Photo by Conor Brown on Unsplash
Zut alors, enough with the croissants!
Cookie croissants? Croissant cereal? Cronigiri? We regret to inform you that we have reached peak pastry
We’re living through a croissantaissance. The apotheosis of the pastry. A veritable croissapocalypse.
After the waves of immersive experiences, oddball wellness treatments and absurd cocktail concoctions have come and hopefully gone, it’s the humble croissant that has become the center of attention, with New York now home to a number of new takes on the classic French pastry.
The European treat, traditionally prepared using, mostly, just butter and dough, has recently been desecrated in terms of flavor and shape. Cookie croissants, cereal croissants, mini croissants, limited-run massive croissants, flattened croissants and stuffed croissants now dominate menus all across town.
View this post on Instagram
“The problem is that there are very few bakeries making a decent croissant,” says Alex Hagiage, a Frenchman living in New York. “Instead of addressing the quality of their croissant and mastering the art of croissant-making, they go for weird flavors or put odd things on them.”
Ironically, the beginning of the revolution can unofficially be traced to a Frenchman: Dominique Ansel debuted his cronut, a wildly viral croissant-donut hybrid, in 2013.
Years later, L’Appartement 4F, a pandemic-era business started by Ashley Bernadette and her now-husband Gautier Coiffard, a native French baker, in their Brooklyn apartment, re-ignited the gastronomic insurrection.
The bakery went viral after pictures of its mini croissant cereal (sacre bleu!) were shared so many times on social media that younger folks would be remiss not to think that a real brioche should, indeed, be served inside a giant bowl of milk.
Fast-forward a few years and the couple now operates a brick-and-mortar bakery in Brooklyn Heights, a destination by many considered to be a catalyst behind the major renaissance of the previously drab Montague Street.
And yet, although L’Appartement 4F’s success could partly be attributed to a debatably blasphemous take on the classic croissant, the Coiffards now distance themselves from their creation.
“The croissant cereal was my idea,” says Bernadette, pointing out that her French husband wasn’t a fan of it at first. “He didn’t even want to do a flavored croissant. He has his limits. We were asked to jump on the cookie croissant trend and I knew he wasn’t going to go for it. He obviously said no.”
Explains Gautier: “It’s not the end of the world for me to change the shape but I wouldn’t go for a weird flavor.”
For what it’s worth, despite their reluctant contribution to the hybrid croissant trend, the two don’t think there is anything wrong with others trying to join in on the fun. And boy are there others spending time recreating the classic pastry.
First there was the now infamous rainbow cookie croissant served by Settepani on Lorimer Street. Although visually striking, the treat is really nothing more than a brioche drenched in chocolate syrup and topped with a rainbow cookie.
Then things got really out of hand.
Suddenly came the flat croissants, which are currently being sold all around town, including at Mokafe in Brooklyn and Salswee Bakery in Manhattan’s Flatiron, where a ton of other hybrid desserts are constantly being churned out.
Perhaps quite not as outré as other creations, the flat croissants are heavily pressed treats that are partly coated in sugar, butter or some other sort of topping before being fried or baked again.
Newer yet is the cronigiri, courtesy of the Internet and, closer to home, Cafe W Bakery & Desserts out in Queens, where the concoction is referred to as the onioissant.
A marriage between a Japanese and a French classic that doesn’t really look like either one, the cronigiri is a croissant and nigiri mashup that also happens to strike a visual chord on TikTok and Instagram, a new and at times necessary tactic in the city’s restaurant world.
View this post on Instagram
“In Japan and Korea, it’s common to see people buying onigiri (triangle-shaped rice balls with fillings) at convenience stores for a quick meal,” explains John Lee, the CEO of Cafe W Bakery & Desserts, who also reveals that the bakery sells out of the 150 onioissants it bakes each weekday (that number is closer to 300 on the weekends).
“Inspired by this, some bakeries sell bread shaped like onigiri,” says Lee. “However, we haven’t seen this in New York yet, so we were confident that this would be a creative new product for our patrons. Combining the concept of onigiri with its shape and filling and our high-quality croissant as its base, the onioissant turned out to be a fun and addictive treat!”
The CEO is so excited about the addictive properties of his company’s creations that he’s already prepared for what he’s sure will be Cafe W Bakery & Desserts’ next “social media sensation”: the soft serve on croissant, which is exactly what it sounds like.
“This dessert combines the delicate, flaky layers of the traditional croissant made with French butter and flour and the vibrant, earthy flavors of vanilla or black sesame ice cream,” explains Lee.
Delicious? Sure: the mere thought of biting into a warm-ish piece of bread-like pastry while slurping up some delicate ice cream gets me all giddy with excitement. But, perhaps, we’ve reached a limit.
If there’s anything that an unofficial study into the city’s wild culinary offerings has taught me is that simplicity and authenticity always come out on top. Perhaps this era of peak croissant — which we’re still smack dab in the middle of — is just forcing general consumers to yearn for a return to the traditional. (On ne peut qu’espérer!)
I, for one, am planning my visit to Bread Story in Stuy Town, one of the very few bakeries that, according to Hagiage (who, we remind you, is French), are doing things right and proper in New York.
And yet, regardless of my own feelings, if the incessant social media posts about all these baked hybrids and the comments below each one of them are of any indication… we might still be riding this croissant train for a bit longer.
As Brando Fassberg, a creative director, commented on this post about onioissant: “Stop the madness! But I’ll take 5.”
