The Best Croissants in New York Are at L'imprimerie in Bushwick

The croissants at the French bakery called L'imprimerie in Bushwick are as close to authentic as you will find in New York City. They are baked to a dark brown, have an excellent honeycomb throughout the inside, and the exterior crumbles when touched. 

The telltale sign of a good croissant is the pile of thin flakes left on the plate and your lap. 

It takes an extraordinary amount of effort to create such a wonderful version of a famously difficult pastry to master. Which leads us to Gus Reckel, the bearded Frenchman behind L'imprimerie.

Reckel starts his day around 2:00 AM to begin the process of rolling and laminating and proofing and rolling and cutting the butter-laden dough. The toll of the early days are catching up with Reckel, who like it or not, is at the top of his game. 

“It really is a labor of love,” he says with a sigh from the kitchen beneath the café and coffee shop. “We don’t take any shortcuts. You can always tell if something isn’t just right.”

Reckel folds fresh butter into chilled dough several times to create the beautiful layers before cutting and rolling each croissant. It's a time intensive process that isn't easily replicated.

Which brings us to Vallery Lomas who knows a thing or two about croissants. Lomas was the champion of Season 3 of The Great American Baking Show and currently pens a recipe column for the New York Times. Out of everything she's come across, Lomas says the croissant at L'imprimerie is the best in New York City.

“I’ve been to Paris and tried a bunch of croissants there and I think the ones at L'imprimerie are just as good as any I had there,” she said. “The fact that I can sit in Brooklyn and have a croissant as good as in Paris goes to show how far we’ve come.”

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