Croissants Are Austrian? C’est Vrai!

With Dry January about to come to a close, National Croissant Day’s arrival on January 30 gives us yet another reason to celebrate. 

Though the croissant is the official pastry of France, its origins are in Vienna, Austria, where in 1683 soon after the Hapsburg victory over the Ottoman Empire, Viennese bakers reshaped their traditional “kipferl” into a crescent shape. The crescent-shaped pastry made its way to France where the French bakers added loads of butter and more “folds” into the dough and, voila! the buttery, layered croissant was perfected.

Do you know anyone who doesn’t like croissants? Neither do I. Fortunately, Dallas has the bon chance to have quite a few places to pick up croissants of all varieties.

Bisous Bisous Patisserie offers beautiful house-made croissants available in plain, almond, chocolate, strawberry, pistachio and ham and cheese flavors.  You can also buy Bisous’ take and bake croissants to prepare at home whenever you feel the urge.

Up On Knox makes superlative plain and chocolate croissants available only during brunch or at their sister spot, The Butcher Shop (adjacent to Georgie). You might as well start referring to the Knox Henderson area as Croissantville because you can also find wonderful croissants Village Baking Company which has a new location on Travis, practically across the street from Up On Knox

Signature Baking Company will deliver the goods to your door. Their offerings include adorable mini croissants in chocolate, almond and cheese flavors; and impressively large but tender and flakey Texas-sized croissants in chocolate and almond.

Empire Baking is known for its “legendary” almond croissants, but their chocolate and plain ones are magnifique too and you can pick them up at their Inwood Village store. Like Signature Baking Company, Empire sells directly to customers but also supplies other local bakeries and restaurants through their wholesale business.

Sure, you can also find croissants at supermarkets and some of them are pretty good.  But, for moi, if I’m going to eat a croissant, it has to be the best and you can’t go wrong with any of the bakeries I mentioned. Do you have a favorite croissant from a place I haven’t mentioned?  Tell us about it!