For a great plain croissant with an ultra-flaky exterior and a nice looking yellow interior, head to Somedays Bakery, which recently opened in Astoria. There’s also an almond croissant, black sesame tahini, pistachio lattice, strawberry hazelnut, and more, for between $5 to $9.

The offshoot of a fancier restaurant just off Madison Avenue is a pleasant and very French place to sit and drink coffee. Cafe Bilboquet’s is perfectly fine if unexciting, and one is more likely to turn one’s attention to the crusty almond croissant or the wild blueberry scone.

This daytime breakfast and lunch spot also features luxe Vienoisserie, with excellent almond, chocolate, and seasonal croissants as well as a top-notch, buttery plain rendition. With five locations to choose from the the croissants start at $4.25.

This slender example has a crisp, caramelized exterior, and relatively interior. It is more buttery than usual and has an elegant shape and heft. This is a perfect breakfast croissant, but not much of a sandwich croissant, and keeps longer than usual due to its high fat content, via Amadou Ly, formerly of Tribeca’s fabled Arcade Bakery. This is the best croissant in the city.

Tall Poppy has recently opened with a menu specializing in croissants of all sorts: classic, chocolate, pistachio, as well as novel combinations like goat cheese, hot honey, and pecan as well as lemon curd, meringue, and poppy seed. Prices are $6.50 to $9. The name might refer to tall poppy syndrome, the term from Australia and New Zealand in which someone is attacked for their success.

If you like your croissant soft, almost squishy, this one is for you. The inside of Barachou’s croissant is dense and rich, and provides tensile strength with no crunch or crackle. This West Village bakery specializes in tiny cream puffs in a myriad of flavors, and their French flan and cinnamon buns are justly celebrated.

Buvette’s croissants are minis, and are sold two to a plate. They are consciously based on a retro French model. They are plainish in taste, evenly textured no matter what part of the croissant you bite into, and made to be spread with butter and jam.

This Greenpoint bakery has drawn lines since the first day of opening. One of the reasons customers are lured is for pastries like the twice-baked pistachio croissant — even their plain, buttery version is revelatory in pastry chef Kelly Mencin’s hands. A second location of Radio Bakery is planned for Prospect Heights.

The croissant at Librae is linear and torpedo-shaped, with no flailing arms. The pastry is of the deep-brown variety, and tastes slightly sweet. The exterior is crisp but the inside soft and of medium density. At the hump, the bottom of the interior is more cakey than at the top.

With a prominent nose and arms outstretched, this croissant from very French East Village bakery Le Fournil is supremely buttery and done to a turn. It may be the best in the East Village. It is of average size and slightly denser than perhaps desirable.

As an exemplar of the caramelized school of croissant, Lafayette’s is unsurpassed, remaining moist inside, very dark and dry outside, with a slightly scorched butter aftertaste.

Raf’s bakery is part of the restaurant that opened from the Michelin-starred Musket Room team, with Camari Mick heading up pastry. The bakery, now open Tuesday through Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Plain are $5.50, pain au chocolat is $6 and almond and candied orange is $6.50. The sandwich stuffed with prosciutto and taleggio is $12.

The third location of the bakery — with the original in Williamsburg and a second in Spring Lake, New Jersey — offers the croissants that pull in crowds, in flavors like almond, za’atar, and everything seasoning — plus cardamom buns, fruit tarts, and other baked goods. 

This fantastically misshapen croissant of Grandaisy Bakery looks like two bears boxing. Yet in all the other aspects of croissant formulation it excels. It is big, puffy, buttery, and squishy, with a slight but not offensive sweetness.

One of the most Instagramed croissants on the list, Supermoon’s croissants come in stunty flavors like bourbon pecan twice-baked; a bi-colored pumpkin caramel and coffee cardamom; a spicy NYC croissant with Calabrian chile; as well as focaccia, sandwiches, and other baked goods.

There’s nothing really remarkable about Frenchette’s entry in the croissant races — average size, semi-gloss, slightly darker than average but definitely neither dark-baked nor half-baked. While it’s not in the classic crescent shape, it is like most other croissants these days and not particularly buttery — perfect in its own circumscribed way.

This Bushwick bakery from Gus Reckel opened in 2016 and still turns out terrific neighborhood favorites. A bit of the bread starter goes into the croissant dough, which then are baked into a handful of flavors: chocolate, beet chocolate, almond meringue, sausage, raisin, pistachio, ham and cheese, and jalapeno cheddar, depending on the day, for around $6.50.

Husband-and-wife team Gautier and Ashley Coiffard opened this Brooklyn Heights spot in spring 2022, and there are still lines on weekend mornings for the warm croissants and their viral petite croissant cereal. Beyond the classic croissants, there are chocolate, almond, raspberry, and one topped with everything seasoning. There’s a space to sit upstairs, as well as a few tables dotted on the sidewalk outside.

Of course the epitome of the caramelized school is Cobble Hill’s Bien Cuit, where the slogan on the sign out front reads “pastry well done.” Though it looks like a wooden paperweight, there could hardly be a more carefully turned-out croissant — the pastry leaves well defined, the thing as symmetrical as a football — and when you nip off the end, the inside is just as perfect. They may be drier than you’d like.