Tesco’s decision to straighten out its curly croissants has divided opinion among top French chefs and bakers who cannot settle on which shape is the most authentic – but one thing they can agree on is that the British have been eating them the wrong way anyway.

The supermarket chain said the move was prompted by its customers wanting to spread their butter and jam more easily, but some of France’s finest croissant connoisseurs are aghast at the thought of sullying the carefully crafted pastries with such mundane condiments.

When I was a kid, a straight croissant was only baked on Sunday morning, and that’s it Jean-Christophe Novelli

Jean-Christophe Novelli, the former personal chef to the French Rothschilds, who now runs a cookery school in Hertfordshire that has been hailed as one of the world’s best, said the French would “absolutely not” spread butter or jam on their croissants.

“A croissant is something that you dip into a bowl of chocolate or coffee,” Novelli said. “But never in my whole life have I met someone from France who eats a croissant with jam.”



Vincent Roussel, the manager of the bistro at London’s Institut Français, the centre for French culture in the UK, said: “In England, lots of British [people] eat it with butter and jam, but in France we eat it plain. We don’t cut it to put something inside, unless it’s an almond croissant and then it’s a filling to put inside.

“I know that 90% of the people asking me for jam and butter are British or from another country. But the French always have it plain.”

But Richard Bertinet, whose Bertinet bakeries in Bath are renowned for their French bread and pastries, disagreed and said it was perfectly acceptable to add a dollop of jam to your breakfast croissant. As for butter, however, he said: “I don’t understand that. A croissant is full of butter already.”

He added: “It’s not a crime to put jam, I think. It’s a crime to put butter, but if you have good jam or a preserve, or even a nice marmalade – but I wouldn’t slice them.”

The dispute over the correct shape of the breakfast pastries, which take their name from the French word for “crescent”, prompted fierce debate on social media.



Tesco’s rationale was economic – it says appetite for curved croissants has been dwindling – but also a matter of convenience, citing market research that found customers felt it was easier to spread jam on straight pastries “with a single sweeping motion”.

Harry Jones, Tesco’s croissant buyer, said: “With the crescent-shaped croissants, it’s more fiddly and most people can take up to three attempts to achieve perfect coverage, which increases the potential for accidents involving sticky fingers and tables.”

Among the experts, divisions run deep on the question of whether croissants should be curly or straight.

Novelli, who began his career as a baker in Arras, northern France, said: “From my time as a baker when I was a kid, a straight croissant was only baked on Sunday morning, and that’s it. That means it’s a little bit more of an indulgence: pure unsalted butter, no margarine or other fat.”

Bertinet said he only sold straight croissants. “A real croissant should be straight,” he said. “In France when I was working as a baker’s apprentice I learned the cheap croissant should be curved and the straight ones were always made with butter. So the parents would have a straight croissant and the kids would have a curved croissant.”

Roussel disagreed with both. “We use the word croissant for the moon in the first quarter, the first quarter is the croissant shape,” he said. “For me, [a] croissant should not be like a rectangle, it should be curved.”

The topic of the correct shape of croissants is yet to reach the agenda at this week’s EU summit. However, a picture of the negotiating table showed dignitaries had been provided with a plate of pastries. They were straight.

