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I found one of America's best croissants at Butter and Crumble in San Francisco · Best of: Features

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  I found one of America's best croissants at Butter and Crumble in
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  San Francisco. Written by Drew Mugeri. This article is being read by
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  an automated voice, generated by Everlet. Quick, name the best croissant
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  filling. If you're a basic American like me, you only encounter basic
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  croissant flavors chocolate, almond, and ham and cheese. These are the norm,
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  and they do the job well, if you're hungry, and want to
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  feel ten percent more French, but surely you've thought there must be
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  room for more filling, than that in the American croissant repertoire. Surely
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  there must be a like fourth thing we can put into one.
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  Reader, I'm pleased to report that I have found one such worthy
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  croissant filling, and it's nothing you'd guess off the top of your
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  head. But take one bite of it, and you'll know I'm right.
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  The croissant in question is dubbed brown butter cornmeal twice baked, and
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  the bakery that’s sells it is San Francisco's Butter and Crumble, owned
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  by chef and self dubbed girl boss Sophie Smith, who spent extensive
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  time over in France to learn the nuances of laminated pastry, which
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  is pastry that's been rolled many times over to have alternating layers
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  of dough and fat, as you've tasted in puff pastry. PhillO Dough
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  and Croissants. Once Psmith had mastered her lamination techniques, she brought them
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  back stateside, along with an unholy amount of French butter, and started
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  cranking out a rotation of breakfast goods so luxurious and tasty that
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  her business now gets A line of foodies waiting outside every day
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  its open. I decided to be one such foodie on one such
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  morning. For my time I was rewarded with deliriously overstuffed Cruffins, caramelized
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  peach sticky buns, croissants stuffed with greyed a marshmallow fluff, and the
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  aforementioned cornmeal thing. I will describe the experience of eating these foods
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  to you. However, you'll have to wait just a moment to savor
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  it all, just as I did. Butter and Crumble is located in
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  North Beach, in a building that once served as home to the
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  legendary Tante Marie Cooking School. I arrived at eight AM, an hour
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  before opening time, and fifteen minutes after you're allowed to line up,
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  per the bakery's seven forty five AM rule. My promptness paid off
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  with me occupying the twentieth ish spot, too far from the storefront
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  to get a look at the goods inside, but close enough that
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  I didn't have to heed the signs. The many, many signs, posted
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  farther away from the shop that instructed people where they could and
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  couldn't stand. B C does such big business that the store's owners
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  have to actively manage the lines so as not to piss their
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  neighbors off. On this morning I did not see anyone disobey the
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  postings, but a few people arriving after me did bring a bit
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  of camping gear. A couple next to me laid a blanket out
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  on then sidewalk so they could sit down. Standing struck me as
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  more comfortable, but to each their own. Two dudes sat patiently waiting
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  in golf chairs, possibly reading infinite jest while doing so. Possibly not.
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  I can't remember. More and more people arrived, until the line crossed
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  Stockton Street, where it the made a left and continued out of
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  view. A B and C staffer came out to greet the line
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  and more urgent, to politely ask us to adhere to a ten
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  item ordering limit, with no more than three of any one item.
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  No one objected, because no one wanted to get kicked out of
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  the line and miss out on any of the goodies. I know
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  I didn't, which was why I stayed firmly anchored in my little
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  spot for an hour and change. BNC had yet to post its
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  daily menu to its Insta page, so I wasn't sure what I'd
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  be able to order, much less know what I'd want. When workers
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  finally posted a paper menu outside the front door, the woman in
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  front of me in line kindly guarded my spot so that I
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  could go eyeball my choices. This was not an easy menu to
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  parse. BNC's selection relies on you, the customer, to already know the
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  definition of words and phrases like frangipane, diplomat cream, and eggplant. Keep
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  in mind that I hadn't had breakfast yet, So I had to
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  interpret this menu using equal parts coffee and guile. This is the
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  kind of place where orderer's remorse is a real danger. You think
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  ordering the Cronut is the way to go, and then you see
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  someone indulging in a mind blowing Cruffin at the next seatover and
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  realize that's what you should have gotten, and then you feel like
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  a dummy. That's a rough moment for any of us. So I
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  became worried that might happen to me this morning. The a funny
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  thing happened to ease my angst. The bakery doors opened. When the
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  line started moving and the B and C storefront came into my
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  view, I was treated to The sight of an automated pastry roller
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  flattening out a gigantic slab of French butter. Just butter. The pastry
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  laminating process on full display. Nothing that came out of that roller
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  could possibly have sucked. I knew I was in good floured hands.
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  I ful made it to the front door and felt like Shackleton
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  after traversing South Georgia Island. The inside of B and C was
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  bright and spacious, with ample waiting room for people who had ordered
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  coffee, plus a shelf of crocent dog toys. The pastries listed on
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  Then menu all ranged between five and nine dollars, so I didn't
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  worry too much about price when making my choices. Instead I followed
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  my beer gut. A peach cobbler bun topped with creme fraiche and
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  oat crumble? Yes, I'd have that. A chunky monkey cruffin. Stuffed with
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  like four different things and topped with a different kind of crumble.
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  Butter get two of those. A s'mores painsuisse? I didn't know what
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  a painsuisse was, but the word s'mores alone told me I had
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  to have it. Then there was that brown butter cornmeal, twice baked
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  croissant, which sounded just weird enough to be good. I ordered all
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  of that. Plus a prosciutto and cheese croissant, so that savory items
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  would get at least one representative in the mix. Didn't have to
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  wait long for my prize box after ordering, and let me tell
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  you, you get ample sized pastries for your money at Butter and
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  Crumble. One chunky monkey cruffin would have been enough to feed a
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  birthday party. The outside of it exploded with the salty uncuousness of
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  that steam rolled butter, but I would hit pay dirt at the
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  Cruffin's center, where I was treated to a bonanza of deep breath,
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  brown butter chocolate fudge, banana caramel, banana diplomat cream, sounds dirty, and
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  walnut crumble lurking inside. That one was a contender for best in
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  box, no doubt. Sampled more. The ham croissant was tasty, certainly butter
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  than the kind available at Burger King, but my sweet tooth demanded
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  something far more evil. So I quickly moved on to the s'mores
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  pain swissy, which was really a s'mores croissant, with a crust that
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  was ribbed for her pleasure. As a rule, s'mores themed desserts are
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  never better than an actual s'more, and such was the case here.
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  The marshmallow fluff to its credit is still stuck to my fingers
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  a month later. The I dug into the peach cobbler bun and
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  the thick squiggle of creme fraîche topping it. This was a good
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  ass sticky bun, because of course it was. The tag team of
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  brown sugar and butter will always remain undefeated. I could taste that
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  French butter monolith in everything. These were pastries made with great fussiness,
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  but also great love. Better and Crumble wants to spoil you with
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  indulgence, and everything the serve succeeds in that mission. But it was
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  the last item I sampled that was the truest revelation. This was
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  the brown butter cornmeal twice baked croissant. I'd saved this one for
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  last, because most everything else I'd ordered more all of the traditional
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  features I usually look for in a pastry chocolate, fancified frosting, caramelized
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  goose. The cornmeal croissant was a different animal, and thus took lower
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  priority. This was a traditional croissant filled with another deep breath, brown
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  Butter cornmeal frangipane, caramel, and vanilla corn custard, then topped with sweet
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  corn cream and a cornmeal crumble. This was how I learned that
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  a frangipane was a kind of almond cream. There is no better
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  way to learn this particular lesson. Because not only was the cornmeal
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  pudding croissant, I'll call it that from here on out for the
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  sake of space, the best item I ordered from Butter and Crumble
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  and Crumb, it was also one of the best croissants I've ever
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  eaten, be it here in America or over in Europe. The cornmeal
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  flavor was much more subtle than the menu description suggested, and the
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  cream and crumble combination on top gave me the same crunch, plus
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  the same Yay, there's extra frosting rush that I require from any
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  one thousand five hundred calorie breakfast. To my knowledge, no one comes
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  to butter and crumble for one specific item on their menu. But
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  if anything from Sophie Smith deserves to go viral among snobs, it's
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  this one. It's the corn pudding croissant that needs to step off
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  the foodie runway and break into every chain bakery and grocery store
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  across the country. And I hope that butter and crumble helps to
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  make that happen. I'll remember that croissant, and I hope that, one
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  day, I can take my kids to some nearby, lesser bakery to
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  eat another one. I might even be willing to wait in line.