The best croissant class in Paris

Which is the best croissant class in Paris?

For most people, the three-hour croissant class with a chef at Studio Pâtisserie in the 17th. It spends all its time on croissants, caps the group at eight and sends you home with the recipe.

It wins on focus. Other classes split the morning between croissants and bread, or between croissants and macarons. This one gives you three hours of laminated dough: the butter slab, the folds, cutting tall triangles, rolling crescents, proofing and baking. On selected days you can pick the bi-colour option and add the striped croissants that bakeries charge extra for.

Guests keep naming their chefs, which tells you something about how the class runs. Koula wrote: “Maria our pastry chef was amazing! She explained everything in a way you can understand”. Frank brought his mother: “My 83-year-old mother and I enjoyed the workshop.” The catch is the age bar: it is not for under-15s, and under-17s need a paying adult with them.

Three hours on croissants alone, eight people at most, bi-colour croissants on selected days and the recipe to keep.

★ 5.0 · 3 hours · from $137

Explore the croissant class with a chef → Class details

How do the Paris croissant classes compare?

They split three ways: croissant-only classes in teaching kitchens, bread and croissant classes in working bakeries, and classes where croissants are one choice among several.

Every class in this table runs in English and cancels free up to 24 hours before.

The two rows at the bottom are good mornings, but they are not croissant classes. More on that below.

Which Paris baking classes really make croissants?

Six of the eight classes in the table put croissant dough in your hands. The baguette and financier class makes no croissants, and the bakery tour serves them at breakfast.

Titles blur this. The baguette and financier class is sold as a Paris baking experience at a local bakery: you bake baguettes and brown-butter almond cakes, and you take both home. The behind the scenes bakery tour walks you through a working bakery on rue Saint-Antoine (guests report shaping bread too), then you sit down to croissants and pain au chocolat that the bakers made.

Two more need a closer read. At Le Petit Mitron you learn to make and shape croissants, but the oven time goes to two baguettes, one of them the shop's own “La Parisse”. At the Montmartre class croissants are one option out of four, so choose the croissant session when you book.

Is it better to take a class in a teaching kitchen or a real bakery?

A teaching kitchen gives you more technique and more of the chef. A working bakery gives you the smell, the ovens and the baker's routine, with less room to move.

• Teaching kitchens: the chef studio in the 17th, the Maison Fleuret school in the Latin Quarter, the Emily kitchen on rue de Cléry and the small kitchen below Sacré-Cœur. A bench each, an oven sized for the group, time for questions.
• Working bakeries: Le Petit Mitron on rue Oberkampf and the working bakery class near the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. Real equipment, real flour dust, and you leave with bread too.
• The trade-off: bakeries are cramped. The working bakery class sits on a second floor up 15 steps with no lift, and you stand for most of it.

Bridget summed up the appeal of the second kind: “What a special experience to take this class inside a working bakery!”

Do you make croissant dough from scratch in a class?

You learn every step, but the croissants you bake come from dough the chef rested earlier. A classic croissant takes about two days, and no morning class can skip the cold rests.

Croissant dough is mixed, chilled for hours, wrapped round a slab of butter, then rolled and folded with a rest in the fridge after each fold. Weekend Bakery's home method leaves about 12 hours between mixing and laminating alone. In class you mix or fold a dough to see how it behaves, then cut, shape, glaze and bake one that has already had its rests.

Guests do not mind. Thilde, after the Montmartre class: “Everything was ready upon arrival, so you just had to bake.” If a listing seems to promise the whole thing from flour to oven in two hours, ask before you book. Our croissant baking guide walks through the full timeline.

Which croissant class is the best value?

Per hour, the Montmartre class near Sacré-Cœur, at about $37 to $44 an hour with six people at most. Per croissant, the same class: guests report 15 pieces to take home.

We divided each from-price by the class length. It ignores what you carry home, so read the last column too.

Le Petit Mitron looks dear on this measure, and it is. You pay for eight places behind the counter of a family bakery, the master baker and an interpreter in four languages. Gerben, on the six-person Montmartre class: “Group of 4, so enough attention for everyone.”

Six people at most near Sacré-Cœur, and you choose croissants, macarons or tarts. Pick the croissant session when you book.

★ 4.8 · 2.5 to 3 hours · from $110

Explore the Montmartre pastry class → Class details

Is the Emily in Paris croissant class worth it?

For fans, yes: you shape a two-tone croissant in a themed kitchen and leave with a tote, a Polaroid and a box of croissants. If you only want technique, the chef class gives you more of it.

The official Emily in Paris class runs at Le 80 by Lili & Clo, 80 rue de Cléry in the 2nd, three minutes from Sentier metro. You mix, laminate and shape your own bicolour croissant with series cards and music around you. Groups go up to 12, the largest here. Two rules to know: late arrivals are not admitted, and the class does not suit gluten or lactose intolerance.

A bonus for the same morning: Boulangerie du Sentier at 47 rue du Caire, winner of the best butter croissant in Greater Paris for 2026, is in the same district. See the best croissants in Paris.

When should you book a croissant class, and what should you bring?

Book weekend mornings a week or two ahead, and take a morning slot early in your trip. Bring flat shoes, clothes that can take flour and room in your bag for a box.

• Take the morning class. Your croissants become breakfast, and they are best the day they are baked.
• Go early in the trip. Every bakery window reads differently once you have folded butter into dough.
• Not on travel day. A box of croissants does not survive a suitcase.
• Arrive ten minutes early. The Emily class turns latecomers away.
• Cancel free up to 24 hours before on every class here, and some let you reserve now and pay later.

Aprons and equipment are provided everywhere. Gluten and dairy are the whole lesson, so these classes cannot adapt for those diets.

Frequently asked questions