar­ent­ly refor­mu­lat­ed and are now flaky and not so bready…Our cocaine metaphors must have scared them off.)

Or how the biggest cross-sec­tion of human­i­ty on my walk­ing food tours in Paris prefers the sour­dough crois­sant from Sain Boulan­gerie (sor­ry, Vogue mag­a­zine, I dis­cov­ered Antho­ny Courteille first. Well, sec­ond, after the Miche­lin Guide…)

But don’t count out Stohrer — Paris’ old­est bak­ery. Still in per­fect shape after all these years (since 1725 to be exact).

Note: Extra weight is giv­en here as ‘his­toric’ things tend to become out­right tourist traps.

Achiev­ing excel­lence in crois­sants takes real effort and care­ful atten­tion to ingredients.

And lots and lots of hard work by hand.

So with­out fur­ther delay (you must be hun­gry by now) these are the Best Crois­sants of Paris’s Right Bank.

They are worth the calories.

Sain Boulangerie — you heard it here (almost) first

Oui, there are sour­dough crois­sants. We’ll nev­er be the same again.

Les crois­sants au lev­ain  — the sour­dough crois­sants from Sain Boulan­gerie — are on everyone’s lips as the best crois­sants in Paris.

Flash­back: I’m think­ing about try­ing to make my own as I’m watch­ing  Antho­ny Courteille as he ‘lam­i­nates’ the pages of dough with expen­sive organ­ic but­ter from Nor­mandie while we con­duct a sour­dough work­shop in his bak­ery near the Canal St. Mar­tin for an episode of the Aus­tralian TV show, For the Love of Bread. 

But I’m a bak­ery ‘voyeuriste’ only — I like to eat them, not make them. I step aside and save my ener­gy for the eat­ing part. 

But it’s hot, to have that kind of supreme­ly use­ful tal­ent. I get fris­sons. I tried to make crois­sants  with Antho­ny and just the dough manip­u­la­tion part was too much for me.

I lost my train of thought but the crois­sants are some of the best in Paris here. Grab a sea­son­al fruit ‘chaus­son’ while you are there, or a Coco Rocher — my per­son­al favorite, a crispy coconut tri­an­gle, del­i­cate­ly browned on the edges. 

As for the crois­sants, I know the secret to the recipe but I swore to Antho­ny would­n’t tell. You’ll just have to trust me, they’re worth the trek across town…

Cédric Grolet — haute couture croissants

Baby-faced Cédric came up on the mean streets of the kitchens at Fau­chon where he was tasked with slav­ing away at the mac­aron dough mix­ers, a noto­ri­ous­ly oner­ous and bor­ing task. When he final­ly pulled him­self out of the pas­tel-col­ored muck and grew a set of his own fruit tarts — which went on to absolute­ly break the inter­net like a high­brow edi­ble ver­sion of Kim K’s car­toon bot­tom — we could see that it was just a mat­ter of time before he struck out from the con­fines of the posh Le Meurice hotel and joined the Vien­nois­erie game. (For those of you just tun­ing in ‘Vien­nois­erie’ means ‘from Vien­na’ and is French short­hand for ‘break­fast pas­tries’ like crois­sants, pain au choco­lats, etc. Why? Because they invent­ed the pre­cur­sor to the croissant…)

Gro­let’s crois­sants and pain au choco­lats dropped at record-high prices to crowds held back behind an actu­al vel­vet rope upon the open­ing of his new bou­tique (if it costs more than 2€, it’s not a boulan­gerie any­more, it’s a bou­tique, hon­ey. If you have to ask…) I was there to see if his crois­sants would live up to the Gro­let hype. And did they. Vien­nois­eries are only avail­able at his Opera bou­tique, the Le Meurice shop focus­es on take­away tarts and cakes. Either way, pre­pare to get in line. So worth it. 

Yann Couvreur — architecture you can taste

Yann brings his Bre­ton roots to the French cap­i­tal in the form of beau­coup but­ter, mak­ing his crois­sants rise to pos­i­tive­ly archi­tec­tur­al heights when they hit the oven and cre­ate steam pock­ets that can reach for the sky. That’s why his crois­sant is so pho­to­genic. But fear not, this coun­try boy’s goods taste as entic­ing as they look.

While you are there, try his eclairs — which look 3D print­ed — or his award-win­ning take on the Mille Feuille — a French clas­sic that he remakes in Brit­tany style, with buck­wheat (‘blé noir’) instead of the usu­al wheat-wheat, giv­ing it a new dimension.

Boulangerie des Belles Manières — the locals’ secret

Large­ly absent from the noise and chat­ter about what every­one is sup­posed to be eat­ing in Paris (in Paris, we have entire PR agen­cies work­ing over­time, devot­ed just to food ffs…) are the total­ly lit breads and crois­sants from Boulan­gerie des Belles Manieres. It’s as if they are just mak­ing good bready things and not spend­ing any efforts on Insta­gram or pub­li­cists.  The proof is in the prod­uct — and the line of actu­al Parisians out the door. Besides the melt­ing­ly good crois­sants, try their avant-garde breads or take a sand­wich to go and con­tem­plate the stun­ning archi­tec­ture of the Saint Eustache church near­by (is it bet­ter than the Notre Dame? It’s def­i­nite­ly less bust­ed up, so there’s that…)

Boulangerie Utopie — as seen on TV

In a non­de­script, and — dare I say it — charm­less (this is the city of charm­ing design, so hav­ing ~basic~ archi­tec­ture stands out) lit­tle cor­ner bak­ery, the Boulan­gerie Utopie boys (and some bewil­der­ing­ly grumpy-ass front of the house staff) grind out some of the most bomb AF bak­ery things to wrap your mouth around. The crois­sants, oui. Black sesame roll. Oui. What­ev­er fruit tart or spe­cial brioche they have brought to life this week, oui­i­i­i­i­ii. But let’s stay focused. The crois­sant — it’s good enough to line up for. Just make sure to grab a black baguette or matcha + toast­ed rice bread whilst act­ing annoyed at the line like a prop­er bo-bo neighbor.

Ernest & Valentin — come for the baguette, stay for the croissant

Found­ed by two bak­er-broth­ers with clear­ly Anglophile par­ents that named them Logan and Bradley. (I went to high school in Chica­go with a chick named Cosette, so ok, we are even I guess.) But there is not short­age of French savoir-faire at Ernest & Valentin as their crois­sants are damn good, as is their baguette. So skip break­fast and pay the French-look­ing, sounding‑, and bak­ing- broth­ers a visit. 

Bo & Mie — polychrome sexiness you can taste

Their crois­sants are wor­thy, that’s why they are named here on this but­tery bak­ery bible. But they did­n’t stop at ‘but­ter crois­sant’, non non non…they got fruity back in the kitchen — whip­ping rasp­ber­ry com­pote into their crois­sants. Ouais.…Then pis­ta­chio paste. Nutel­la. Where will it end? In your mouth.

Maison Stohrer — if you like them old

If it’s good enough for Queen Eliz­a­beth…is a mot­to best reserved for French pas­try and not fash­ion, I always nev­er say but just made up right now when I was think­ing of how to let you know that The Queen has graced Paris’ old­est bak­ery with her sil­very, yet woolen, pres­ence, once upon a time in the 90s or some­thing. Girl­friend has out­last­ed the for­mer King of Thai­land and has about two years to hold on! to dethrone our own beloved Louis XIV as Earth­’s longest-reign­ing monarch, so we are kind of root­ing for her (stay indoors, fam, now there’s eff­ing MONKEYPOX!!!)

Nor­mal­ly, when some­thing is this old (Stohrer was found­ed in 1725) or blogged-about, then it becomes a tourist hell­hole (cough, Angeli­na, cough), sling­ing shame­ful, over­ly sug­ary medi­oc­rity to the mass­es who read about it in Rick Steves or some food blog by a per­son who does­n’t live in Paris but like total­ly, you know, vis­it­ed and that’s enough to be an author­i­ty…? (The old-school Paris food blogs are a fuck­ing trip…) 

I’m vent­ing a lot on a legit bak­ery though — let’s get back to why we are here. Their crois­sants are some of the best in town. Despite the blog posts, despite the tour groups. They haven’t giv­en in to the siren call of high­er mar­gins through indus­tri­al­iza­tion. Yay for us. Try their Baba au Rhum, too. One of their OG bak­ers invent­ed it.

Pick up a few of their crois­sants before head­ing over to see the Lux­or Obelisk or the Venus de Milo for a per­fect tri­fec­ta of Parisian oldness. 

Du Pain et Des Idées — still worth lining up for

You are skep­ti­cal. You have been told to love the oh-so-but­tery, lay­ery-as-all-hell crois­sant from De Pain et Des Idees, by breath­less basic-ass trav­el influ­encer Ins­ta accounts, by a car­rousel of pub­li­cists, by big mag­a­zines doing their annu­al Food in Paris arti­cle. And, like us, you don’t like to be told what to do. But here we are, in line with the swoon­ing Japan­ese girls on vaca­tion, hop­ing the ultra-flaky crois­sant from Du Pain et Des Idées won’t be sold out. True sto­ry, this was my first neigh­bor­hood bak­ery in Paris as I used to live a mere block away. I thought they were all this good…nope. I was but a child! 

Also get a ‘sac­ristain’ — a twist­ed pas­try with orange blos­som cream that is one of the most under­rat­ed desserts in our gluti­nous lit­tle metrop­o­lis. I get two…

Tout Autour du Pain — worth the hunt

Tucked away at a dusty and ignored lit­tle round­about in le Marais — a neigh­bor­hood that is pos­i­tive­ly throb­bing almost noon to mid­night every­where else with all forms of mid­dle-class to upper income life (I guess the poors go to the sub­urbs on a Sat­ur­day to walk around?) — is one of Paris most stal­wart badass bak­ery teams. They win awards — they flex lau­rel leaves for top crois­sants and baguettes and bak­ery skills in gen­er­al — again and again and just keep grind­ing away at it. Worth the side-trip.  Crois­sants and baguette are their main draws. (Update Decem­ber 2022: They placed 3rd in the city of Paris for the Best Crois­sant so they aren’t slow­ing down it seems…)

O/HP/E — upstart that is damn good

The sand­wich board sign out­side makes a ridicu­lous claim, ‘Best Crois­sant in Paris,” Cheeky bas­tards, I think…OK, I’ll bite. I go in and get a crois­sant. And…it’s actu­al­ly among the best. Did they steal a recipe because this is more trend­slut cof­feeshop-slash-chic house­wares con­cept store than ~seri­ous~ boulan­gerie, which is where one would nor­mal­ly find this lev­el of qual­i­ty lurking. 

Of course we had to investigate.…It seems they might be right. The gold­en crois­sant at O/HP/E was my favorite type of crois­sant — moist and slight­ly chewy in the cen­ter. Crusty archi­tec­ture on the out­side. Very but­tery. I’d say 9/10 but­tery. Rem­i­nis­cent of Mai­son d’Is­abelle in the St. Ger­main-des-Prés hood. (see the Left Bank but­ter bible.)

Impres­sive for a new­com­er sit­u­at­ed on the Axis of Brunch…

There you have it — our favorite crois­sants on the Right Bank of Paris. If you are hun­gry for more words about foods, read about the Best Desserts in Paris here. Or click on our care­ful­ly curat­ed restau­rants direc­to­ry and go down a rab­bit-hole (sor­ry, I have no eat­ing rab­bit pun) of the hun­dred or so spots that made the cut in a city of 44,000 restos…no joke. 

Bon appétit !

Bisous, 
Kat 

Kat Walker 

+ posts

Indeco­rous Cul­turevore and Poly­chrome Chow Vir­tu­osa Kat Walk­er likes nice things.

She once went to a job inter­view for that was sup­posed to be for sales but was actu­al­ly for pros­ti­tu­tion (the high-class ver­sion, she hopes lol) at a fan­cy hotel in the shad­ow of the Eif­fel Tow­er (arti­cle com­ing soon) and, anoth­er time inter­viewed for a posi­tion as a phone psychic.

She passed both with fly­ing col­ors. How­ev­er she declined the human traf­fick­ing posi­tion but stuck around longer than she should have to be able to write about it. (Are you not entertained?)

As for the tele­phone psy­chic gig, she only last­ed one day, even though the pay was excel­lent. Wooooooo…..She sees you sub­scrib­ing to our week­ly PARIS RIGHT NOW dis­patch . There is also a man in your future.

Now she is set­tled in as your Edi­tor-in-Mis­chief here, lead­ing the charge to not take Paris so damn seriously…let’s frol­ic a bit, non?

She writes fast and with­out pru­dence so if you enjoy this type of thing, edi­tors aren’t free so here is le Patre­on

When she’s not writ­ing about crois­sants, love, cul­ture, and lov­able, sexy crois­sants, she is a gonzo per­for­mance artist whip­ping up a (usu­al­ly) polit­i­cal ruckus. Her rab­ble rous­ing has pro­voked the atten­tion of var­i­ous pub­lic forums, like the time she appeared in the movie The Yes Men Fix the World as Russ­ian jour­nal­ist Lai­ka Gaga­ri­na or was fea­tured in Roll­Cal­l’s Heard on the Hill for her mock­ery of the U.S. sen­ate. Oth­er efforts have land­ed her in the Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur, Chica­go Sun-Times, Chica­go Tri­bune, and the Reader.

In oth­er places and oth­er lives, the actu­al live guy who played Ross on Friends came to see her show at a NYC gallery.

She has nev­er had a weird­er lunch than that one when an FBI infor­mant offered to kill her busi­ness part­ner for her.

She declined (phew) and that’s why she’s here, freely- and un-jailed-ly writ­ing about crois­sants and per­verts and the Eif­fel Tow­er (in that order, usu­al­ly) for PARIS > DEFINED MAGAZINE.

Her per­fect­ly impos­si­ble din­ner in Paris would be at Pierre Sang on Gam­bey (the wait­er choos­es the wine) with Gen­e­sis P. Orridge, Napoleon Bona­parte (he picks up the tab and the wait­er knows this in advance when pick­ing wines), Christo­pher Hitchens, Anais Nin, and Ket­a­mine in atten­dance. Drinks after at le17 but back in time, like 2017.

Her favorite French word is ‘bruit’ but only when a hot girl says it slowly.

In a bid for your atten­tion and approval she writes things here and man­ages this unruly tribe of Parisians endeav­or­ing to bring you what Paris­ing is real­ly about.

Sub­scribe HERE to the P > D newslet­ter for a week­ly dose of her, and the rest of the ram­bunc­tious and per­fect­ly depraved gals’ tren­chant and thought-pro­vok­ing opin­ions. Or tune in to their high­brow cul­ture com­men­tary and bike rid­ing through Paris on PARIS » D E F I N E D TV.

If you are mash­ing out a mes­sage to warn her of her crimes against gram­mar and punc­tu­a­tion save your time because she knows, she knows.

• Kat Walk­er

  https://www.parisdefined.com/author/kat/

  The French Have Start­ed Melt­ing Their Cheese. It’s Why We Live Here
• Kat Walk­er

  https://www.parisdefined.com/author/kat/

  This is the Axis of Brunch
• Kat Walk­er

  https://www.parisdefined.com/author/kat/

  And Just Like That, Life Returned to Paris
• Kat Walk­er

  https://www.parisdefined.com/author/kat/

  These French Cheeses are SO Worth It