Read time: About 10 minutes

Croissants can be a thing of beauty. Even in New Jersey, which is decidedly not France. We’re limited to the butter, water, and flour we can get around these parts.

And yet, what I’ve found through my travels in and around South Orange and Maplewood (SOMA) is that a lot of places have decent – if not divine – croissants.

For the uninitiated, the perfect croissant is an act of contrasts: a crisp, flaky exterior belies ample folds of softness on the inside. The traditional shape, a crescent, matters, too, but, in my experience, flavor over form rules. You want an almost too-rich butter experience on your palate and a hint of yeasty, baked-ness to round out the overall mouth-feel. And you also want it to look like it was baked, too, so a golden or deeper brown color for your eyes to feast on.

I’ve spent two months collecting data, helped by my trusty sidekick, my four-year-old daughter who has very good taste. I reviewed the following croissant purveyors, generally in the order visited:

• Artie’s
• Three Daughters Baking Company
• Liv Breads
• Cait and Abby’s Bakery
• Starbucks
• Trader Joe’s
• Jed’s Bread
• Breakin’ Bread
• Blue Ribbon Bakery
• Dunkin’

Whenever possible, I ordered the plain croissant on offer, for purposes of comparison.

Shall we dig in?

Winners’ circle

Three Daughters Baking Company is the winner for the best plain croissant I’ve tried. They fire on all cylinders for taste, value, and experience. Everything is a masterpiece here, so be sure to go.

The best non-plain croissant was from Breakin’ Bread, a Portuguese bakery in Union. You cannot go wrong with this place so hop over there when you can (they open very early).

Jed’s Bread also got high marks for their almond croissant, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Read on for the detail.

Artie’s (Maplewood)

Plain, pain au chocolat, and pistachio. About ~$6 each.

• Taste: 5/5
• Value: 4/5
• Experience: 4/5

Of the three I tried, my favorite was the pistachio croissant. Pistachio, like lavender and protein, is having a bit of a cultural moment and this addition to Artie’s menu is well-timed in the overall zeitgeist arc. It’s flaky, buttery, light, and crisp. That pistachio filling has a meaty feel in your mouth and richly soaks through the well-baked bottom. The dough for this one takes a sweeter note than their plain. And its exterior is shiny, like it’s been painted with lacquer, an inviting experience for this artfully crafted baked good.

The plain has the markers of an exquisite croissant – crisp and flaky, almost sharp, on the outside and soft, nearly hollow, on the inside – yet is a little softer than the pistachio variety. I like it, but the next place I review inches them out.

My daughter loves the pain au chocolat, though the sparse inclusion of very-dark chocolate on the inside left me wanting. It’s a hefty item and airy on the inside, like a circus tent creating a cavernous vacuum beneath it.

Three Daughters Baking Company (South Orange)

Plain and almond. About ~$6 each.

• Taste: 5/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5

Three Daughters is tucked away in one of the retail store fronts of a downtown South Orange luxury apartment building, just down Vose. In general, everything here is artfully crafted – ranging from the savory quiches through the brownies (among my daughter’s favorite).

Three Daughters offers a variety of croissants, such as the standard plain and almond, which may be joined by a savory ham and cheese or even a creative sweet kind like one with berries and cream cheese depending on the day.

Of all the croissants I tried, the Three Daughters plain was the runaway winner. Its exterior is golden brown and super flaky with a light crisp, while the inside is soft with ample folds of dough. The buttery flavor is transcendent and it leaves a nearly savory impression.

I also opted for the almond croissant upon visiting another time – although I go nearly once weekly for their incredible lattes – and enjoyed it. This croissant is fairly firm, providing a dense bite with the truest almond flavored paste on the inside. It’s less prone to flaking than others with sliced almonds and confectioners’ sugar on top. The amount of filling is satisfactory in this compact, delicious pastry.

Liv Breads (Millburn, and also the Mall at Short Hills)

Plain and halva sesame. About ~$7 each.

• Taste: 5/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 2/5

I’ve sampled many items at Liv Breads and just about everything is outstanding. The croissants are no exception.

Their plain croissant is a masterpiece: flaky so that it crumbles in your mouth, a robust size for seemingly endless enjoyment, and a buttery, bready flavor experience.

Yet, it is the halva sesame croissant that you absolutely must try. This one is unlike any croissant you’ve had before, and you may balk at the idea of a “halva sesame” anything. I can assure you, it is beyond your wildest dreams. This one is a sturdy, solid pastry, unlike their plain croissant, and the combination of ample halva paste with sesame has an almost Nutella flavor profile. It’s nearly crispy and a little weird, but it works.

If I enjoyed my experience more when going to Liv Breads, they’d be part of the winners’ circle. Your mileage may vary.

Cait and Abby’s Bakery (South Orange)

Plain and almond. About $4 each.

• Taste: 3/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5

For our household, Cait and Abby’s is “the train station bakery,” where we stop prior to one of the adults getting on a train to work. As such, we’ve sampled the Cait and Abby’s croissants many times and have continuously walked away as happy customers.

The plain is more dense than your typical croissant, yet has the known hallmarks of tightly packed layers of dough within for a nice bite with a savory edge.

With the almond croissant, consider it a Danish (which appears to be what they call it in their system). Sticky, sweet, nutty, and cinnamon-y. All around very good experience with a satisfying bite. Feels artful for the price – and the service. My daughter gives both croissants a resounding thumbs up.

Starbucks (Wherever you are)

Plain (the only kind). About $3.50.

• Taste: 3/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5, on mobile order, plus you can get it warmed!

The Starbucks croissant is long and compact, favoring a soft experience over the flaky. It’s called a “butter croissant” for good reason – this one is all butter, all the time. Somehow, it tastes fresh and the warming in their magic oven is a nice touch.

If you find yourself in an airport with no other options or want to spend your stars on a savory treat, this is a great option for you!

Trader Joe’s (Wherever you are)

All frozen: Chocolate croissants (that require proofing) and mini croissants (bake from freezer). About $3 or so per box.

• Taste: 4/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 3/5 (the contrast between the associate culture and customer culture is among the most fascinating sociological phenomena I’ve ever witnessed)

Your favorite creative treats central has delectable frozen croissant options if you want to do just a little work for a great value (plus your house will smell great).

The chocolate croissants are pretty special. While they require a bit of planning (you have to take them out of the freezer and leave them out overnight), they’re worth it. Surprisingly, the consistency of the croissant is what you’d get from a bakery: good flakiness, ample folds on the inside, and a nice punch of very dark chocolate (though not a ton; if you want more, I suggest the smaller coiled chocolate croissants they have in the freezer case).

With the mini croissants, just warm up the oven, pop them in, and breakfast is served. Butter oozes out of these when you remove them from the oven. Where they lack the common flakiness you’d expect from a croissant, they make up for it with the many soft folds on the inside. Two is probably sufficient per person, and you get eight in a box.

Jed’s Bread (Montclair farmer’s market)

Almond only. About $5.

• Taste: 5/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5

The experience at Jed’s Bread is a bit of a flex on their part. Understanding their excellence and popularity, they set up a snaking rope boundary to accommodate the very long lines at their stand each Saturday morning. I absolutely love this intersection of confidence and pragmatism.

Intrigued by the setup – as many people are – I decided to endure the line (which moves pretty quickly as they have a well-oiled machine) to pick out a sourdough and croissant for my daughter. I broke my rule of always getting a plain and opted for the almond, which is her preference.

First, the size of the Jed’s Bread almond croissant is noteworthy – like the size of my head. It’s super flaky and buttery, and the almond filling is plentiful, offering a rigorous almond paste flavor that is not too sweet at all and bursts through the top of the pastry. Sliced almonds dot the exterior, for a delicious aesthetic. This is one of the best almond croissants I’ve ever had.

Breakin’ Bread (Union)

Plain (French) and Portuguese. About $2 – $3 each.

• Taste: 5/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5

Tucked away on an otherwise residential street, Breakin’ Bread is easy to miss – but you must find it and stop here. It’s a Portuguese bakery that serves up delectable treats, like custard tarts and coconut breads (which may be my favorite thing of all time), as well as perfect Portuguese rolls and entrees for breakfast and lunch.

I ordered the French croissant, which is very good – flaky, buttery, tastes baked. Yet the shining star of this review is the Portuguese kind. It features that subtly sweet dough that’s so common among Portuguese baked goods – how it belatedly delights the palate when you taste it is a joyful experience – shaped like a croissant. While it’s certainly not aligned to the traditional French approach, the experience is divine: the mouth-feel is like biting into a cloud and the flavor is superb. Run, don’t walk.

Blue Ribbon Bakery (Union)

Plain. About $2 each.

• Taste: 4/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5

Blue Ribbon Bakery is another Portuguese bakery in Union, which has been around since I was a kid (so like 100 years and going strong). I popped in for the plain croissant, which is softer than others I experienced, with gradual flakes. The pure butter flavor has a bit of an edge to it from the baking – very nice. My daughter loved it.

The best thing to get here is the Portuguese roll, which I believe you can order buttered – an apparently unusual New Jersey tradition other people I’ve met find confusing. This is all you need to start your day the right way, and they open early to help you out.

Dunkin’ (Wherever you are)

Plain. About $3 each.

• Taste: 4/5
• Value: 5/5
• Experience: 5/5

When you think Dunkin’ baked goods, you probably think doughnuts (even after they ditched it from their brand name). Don’t sleep on their affordable croissant, which does the trick in a pinch. Butter and flakes abound with this one, and it’s soft inside and out. You get that savory baked taste, too.

Any sandwich at Dunkin’ is best served on this option, and if you’re picking up a quick breakfast for a group, be sure to throw in a handful of croissants  in addition to your box of doughnuts, for a holistic crowd pleaser.