If you’ve been tuning in for awhile, you know I’ve made my love for pastries no secret. After Denmark’s pastry game exceeded expectations, I was very excited to go straight to the country that is generally most well known for their pasty game: France.
Here, I made it my mission to try as many butter croissants as possible without endangering my cholesterol (lol) with a goal of finding the PERFECT croissant. Through this journey, it was clear that not all croissants are created equal (yes, even in France) and we certainly had some misses. However, I am happy to report that I did eat the best croissant I have ever had in my life! Fittingly, this was in France’s gastronomic capital: Lyon.
Buuuut before we get to that, I want to reflect on the best pastries the city has to offer, and my formula for the perfect slow morning in Lyon!
So let me start off by saying we went to three boulangerie during our just under a week stay in Lyon: Boulangerie Saint Paul, Pralus La Boulangerie & Boulangerie Les Artistes.
Let’s talk Boulangerie Saint Paul first.
On our first day, we were doing the tourist thing and checking out the old town (Vieux Lyon) and this boulangerie was located in a convenient location on the periphery of Vieux Lyon. It had pretty rave google reviews, so I figured we could give it a go after realizing many of the places I had planned had holiday closures. Anyways, we ended up liking it, and, because we were very curious about its array of options, we ended up going three times. You can sit outside the boulangerie and order some coffee too, but the chairs are on a hill so everything is slanted & a bit uncomfortable. Also the coffee? Not good. But it’s a boulangerie after all, so that is fair enough! Now, here’s what what I recommend doing instead, and have deemed:
The perfect slow morning in Lyon.
This morning involves stoping for good coffee at a cafe, then grabbing pastries to go from Saint Paul- or another boulangerie of choice. We would start these mornings by heading to Cafe Duclef for the best take-out coffee we had in Lyon, then cutting through Vieux Lyon on the way to the boulangerie to secure our breakfast goods. With a piping hot cappuccino and sampler of pastries in hand, we’d then cross over to the opposite side of Vieux Lyon to sit by the Soane river. This way, we had the best breakfast, with the best view facing one of the most picturesque old town exteriors I have ever seen. I recommend crossing out of the vieux on this bridge: passerelle du Palais-de-Justice or any one of the nearby bridges tbh. We would sit on the edge of a wall enjoy the zen vibes and soft light and mild temperature of the morning.
After doing this exact routine once, we did it (almost) every morning the rest of the trip. Of course, it helped that we always enjoyed our pastries. So let’s chat about what’s good.
The first thing we ordered was (unsuprisingly) butter croissants. Spoiler alert. The croissant was good, but this is not the best croissant I had in France. They were quite large & the texture seemed to sacrifice a bit as a result. Solid butter flavour, but I knew my hunt for the best butter croissant needed to be continued.
Other times we ordered chocolate and praline brioche, a chausson aux citron and chasson aux pommes. The brioche was good; I ordered it primarily because I kept seeing “briocheries” around that had that distinct, amazing smell you only get from freshly baked bread and ended up craving the soft, pillowing buns. The brioche from Saint Paul was light and moist, and I enjoyed them. They didn’t blow me away, but I’m not sure such a familiar bread ever would. I will say ,the praline brioche was a nice surprise. I don’t typically enjoy praline but the candied sweetness added nice texture and flavour to the simple brioche.
Again, no bad orders were made here, but nothing blew my mind… that is, until I had the chausson aux citron. A turnover stuffed with lemon cream. My fiance actually ordered the apple variety, but the poor man, who dislikes lemon flavouring, received this instead. But when I tell you it was the best mistake ever… I mean it.
So first of all, the pastry itself was delicious. It had a glorious texture of nearly caramelized sugar on the exterior adding a nice crunch, and was flakey and buttery in all the best ways. We’ve had this kind of pastry before, but never this good. Then the cream. Even Dan liked it. This was no artificial lemon flavoured gritty cream. It was bright, lemony, and delicious. I could eat it by the spoonful. Anyways, I ordered this on two occasions, and Dan was finally given the apple variety he so desired. This was really good too- though if you’re expecting the autumny flavour profile we’re used to when it comes to apple desserts in North America- you will be disappointed. Still very delicious though, so I recommend!
Now let’s talk Boulangerie Les Artistes.
We only went here once, which I was a bit bummed about because everything looked amazing and quite frankly, DECADENT. Seriously- there was a pastry on display just drowning in pistachio cream. We went here on the day we spent exploring the neighbourhood of Croix-Rousse, which is a very necessary stop btw. Really scenic view points, impressive murals, a good market, and so many cafe’s and places to eat and shop!
Once again, we got a classic butter croissant, an almond croissant and a matcha cookie! Yeah, to my surprise, cookies seem like kind of a thing here? Or at least we noticed the small in diameter, but THICK cookies in many places.
Anyways, back to the croissant: this was solid! Better than Saint Paul, it was airy and had a good butter flavour. again, it missed a bit for me on texture however, as I like a bit of crisp on the exterior layer and just kinda lacked a wow factor my picky self looks for.
As for the almond - wow. This was dense. It was stuffed full of what felt like pure, mostly ground almond. I mean, it was definitely frangipane- but felt less custardy than I’m used to. It was good, with a crunch of slivered almonds on the outside, but be warned: it will fill you UP. Only problematic because I had another priority: the matcha cookie.
The cookie itself was (big shock here) buttery and similar to a sugar cookie base and was pretty good! The true star though, was the matcha cream. Strong matcha flavour and topped with fresh, deliciously juicy raspberries & jam. I loved it. Anyways, this bakery is worth visiting in Croix-rousse, and I recommend giving their bread/savoury products a sample too, because they looked phenomenal.
Now for a heavy hitter: Pralus La Boulangerie.
This is not to be confused the numerous (quite frankly tourist trap looking) Pralus Patisserie locations featuring the bright pink praline all over the city. Pralus La Boulangerie was started by the same group, I believe, but is a proper boulangerie. I read some random blog saying they made excellent croissants, and despite the fact that the google reviews were lower than I typically want, we went for it.
You guys. This was it. In every boulangerie I have been to in France, I have ordered a butter croissant looking for exactly this. Flakey, airy, gorgeous layers of laminated goodness (seriously look at this thing!!) and gloriously buttery in flavour without feeling even a little bit greasy. Since it was so light, I think I could have eaten ten, and nearly went to order another one almost immediately. The outside had that ever so slight crisp to it that added just a bit of texture too, and wow. I just adored this.
The location is along Quai Saint-Antoine right by the Soane river. This was perfect for us, as it was Saturday and we had plans to buy produce at the Saint-Antoine market right across the street. We ended up ordering the cheapest (and best) cappuccinos of the trip at a random cart in the market and sipping on them while greedily gobbling up our croissants before perusing the market. Side note: the market seemed to be quite local and was far superior to the famed Paul Bocuse market. I highly recommend you get some fresh produce, rosette salami and goat cheese here!
So yeah the winner for the best croissant we have ever eaten, including a previous trip to Paris, and the other French destinations we went after Lyon was the Pralus butter croissant! I’m sure there is a superior croissant out there somewhere, but for now… I daydream of this croissant and feel very indebted to the random blog, who’s name I sadly, cannot remember for the life of me.
Oh, and one last bonus tip before I go- if you do go to Duclef- GET THE FLAN. It is delicious!!
Thanks for tuning in :) Feel free to let me know if you have any croissant recommendations- in France or otherwise!
Always so happy to read your adventures in Lyon ! And yes farmers markets in the city are far more interesting in terms of products than Paul Bocuse Market. I would go there for very specific things like buying some Lyon specialty like quenelles and such to cook at home. Also yes it’s a myth not every bakery in France have good croissants ! And I am glad that you found them in Pralus there are indeed amazing !
Reading this post was a dopamine boost. You document your travels so well, and I felt like I was there when you were describing all the spots you visited.