Scroll down to see WBEZ/Sun-Times food contributor Maggie Hennessy's list of 12 outstanding croissants — from unfettered to flavormaxxed.
A rustling crunch cascades as my teeth shatter the outer layer of a chubby pastry football shellacked in egg wash. Butter coats my tongue, and while I’ve barely reached the croissant’s tender, lacy middle, the evidence is already damning. Golden shards litter the plate and table, burrow in my clothes and between my laptop keys. What uncomplicated, chaotic bliss to demolish a plain croissant at Floriole Cafe & Bakery.
“With the plain croissant, there’s nowhere to hide,” said Sandra Holl, owner of the Lincoln Park pastry shop. “It has to be perfectly executed for it to be delicious. Otherwise, you’re missing the cream, the chocolate toppings, the colorful inserts and whatnot.”
Floriole opened its doors 16 years ago, in the days when Chicago was a veritable desert for quality pastries. Now the city is awash in bakeries and spoiled for choice when it comes to laminated dough.
Our fondness for croissants lately tends toward the maximalist versions — packed and topped with everything from housemade sausages to honey ganache, streusel and compote or peanut butter cremeaux with jelly. And bakeries looking to capture our fickle attention seem happy to comply.
So I set out to sample some of the dizzying bounty now at our fingertips — from traditional chocolate to flavormaxxed banana pudding, infinitely crunchy with drier middle to gently crackly with tender chew.
But what I found, after tasting a dozen plain and flavored croissants at as many bakeries, is I craved the familiarity and balance of the classics — quite literally, as I sat blissed out on a plain croissant at a Chicago bakery standby.
A great croissant begins with proper technique. We can see, smell, hear and taste this most clearly in a classic croissant sans any fuss or filling, beckoning quietly alongside those glitzier behemoths. Let’s start with appearances.
Croissants should look oversized compared to their weight in your hand. Indeed, there’s unconscious wonder to lifting up a gargantuan, striped-mahogany croissant at the buzzy French newcomer Guillotine Bakery in West Town. Shouldn’t this thing weigh more?
Greg Wade, head baker at Publican Quality Bread in West Town and Oak Park, looks for a shiny, deep-golden hue, shaded extra dark at the edges. Layers should be well-defined, like a little step ladder.
“It should be really glossy and look like it’s going to shatter if you look too hard,” he said. A croissant’s visible lines owe to water evaporating from the butter once the pastry hits the hot oven, and the steam forces the layers of dough apart. Undefined layers may mean the dough was overproofed or proofed at too warm a temperature, translating to a dense, bready middle.
Croissants are a multiday process that starts with mixing the yeasted or sourdough-based dough, wrapping it around a solid block of butter, folding, chilling, shaping and baking it. To build tangy, nutty or earthy depth of flavor, bakers may incorporate a starter (live-fermented mixture of flour and water) or preferment (flour, water and yeast mixed and fermented in advance) into the base dough.
At Milli by Metric in Avondale, the preferment sits overnight before the croissant dough is mixed and fermented (again overnight) before it’s laminated, chilled, sheeted, shaped and finally baked, somewhere around day four.
At Milli by Metric, the preferment sits overnight before the croissant dough is mixed and fermented (again overnight) before it’s laminated, chilled, sheeted, shaped and finally baked, somewhere around day four. Here, pastry chef Lou Turner makes croissants inside the bakery’s kitchen.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Our highly visual era has impacted the way bakers laminate croissants, with some deploying fewer folds to achieve larger separation between layers once they’re rolled into that telltale ellipse. Fewer folds means more “crispy coaty outside,” per Lou Turner, the self-taught head baker and executive chef at Milli. The darker hue in Milli’s croissants also comes courtesy of naturally occurring sugars in the bakery’s flour, which was milled by Janie’s Mill just three months before I demolished it with chaotic abandon.
It’s not just Milli embracing a trend toward incorporating local flours in addition to seasonal produce. Publican Quality Bread exclusively works with flours from Janie’s Mill, an organic grain miller in Ashkum, Illinois, and Fairbury, Illinois-based specialty grain farmer Spence Farm. Floriole uses local rye and whole wheat flours in its starters. Interestingly, the latter doesn’t use local flour in the final dough, as Holl finds it less predictable.
“If I found perfect local flour, I’d 100% use it,” she told me.
Nothing beats the ASMR of a sharp bread knife slicing through the fragile leaves of a croissant, which Turner has just done, sending pastry shards flying across Milli’s modern-industrial, light-filled interior. She shoves her nose deep into the tender, cobwebbed middle, like she’s wearing a laminated beak. I copy her, and we breathe deep.
“To me, the first scent is butter, and then afterwards you should get that subtle, tangy, almost nutty scent,” said Turner. The gently sweet tang indicates proper fermentation. If it smells acidic or vinegary, the poolish (aka preferment) might have overfermented or else the dough is overproofed. For Floriole’s Holl, a cheese-like funkiness might indicate that the starter is a little overripe or fermentation was a little too long.
Every day at Milli, Turner and her team sacrifice one croissant in the name of quality assurance. They sniff the bottom for the aroma of burnt or fried butter, indicating insufficient resting time or incorrect oven temp. They check that the honeycomb is open with those tender, lacy strands, not dense and tight, meaning it might have been overmixed or the butter was too cold. (“Honeycomb” is an official baking term, by the way.)
Wade likes to instruct croissant students to smell and taste the pastries almost like wine: Inhale through the mouth while slowly chewing that first bite, then exhale through the nose to get the full aroma. Beneath the omnipresent butter, we should recognize nutty, earthy aromas of local flour and a buttery-rich yeastiness like chardonnay, owing to natural leavening from Publican’s 10-year-old sourdough starter.
“What I do is pretend, what if it didn’t have that flaky texture, what if it wasn’t loaded with butter, what are you left with?” said Wade. “The flavor and character of the dough.”
Historically, Chicago hasn’t exactly been a mecca for outstanding croissants. Even now, some maintain that the best laminated dough lives outside city limits. But the quality has risen in recent years, owing in part to the great, post-pandemic pastry department dismantling across the full-service restaurant industry.
The mass departure of so many talented pastry chefs meant some left the industry altogether; others joined or opened daytime bakeries, making their pastry prowess a bit more affordable for us hungry masses.
With such an array of choice, perhaps the basics have lost some of their luster for the general population. But to borrow from Wade, the character and flavor of the dough still mean something to me.
Back at Floriole, the shard carnage has multiplied as we near the pastry’s end. I’m struck by a different kind of savory depth that registers a little like buttered toast, which I’m told comes from an explicitly generous pinch of salt.
A few days before, I’d been unable to pinpoint a similar, pleasant savoriness to the plain croissant at Hendrickx Bakery, a Belgian-inspired storefront in Streeterville that coincidentally debuted in May 2010, the same month as Floriole. These croissants lean more toothsome than tender in their chew — unsurprising for a place known for outstanding bread. They're an ideal vessel for sandwich fillings like the satisfying hot ham and Swiss.
Ham and cheese is as classic a pairing for croissants as they come. But what’s better than butter, salt and flour, wrangled lovingly into that burnished, lined spiral? The croissant equivalent of bread and butter that, for $5, still represents something closer to everyday ritual. Turns out, I’m not alone here.
Through good times and less so, “plain is what really sells,” Holl said.
Though far from an exhaustive list, here are 12 outstanding croissants — from unfettered to flavormaxxed — worth seeking out around Chicago, as compiled by this writer and a handful of reliable, pastry-loving sources.
216 N. Peoria St., West Loop
This glistening, tiger-striped croissant bun is the chocoholic’s dream, the outrageous exclamation point on a laminated classic. Executive pastry chef Meg Galus starts by wrapping chocolate croissant dough in dark-chocolate dough, which she fills with not two, but three Valrhona semi-sweet chocolate batons — just enough to make dogmatic French pastry chefs wring their hands. As Floriole’s Sandra Holl succinctly said of its inventor, “Meg is chocolate.”
2907 S. Archer Ave., Bridgeport
Inspired by the vibrant cafes of Mexico City, wife-and-husband duo Kerrie Breuer and David Castillo opened their pint-sized bakery in 2024 with lines down the block for outstanding laminated pastries. A favorite since day one, the architectural marvel, strawberry milk croissant, takes a nostalgic cue from Nesquik’s Strawberry Quik. The brilliance of this surprisingly balanced sweet pastry lies in the puckering strawberry jam filling, which mingles with sweet, cloud-like cream beneath that shattering exterior. Tip: Pop by on a weekday to avoid Fat Peach’s reliably long lines.
4639 N. Damen Ave., Ravenswood
Known for over-the-top pastries like the umami-bomb longanisa-stuffed croissant with soy caramel and egg yolk, my go-to at pastry chef Justin Lerias’ popular Filipino-American shop is the sneaky-simple toasted rice croissant. This clever twist on a classic weaves toasted forbidden black and Minnesota-grown wild rice into dough, which bakes up expertly crisp-edged with a delicately tender middle. A whiff of subtle nuttiness complements the buttery tang. This beloved young shop is in the midst of an expansion into the adjacent storefront and will reopen later this fall. In the meantime, you can find Lerias’ laminated works of art at residencies around town.
1623 N. Milwaukee Ave., Wicker Park
Award-winning pastry chef Mindy Segal debuted her standalone Wicker Park bakery in 2022, drawing longtime fans of her excellent bagels and bialys and irresistibly burnished pastries. Executive pastry chef Bo Durham, who has been with Segal for well over a decade, takes the dough-wrangling reins here with classic and creative bakes worth the long but quick-moving queues. I’m a sucker for the savory creations here especially. (Think roasted onion, fromage blanc and parm bialys and kielbasa & sauerkraut croissant danish.) The crackly-tender ham and cheese croissant with tangy Gruyère, gently smoked ham and a smear of whole-grain mustard makes a strong argument that sometimes it’s best not to mess with a really good thing.
3452 S. Western Ave., McKinley Park
Crunch-on-crunch-on-cream rather crudely encapsulates the textural jubilation of this toasty almond-flecked pastry filled with creamy, rich frangipane that all but begs for a cortado companion. Run by chef brothers Andrés and Guillermo Merlos and their mother, Olga, Cafe Consume shares a storefront with sibling vintage shop Consume Vintage Apparel, meaning you can browse for secondhand goodies once properly fueled on espresso and messy-good housemade pastries.
3724 W. Fullerton Ave., Logan Square
Mexican heritage and French technique mingle deliciously at this weekends-only spot whose long lines and pulsing tunes are clockable from a few blocks away. Founders Lizette and Marisol Espinoza are first-generation daughters of Mexican immigrant parents with roots in Michoacán, Mexico. Though I frequent this spot for savory breakfast sandwiches on squishy-tender bread, the guava and cheese croissant is a must. Juicy, pink guava preserve from Michoacán and cheese are folded directly into the laminated croissant dough for a crispy, tropically sweet-salty all-day treat. Tip: Go early; the pastries move fast here.
1220 W. Webster Ave., Lincoln Park
The mild-mannered answer to Good Ambler’s chocoholic pastry, Floriole’s chocolate croissant earns its spot for achieving sweet-salty harmony. Because the croissant is a little extra salty, the cocoa-sweetness of the chocolate shines through. Best case: Pick one up within two hours of opening, because when the chocolate is still a bit warm, it melts into gooey harmony with the innermost ring of pastry, like the inside of a soft-baked chocolate chip cookie.
1655 W. Cortland St., Bucktown
Actor-turned pro baker Dan Koester moved from professional pastry kitchens to his home during the pandemic, hawking his sourdough creations as Dan the Baker before eventually debuting his brick-and-mortar storefront in April 2026. Bad Butter is known for creatively remixed, extra-crunchy croissants, zhuzhed into creations like Chicago-style hot dogs. Even the staple ham and cheese becomes pastry fine dining in Koester’s capable hands. The rich, flaky leaves encase sliced herbed porchetta from Tempesta Artisan Salumi, whole-grain mustard and Gruyère cheese, the latter of which melts into a cracker-crisp cheese skirt.
1711 W. Chicago Ave., West Town
Open since June, this popular West Town newcomer channels Parisian baking with an edge, as its French Revolution-inspired name suggests. Boasting one of the best baguettes in town, the high-gloss pastries also lean classically French, as in pain au chocolat, plain croissants (both available in hilariously oversized, $40ish versions as well) and pain suisse with pastry cream. My go-to is the pain au raisin, a golden, buttery coil made from the same laminated croissant dough. Each layer of this crisp, chewy-tender revelation is swiped with sturdy custard studded with tangy sultana jewels.
3612 W. Wrightwood Ave., Logan Square
From owner Dina Cimarusti’s tiny Logan Square storefront, Sugar Moon slings high-concept yet rustic sweet and savory baked goods well worth the interminable lines. The staple banana pudding croissant, packing vanilla custard, just-caramelized banana, salty caramel, whipped mascarpone and vanilla-tinged crumb, is a balanced, light-yet rich textural marvel on its own. But its pastry vessel speaks just as loud via flaky, golden layers with a rustly crunch. Tip: You may have better luck on Fridays at this weekends-only shop. Regardless, plan to come early, and wait.
6130 N. Ravenswood Ave., West Ridge
The third chocolate croissant entry on this list, Hearts & Flour’s version suits the mornings that require an extra drizzle of indulgence. The golden, crackly exterior is squiggled with chocolate before giving way to a tender, buttery middle packed with more chocolate. While the weather cooperates, pair it with a floral, citrusy cardamom orange cold brew. In case you need another excuse to visit, this sunny cafe employs adults with developmental disabilities, matching responsibilities to unique abilities.
700 N. Sedgwick St., River North
A crunchy, silken brunch fixture since this raucous neo-bistro opened four years ago, Obelix’s visually striking pistachio croissant began life as a special from then-pastry chef Antonio Incandela (now pastry chef/owner at Mariscos San Pedro). It became a brunch staple owing to its popularity. Now in the capable hands of executive pastry chef Courtney Kenyon-Snider, the green-striped, laminated dough envelops a cloud of satiny, not-too-sweet pistachio pastry cream that smacks of gelato. It’s available for pick up on weekends as part of the restaurant’s pre-order pastry program.
