The Croissant Report Card: Our Bakers Blind-Tasted the Whole Case and Kept No Secrets

There comes a moment in every bakery's life when it has to look itself in the lamination. Ours arrived on a rainy Tuesday in February, when head baker Rosa slid a tray of numbered croissants onto the prep table and announced: 'We're doing this. Blind tasting. Everything on the menu. No exceptions.'

What followed was two hours of chewing, arguing, and one minor existential crisis involving a huckleberry danish croissant that shall remain nameless until paragraph nine.

The Rules of the Ring

Here's how it went down. Rosa and line bakers DeShawn and Priya baked every croissant variety we currently sell — nine in total — then wrapped them in foil with random numbers. Nobody knew which was which. Not even Rosa, who baked half of them. Tasting notes were scribbled on butcher paper. Scores out of ten. No mercy, no politics.

Or at least that was the theory. DeShawn claims he could identify his own almond croissant 'like a parent identifies their kid at pickup.' He was wrong twice.

The Rankings, From the Bottom Up

9th Place: The Huckleberry Special (4.2/10) — Our seasonal winter croissant, studded with Oregon huckleberries. The verdict: 'Beautiful, but the berries made the bottom soggy.' Priya, who developed the recipe, stared into the middle distance for a full minute. She's already back at the bench tweaking it. That's the deal when you work here — you taste the truth, then you fix it.

8th: The Matcha White Chocolate (5.8/10) — Gorgeous, photogenic, divisive. DeShawn's note: 'Tastes like a lawn that went to art school.' He's not wrong, and some of you love it anyway. It stays.

7th: The Whole Wheat Croissant (6.5/10) — Made with Sonora wheat from a farm up in Yolo County. Nutty and honest, but the lamination never quite sings. Rosa's note: 'It's the croissant equivalent of a sensible sedan. Respectable. Not romance.'

6th: The Ham and Gruyère (7.1/10) — Solid lunch energy. Nobody ranked it first, nobody ranked it last. The middle child of the case.

5th: The Chocolate Batons (7.9/10) — Two batons of 64% dark chocolate, and Priya's blunt assessment: 'The chocolate is doing all the work.' Fair. But what chocolate it is.

4th: The Everything Bagel Croissant (8.0/10) — Yes, this exists, and yes, it's chaos. Everything seasoning folded into the dough, cream cheese schmear inside. DeShawn ranked it first and wrote only one word: 'Oakland.'

The Podium

3rd: The Almond (8.6/10) — Twice-baked, frangipane-stuffed, snowed under with powdered sugar. The one DeShawn failed to identify as his own, which he's still not over.

2nd: The Classic Butter (9.1/10) — Here's the plot twist: when it came down to the final two, the room went quiet. The classic is the exam every other croissant is graded against — 27 layers, cultured butter from a creamery in Petaluma, shatter you can hear across the café. Priya's full review: 'This is why I got into this. This is the whole job.'

1st: The Twice-Baked Almond (9.3/10) — And the winner is... the almond croissant's even more indulgent sibling, made from day-old butter croissants split, soaked in rum syrup, refilled, and rebaked. Rosa ranked it first with a note that ended our debates: 'It takes yesterday's croissant and makes it better than today's. That's not baking. That's philosophy.'

The One We Steal

You asked, sort of, so here it is: the staff croissant of choice, the one that vanishes during breaks, is the plain butter croissant, eaten standing up over the sink in back, still warm, no filling, no fanfare. If the people who make them every day reach for the simplest one on the tray, we figure that tells you something worth knowing.

The full tasting board with our handwritten notes is hanging by the register this month. Come argue with us. We can take it — we've already been through enough.