These flaky, golden-colored, crescent-shaped pastries are best made with pure butter and a slightly sweet yeast dough. If made properly, the yellow-white interior should be just the slightest bit elastic when pulled from the center, ready to be covered with a pad of butter or some fresh jam.
Experts agree that the croissant was heavily influenced by Austrian kipfels. This pastry originated in 1683 as a celebration of the Austrian victory over the Ottoman Empire, its shape supposedly mimicking the crescent moon found on the Turkish flag.
MOST ICONIC Croissant
View moreDelicious and fragrant waffles are the most famous Belgian culinary trademark. Made with thick dough or thin batter, the cakes are baked in a specially designed waffle iron which creates an unusual checkered pattern on the top and bottom of each cake.
In Belgium, there are two distinct varieties of this national dessert: the light Brussels waffle, and the denser Liege waffle. The key distinction is in the batter: while the Brussels waffle batter is thin and runny, the Liege variety is made with a thick, brioche-like dough which produces a cake with uneven edges and dense texture.
Crêpes salées, often called savory crêpes or galettes in some regions of France, especially in Brittany, are thin pancakes made from a batter that typically contains either wheat flour or buckwheat flour, which gives them a slightly nutty flavor and a darker color.
Unlike the sweet version (crêpes sucrées) which uses various "sweet fillings", crêpes salées are filled with savory ingredients that may include cheese (often Gruyère, Comté, or Emmental), ham or various types of cured meat, eggs, mushrooms, spinach, caramelized onion, or various herbs and spices.
VARIATIONS OF Crêpes salées
MOST ICONIC Crêpes salées
View moreConsidered an early version of the famous breakfast fare called french toast, pain perdu is a simple French dish that is based on old, stale bread. The use of stale bread for this dish is even suggested by its name, which translates to lost bread or wasted bread in French.
To make pain perdu, slices of stale bread with their crusts removed are soaked in an egg-and-milk mixture before they’re fried in melted butter until nicely colored and crispy. A recipe for a dish called payn perdu was found in an old English cookbook dating back to about 1430.
MOST ICONIC Pain perdu
View moreMAIN INGREDIENTS
Amazingly tender and extremely light, chouquettes are airy pâte à choux pastry puffs studded with the so-called sucre perlé (lit. pearl sugar); coarse sugar crystals which hold both their shape and crunch when baked.
Chouquettes are basically profiterole shells and fall into the category of viennoiseries or, more precisely, pâtisseries viennoises. These Viennese-style baked goods are found in bakery shops throughout the country and are traditionally consumed for breakfast or as an afternoon snack known as le goûter.
MOST ICONIC Chouquette
View moreMAIN INGREDIENTS
A crêpe complète is a type of French galette made with buckwheat flour and filled with ham, cheese, and an egg. The egg can be cooked on the galette so it's either soft or hard.
It is a savory version of the more widely known sweet crêpes that are often filled with things like sugar, fruit, chocolate, or whipped cream. The "complète" in its name suggests that it is a full meal, combining protein, dairy, and the crêpe itself to make a satisfying dish.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Oeufs cocotte or eggs in pots provide an easy and delicate way of serving eggs for breakfast. Cocotte refers both to the method of baking individual eggs and the small, round baking vessels with handles on the sides. The eggs are placed in greased pots, ramekins, or cocottes, with flavorings above or below them, and the combination of those ingredients is then baked in the oven in a hot water bath until, ideally, the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.
Toppings might include bacon, fresh herbs, cheese, pesto, or cream. Oeufs cocotte is also an ideal dish to serve to guests - visually impressive, delicious in flavor, and highly versatile.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Pain aux raisins or escargot (lit. snail) is a French spiral-shaped pastry made with a combination of leavened buttery dough or sweetened bread dough, raisins, and crème pâtissière. Once filled, this sweet treat is baked until its edges become slightly golden.
Pain aux raisins is traditionally served in the morning for breakfast, although it is also sometimes enjoyed throughout the day with café latte or black coffee.
MOST ICONIC Pain aux raisins
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Hailing from Corsica, these traditional shortbread cookies typically consist of flour, sugar, white wine, and flavorings such as anise or lemon zest. Canistrelli are double baked, and because of that they are incredibly crispy and have a long shelf life.
The cookies are commonly enjoyed for breakfast, when they are usually paired with hot beverages, but canistrelli also make an excellent sweet snack when paired with white wine.
MAIN INGREDIENTS
Brasillé is a traditional pastry made with flaky, buttery puff pastry, lightly salted butter, sugar, and eggs. Puff pastry is rolled out and buttered, then shaped into its characteristic oval shape before it is brushed with beaten eggs, sprinkled with sugar, and baked until puffed and golden on top.
This French specialty used to be prepared out of simple bread dough and lard, but it was later re-invented by a French baker called Emilie Roussel, who replaced lard with butter and added sugar to the combination. Brasillé earned its name from the French word brasier, meaning a pan of hot coals or embers, referring to the method of baking the pastry in an oven of hot coals that gave the original pastry a slightly burnt top.
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “Top 11 French Breakfasts” list until March 20, 2025, 2,475 ratings were recorded, of which 2,169 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.