After running places like Zinfandel Grille and Prelude Kitchen & Bar, I'll say it: we don't make our own croissants. We tried, but the work was intense and the results were never consistent. Now we get them from a local bakery and they're perfect. This lets my cooks focus on the dishes we're actually known for. If you run a restaurant, find a baker you trust. It will save you so much trouble.
My whole business is cookies, but I will never try making danishes or pain au chocolat myself again. We tried it. It was a nightmare. Trying to manage all that folding and temperature just meant we wasted a bunch of batches. The local bakeries blew ours out of the water for taste and consistency. When you're making a lot of something, you just buy from the pros.
Croissant is a baked good I would always buy rather than make; anything that's a flaky pastry really. As a child, I would always force my mom to bring me with her when she goes to Hanoi, so we could visit Saint Honore, a small bakery/cafe which had a wide range of pastries and was my first ever experience with a croissant. Ever since that time, I tried making it on my own once and was disappointed with the finished product, even when I did exactly as the recipe said. I love the process of making and proofing the dough but it takes so much time to make: two to three days to be exact. It can be worthwhile if I'm baking it for my friends, but when I crave one, my go-to place is Cafe Breizh; and their BLT croissant is my absolute favorite!
As someone deeply involved in food and lifestyle writing, one baked good I'd rather buy than make is croissants. While I love the artistry of baking, croissants are notoriously time-consuming and technically demanding. The lamination process layering butter and dough repeatedly requires precision, patience, and a cool environment. Even small mistakes, like butter melting too quickly or uneven rolling, can ruin the texture and flakiness. For professionals who already spend hours in the kitchen, the labor-to-reward ratio often makes croissants better suited to purchase than to bake at home. Another factor is consistency. Bakeries with specialized equipment, such as temperature-controlled proofers and high-quality ovens, can achieve results that are difficult to replicate in a standard kitchen. The difference in texture light, airy layers with a crisp exterior is noticeable. Personally, I recommend buying croissants from Maison Kayser in New York or Paul Bakery in Europe. Both are known for their authentic French techniques and deliver a product that rivals what you'd find in Paris. Even Costco's bulk-pack frozen croissants, once baked at home, offer a surprisingly good alternative for everyday enjoyment. The takeaway: while many baked goods are worth making for the joy of the process, croissants are one of those items where buying from a trusted bakery ensures quality, saves time, and allows you to focus your energy on other creative pursuits in the kitchen.
The one baked good I always prefer to buy rather than make is a good-quality puff pastry tart, especially ones topped with delicate fruits or custards. The pastry itself isn't impossible to make, but achieving that ultra-light, even rise with hundreds of crisp layers takes a level of precision that most kitchens just aren't set up for. For me, the real challenge is the combination: the pastry needs to be perfectly laminated, the filling has to stay stable during baking, and one small misstep leads to soggy bottoms or collapsed edges. Professionals who do this daily simply get a level of consistency I can't match at home. When I want a standout tart, I usually buy from boutique bakeries that specialise in European-style pastries—their textures and finishes make it worth skipping the labour-heavy process.