The Best Croissants in Paris, France (by a Local)

I'm French and today I'll be eating the best croissants in Paris, starting with one of my personal favorites. I woke up bright and early to go to Dupin et Désidé, which is one of my all-time favorite bakeries. From the outside, it looks super cute with an old-school design and already a lot of people eating their breakfast. And you know, just going inside, I wish you were there to smell it because everything smells so good and I had to refrain myself from buying the whole store. So for this video, I just bought a single croissant. This croissant looks very, very homemade. Its shape is pretty irregular and it looks also really fresh because it was made right this morning when I bought it. Also, when you cut into it and when you pull on the croissant, you can really see how many layers the flaky dough has. And the texture is just so beautiful. Mmm, crunchy. The first word that comes to mind for me when I taste it is how fresh everything tastes. And this croissant is made with only four ingredients, which are flour, butter, milk and eggs. It is not sweet at all and the texture is super airy. You know, maybe I'm partial to this bakery because this used to be my local bakery when I first moved to Paris back when I was a student. So I really want to make sure I rate each one of these croissants on three objective and important criteria. So first of all, we have the smell and we want a really nice buttery smell. And you know, this croissant is perfect. Then we have the overall look. Here I have to say that this croissant is a bit undercooked, which also makes the texture a bit less flaky than I usually like. Then we have the taste and this taste is really what I personally prefer in croissants. It's not too sweet. There's no sugar added to it. It's super fresh, super airy and overall delicious. And then of course, I want to add something about the price. A croissant should be cheap. It's a basic breakfast food that you should be able to have every single day. But this croissant is a bit on the expensive side. It's 2.30 euros, which is the most expensive croissant I'll try today. So overall, this croissant is delicious, but I think this will not be the best croissant I would try today because I still have quite a lot of them to try. And you know, being in Paris, you'd think that finding a good croissant is super easy. You just go to any local bakery and you'd get a similar experience and get a delicious homemade croissant. Well, that's not true. And I have very bad news for us croissants lovers. 80% of all croissants sold in Paris bakeries are made industrially and are frozen. So you cannot just go to any bakery and expect a good croissant. But by the end of this video, you'll know how to recognize a good croissant and most importantly, which bakeries to go to. So to show you the difference between a homemade and a frozen croissant, we're going to do a taste comparison between a frozen croissant from my local supermarket and our next croissant, which is from Mamiche, which is one of the most popular bakeries among locals and one I haven't tried before. Mamiche is a super cute neighborhood bakery and there was already a long line of locals waiting for breads and pastries. And again, here, everything looks so good and so homemade, but I just had to go with a croissant. OK, so now look at these two croissants. Look at this first one, look how it looks, how it feels and most importantly, how it feels when I cut into it and then compare it with the second one. It's not always easy to guess just by looking at it because croissants look very, very similar. But the first one was the frozen croissant and the second one was the homemade one. It should be a bit more obvious when you cut into it because a homemade croissant has this beautiful croissant pull and a very nice flakiness than the frozen croissant doesn't have. Also the taste is super different. It's almost two different foods that look the same. Let me try the frozen croissant to explain. It's not very good. It's quite sweet, pretty dry, has a very, very chewy texture, which I don't really like. And most importantly, it doesn't taste fresh at all. It tastes like it was made three days ago and kept in a box since, which I think it has. Let's put this one aside and let's now compare it with our Mamiche croissant, which is absolutely homemade and looks absolutely delicious. Wow, this is so much better. There's a world between these two croissants. It's not even the same food. It's lightly crunchy, but still super fresh. Here I don't want to rate the frozen supermarket croissant because it's not very good. However, the price is pretty cheap. For 1.60€ you can get two croissants. So if you like bad croissants and a lot of them, that might be your choice. But the Mamiche croissant is just so good. We first have the smell, which smells incredibly buttery and you can really tell that a lot, a lot of butter has been used here. So this is a 9 out of 10 for me. I feel it looks the best of all the croissants we've tried today. So this is an 8. In terms of taste, the taste is just so good. You know, I'm very partial to butter. You give me butter, I'm happy. So this is an 8 as well for me. And the texture is also pretty cool here because it's super, super flaky. This will be an 8. In terms of price, it's pretty average too, at 1.40€. So now I want to try all the croissants that are often called the best croissants of Paris online. And I'm going to see if I agree with that before showing you the official best croissant of Paris, because there is a competition for that. The first one that I see mentioned everywhere, it's one of the best croissants of Paris, comes from this bakery called Stroheer, which is supposed to be one of the oldest bakeries of Paris, having opened in 1730. So apparently, even before croissants were a thing, because I've read in my research for this video that what we call croissant today was actually created in the early 20th century. So their original location is this very cute shop that's in the center of Paris, but they also have an even cuter shop that's a close walk away from my house. The inside kind of looks like a fancy chocolate shop, but this croissant was only 1.60€. And I have to say that just looking at it, I'm pretty impressed. I think I had only vaguely heard of this bakery, so I had no expectations whatsoever, but I really love how it looks when you cut into it. It feels both very dense and super airy. Here I really want to bring your attention at how the flaky dough is perfectly evenly distributed in the inside of the croissant. Very flaky. In terms of smell, it doesn't smell like much. I can tell that there's not a ton of butter in this one, so I'll give it a 6. Overall look is so beautiful, especially when you cut into it, I think it's super perfect and that looks like how I'd like my croissants to be. So this is a 9. Then the taste is pretty good, but it tastes less fresh than the two croissants we've tried before. And you know, maybe this is because I went to this shop later, because to get the best croissants you have to be right there, right and early in the morning. The taste, I'm gonna give it a 7. Then the texture is absolutely perfect, so this is a 9. And before we eat our next croissant, I wanted to tell you about our sponsor, Lingoda. Lingoda is a language learning school with live small group online classes, which is the best way to learn a language and order all of these croissants in perfect French with our targeted lessons that match your objectives. And my American boyfriend Bobby has been taking a few French classes every week since we moved back to Paris a few months ago. His objective was to feel more immersed in my culture and I feel this has re-transformed our relationship as he gets to know me better when we speak French together. He has already made so much progress and he doesn't need me to translate for him anymore in our everyday life, which is amazing. At the moment, Lingoda is running a language sprint challenge where if you take 30 lessons in 60 days, you'll get 50% cashback or 30 credits. You can even do a super sprint and take 60 lessons in 60 days for 50% cashback and 60 credits. So join the Lingoda language sprint and enjoy connecting with people globally. Click my link in the description below to find out more and use my code for an additional 20 euros off. Our next croissant is from Poilane. If you've heard of one French bakery chain, that's the one. This is a massive company, their bread is everywhere, in supermarkets, in restaurants, literally everywhere. They've been around for over 100 years and they're still a family-owned business spanning over 3 generations. One thing I do like about them is that they still make everything by hand, in an artisanal way. So even though they produce a ton of croissants, they're still considered artisanal. And looking at our croissant, I can re-understand that. It has a really old-school croissant shape and is also perfectly golden without looking too buttery, which is a shame, because I love buttery croissants. When you pull into it, it looks pretty good too, with a lot of bounciness and a tiny bit less flakiness. Oh, interesting. Here, the taste is slightly different, there's a touch of salt in it, which makes it super surprising. So let's rate it. Smell. Nothing can top the first two croissants. There's not a buttery smell, which is something I personally love. The overall look. They have re-perfected the original croissant aesthetic, and I really like that. In terms of taste, it's a bit different from what I'm used to, but it's still pretty good. So I'm gonna give it a 7. And then for the texture, it's gonna be a 7 too. And the price is 1.40 euros. And then our next croissant is really, really fancy. We got it at Yann Couvreur, who is a younger French chef that has trained in many Michelin starred restaurants and has this really cool bakery slash pastry shop, not too far away from the others. Wow, this croissant is so beautiful. You can really tell that this guy has been a pastry chef all his life because it looks so perfect. So what I really like here is all the different layers of flakiness, and also it's lightly shiny as well, and perfectly crunchy when you open it. I feel this looks like the official croissant you'd find on Google, and I'm really excited to try it. This one is so good because it is super crunchy. When you look at it, you can really tell it's gonna be crunchy, and it is. The texture is so perfect on this one. So rating, smell, pretty good. 7 out of 10. Overall, looks super beautiful. The most beautiful croissant I've seen today. It's a 10 out of 10 for me. The taste is pretty good. It's buttery just how I like it. And the texture is super crunchy, super airy. So I'm gonna give a 10 out of 10 to the texture as well. And the price was 1.60 euros. Okay, so I have to tell you something, the croissants we've been eating today are not even my favorite type of croissant. And before I show you the official best croissant of Paris, I have to show you something you absolutely need to try if you like croissants. I'm talking about croissant aux amandes, which just means almond croissant. It's a croissant that has been stuffed with a ton of almond paste, and it's so, so, so, so good. Obviously, it is super sweet. It's not something you're gonna have for breakfast every single day. But you know, for a special occasion, it is pretty good. So just looking at it, it is a way flatter than a croissant. You won't get any of the flakiness, but you'll get all of the delicious almond taste and all of the crunchiness. Yum. This is so good. And my favorite place to get it, it's from Liberté. Liberté is a bakery that's originally next to the Canal Saint-Martin, but that has several antennas around Paris. And their croissant aux amandes is just so, so, so, so good. At this point, I'm not even sure this is considered a croissant, but I've called a new croissant video without showing it to you. And you know, if you're in doubt and you want to be 100% sure you're eating the best croissant of Paris, you're in luck, because in France, we take croissants very, very seriously. Every year, there's a croissant competition to understand who has the best croissants. So official judges from the National Bakery Association eat more than 100 croissants and rate them on many different criteria. And you know, this feels like a super cool job, but when you think twice about it, it also seems super hard because you have to actually eat 100 croissants. But anyway, this year, they've decided that this bakery has the best croissant. So I obviously went there and we're going to try it. So here we have a croissant from Chez Meunier, the official best croissant of 2023. So looking at it, it doesn't look anything special from the outside, but it's when you cut it in half that you can see why this is a good croissant. You have this really cool texture that's typical of good croissants, which Google tells me is called the honeycomb texture, and which is what we're looking for in every single croissant. I feel this croissant is a combination of why every other croissant we've tried today is good. So the smell is not too buttery, but it still smells pretty good. So we're going to give it a 7. And the look is also pretty normal. So we're going to give it a 7 out of 10. However, the texture is just perfect. So we're going to give it a 10 out of 10. And the taste is also really, really good. Just like a good normal croissant that you could eat every single day. In terms of price, I also paid 1.60 euros, which seems to be the upper average end of our croissants today. And if a panel of croissant experts is not enough for you, what about a croissant that's approved by the French president himself? Yes, that's actually a thing. And it feels very French, so let me explain. Every year, there's this very, very selective competition that awards the best craftspeople in France. And when I say very selective, it is very selective. The whole competition takes around two years. And if you're selected, you're invited by the president of France to the Palais de l'Elysée, which is the French equivalent of the White House. And you get awarded a medal. And also you get the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France, which means best craftsperson of France. And you can keep this title all your life and put it next to your name. So it's a pretty big deal. I was really excited and surprised to find out that this bakery looks just like a normal bakery of my neighborhood. Except that when you look closely, you can see that they advertise the name of the head baker who is a Meilleur Ouvrier de France. And looking at this croissant, you can tell that the people who made it know what they're doing. It has a perfect shape, so many beautiful layers, and obviously the beautiful air inside. This one is super flaky, not sweet at all. It has almost a bready taste. And it has a very buttery texture without tasting too much like butter. And here is my rating. What I find really crazy is that this croissant is sold for only a euro 30. It's such a cheap price when you think about it, because people have dedicated their lives to make the best croissant for us to eat for only a euro 30. So here is my final comparison of what is the best croissant of Paris. And if you want to see another of my favorite bakeries and all of my favorite spots for French food, you should watch this video next. Bye-bye.