Did the Croissant Come From Vienna? The Bakery Legend Behind Your Breakfast

Ask a waiter in Paris where the croissant comes from and you may hear a thrilling answer: Viennese bakers invented it in 1683 to mock the Ottoman army besieging their city. It is a great story. It is also, as far as historians can tell, a legend with no evidence from the time.

The real croissant history is quieter but more interesting. The pastry does have an Austrian ancestor, the crescent-shaped kipferl. It reached Paris through a Viennese bakery in the late 1830s. And the buttery, flaky croissant you dunk in your morning coffee is a French invention of the early twentieth century.

Key takeaways

• The Austrian kipferl is centuries older than 1683; a crescent pastry is mentioned in Austria in the 13th century.
• The siege-of-Vienna story has no contemporary sources and was popularized in the 20th century.
• Austrian August Zang opened a Viennese bakery at 92 rue de Richelieu in Paris in 1838 or 1839.
• The word croissant appears in French sources around 1850; recipes for the laminated, puff-style croissant appear in the early 1900s.

The legend: bakers, tunnels and a crescent moon

The popular version goes like this. In 1683 the Ottoman army laid siege to Vienna. Bakers, working through the night, heard the enemy digging tunnels under the city walls and raised the alarm. After the siege was broken, they baked a pastry shaped like the crescent on the Ottoman flag, so the Viennese could literally eat their enemy.

Some versions move the story to Budapest in 1686. Others tie it to the first coffee in Vienna, said to come from sacks of beans left behind by the retreating army. Pair the two and you get a perfect origin myth for the coffee-and-croissant breakfast.

The problem: no document from 1683 mentions any of it. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, the tale owes its origin, or at least its wide spread, to the food writer Alfred Gottschalk, who told a Budapest version in 1938 and a Vienna version in 1948. Treat it as folklore, not history.

The real ancestor: the Austrian kipferl

The kipferl is a crescent-shaped bread or pastry from Austria, made from a plain or enriched dough, sometimes with butter or lard, sugar or almonds. Unlike the legend, it is well documented. As the Smithsonian has noted, a 13th-century poem lists kipfel among the Christmas treats presented to Duke Leopold of Austria in 1227. In other words, the crescent shape was in Austrian bakeries more than four centuries before the Ottoman siege.

A kipferl is not a croissant, though. It is denser and closer to a brioche-like roll or a shortbread cookie, depending on the recipe. The flaky layers came later, and they came from France.

August Zang and the Boulangerie Viennoise

The documented link between Vienna and Paris is a man named August Zang. A former Austrian artillery officer, he opened the Boulangerie Viennoise at 92 rue de Richelieu in Paris. Sources disagree on the exact year, 1838 or 1839, so be wary of anyone who gives you one with total confidence.

Zang sold Viennese specialties, including the kipferl, and Parisians loved them. His success was quickly copied: by 1840, a Paris journalist counted at least a dozen makers of Viennese bread in the city. To this day, French bakers call croissants, pains au chocolat and brioches viennoiseries, literally Viennese-style goods.

Zang himself did not stay. He returned to Austria in 1848, where he founded the Vienna newspaper Die Presse. The bakery that made his name in Paris was just one chapter of an unusual career.

When the croissant became French

The French name for the crescent-shaped pastry, croissant, appears in French writing around 1850, and by 1853 it is listed among fancy or luxury breads. But these early croissants were most likely closer to the kipferl than to today’s pastry.

The defining feature of the modern croissant is lamination: layers of yeast dough and butter folded and rolled again and again, like puff pastry but leavened. Food historians place the first recipes for this kind of croissant in French books at the start of the 20th century, with 1905 and 1906 cited as the earliest dates. That is when the croissant as we know it was born, and it was born in France.

The historian Jim Chevallier, who has studied the subject in depth, argues that the pastry became truly French the moment bakers switched to puff-style dough. He also found no evidence for another popular story, that Marie Antoinette brought the croissant from Austria. She did not; that one is a myth too.

Croissant history timeline

Why croissant and coffee belong together

Whatever its origin, the croissant found its perfect partner in coffee. In France, a weekday breakfast is often small and sweet: a croissant or a slice of baguette with butter and jam, and a hot drink. The pairing works for good reasons:

• Fat meets bitterness. Butter coats the palate and softens the roasted bitterness of coffee, while coffee cuts through the richness so the next bite tastes fresh.
• Texture contrast. A crisp, shattering crust and a soft, airy inside pair well with a hot, smooth cup.
• Speed. A croissant needs no plate, no cutlery and no cooking, which suits a coffee taken standing at a cafe counter.

A simple rule for pairing: plain butter croissants love a smooth medium roast; almond croissants and pains au chocolat can take a darker, more chocolatey coffee.

Coffees to pour with your croissant

If you want an easygoing morning cup, our Breakfast Blend is a smooth, nutty medium roast of South American coffees that never overwhelms a delicate pastry. Prefer a Parisian cafe-style cup with more punch? French Roast is our classic dark roast of Central American coffees, bold and smoky-sweet with low acidity, a natural match for butter and chocolate. Both are roasted 1–5 days before delivery.

Croissant history FAQ

Is the croissant French or Austrian?

Both, in a way. Its ancestor, the kipferl, is Austrian. The flaky, laminated croissant is a French creation of the early 1900s.

Was the croissant invented after the siege of Vienna in 1683?

There is no evidence for it. No contemporary sources mention the story, and the kipferl existed centuries earlier. Historians treat it as a legend popularized in the 20th century.

Who brought the croissant to Paris?

August Zang, an Austrian who opened a Viennese bakery at 92 rue de Richelieu in 1838 or 1839, is credited with making the kipferl popular in Paris.

Why are pastries called viennoiseries?

The name honors the Viennese bakeries, starting with Zang’s, that introduced enriched breads and crescent pastries to Paris in the 19th century.

Sources

1. Is the Croissant Really French?, Amanda Fiegl, Smithsonian Magazine, 2015.
2. Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, entry on the croissant.
3. Jim Chevallier, August Zang and the French Croissant: How Viennoiserie Came to France, Chez Jim Books, 2009.
4. Croissant: history, Wikipedia, accessed 2026.

Facts checked in October 2026.

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