In Paris they are in love with the 'pain au chocolat', which they have turned into a luxury food, while in Barcelona the croissant wins

Paris / BarcelonaOn the avenue of the Paris Opera, every day there is a queue of people, organized with security guards and elastic barriers, who patiently wait to buy sweets. The two adjacent establishments of the pastry chef Cedric Grolet have pains au chocolat (neapolitans), croissants, and frozen fruits on the counters. They are placed as if they were jewels, on fine ceramic plates and with small golden signs indicating their price. They enter through the eyes and the stomach, and make people wait an average of twenty minutes, or more depending on the time of day. I am one of them, and when I get my pain au chocolat –which costs me seven euros– I find that it makes me think of one of the sweets that sparks passions in our home: the xuixo from Girona.

Cedric Grolet's pain au chocolat has a more elongated and rounded shape than neapolitans, which are usually more square and flattened; I notice the fat in my mouth, which tells me the dough is fried. The originality compared to all the pains au chocolat I will taste in Paris is this fried aspect (if it were called xuixo, this point would not surprise us Catalans) and the chocolate filling in the shape of a bar, on the one hand, and in liquid form, on the other. With each bite, the liquid chocolate protrudes from the sides, so eating one while standing on the most artistic avenue in Paris without getting stained is a sweet sport of risk.Cedric Grolet is probably the most daring pastry chef in Paris when it comes to pain au chocolat. The croissants he makes are also daring: they are painted with dark chocolate on the outside and have a shiny jewel-like appearance. I can say they are the exception, along with those from the Ritz Paris Le Comptoir pastry shop, where the pain au chocolat has the same elongated and narrow shape as the croissant, like a thin churro, and they serve it to you in an elongated cardboard wrapper so you can eat it like a sandwich.Unequal prices between traditional and creative pastry shops

In other bakeries, the pains au chocolat maintain their traditional shape and are sold at a slightly higher price than croissants, but without reaching the seven euros of Cedric Grolet or the five of Ritz Paris Le Comptoir. In general, they cost between €1.50 and a maximum of €2, while croissants remain a staple: between €1.20 and €1.80. And both the former and the latter are what are offered in cafes every morning for breakfast, along with a slice of bread and butter. I mention the names of some of the bakeries with traditional pains au chocolat: Gosselin (€1.50), The French Bastards (€1.40), Maison Marques (€1.80), and Maison Julien (€1.50).

In hotel buffets, pains au chocolat and croissants are the stars at breakfast and snack time. And what pains au chocolat! I enter the Mandarin Oriental hotel, where to the right of the lobby is the pastry shop of master pastry chef Julien Dugourd. Anyone can go in to buy or eat them. As soon as you step through the door of the café, a large, elongated display case shows all the sweets made with croissant dough. There are many, varied, and next to the traditional pain au chocolat, there is another that also stirs passion among Parisians: the Swiss brioche. It's like a pain au chocolat but flattened, with chocolate chips inside and a thin layer of pastry cream, which they tell me sells as much or more than the pain au chocolat. There is still another sweet with croissant dough: the chausson aux pommes. Thus, the same dough yields different results depending on how it is folded and filled. I order a pain au chocolat and head to the green garden of the café, where some of the hotel rooms overlook. An oasis among the central streets of the 1st arrondissement, which bases its personality on the city's sweet treats, and where you can stay without spending a lot of money, less than I've spent, standing, at Cedric Grolet. I check that the pain au chocolat at the Mandarin Oriental has a chocolate bar, good, substantial, inside, which is well encased by the dough. It doesn't leak out the sides, nor is it messy. Buying a pain au chocolat at the city's luxury hotel, where personalities stay in suites with views of the Eiffel Tower, costs (attention!) three euros.In Barcelona, I head to the Natcha pastry shop, to Forn Mistral, to Foix and to La Colmena, where they tell me they don't make them, napolitanes or canyes, as they also call them. Instead, croissants, all imaginable. The city that annually awards the best croissants prefers this sweet with or without horns. At Foix, I proceed to count all the ones they have: up to eight different kinds, among which there are savory ones (sobrassada and cheese), sweet ones, with horns, butter, lard, and many others with different fillings. At La Colmena, Josep Maria Roig tells me they have stopped making napolitanes because they didn't sell. “When we used to make them, we also didn't make the real napolitanes, because we made them with puff pastry, not croissant dough, and we filled them with cream and angel hair”. At Sacha, they tell me they do make them, but only by order: “We daily prepare up to nine different types of croissants, which are what sells the most, and that's why we only make napolitanes by order”. And at Brunells, they tell me they don't make them, but they do make coixinets, with croissant dough. When I see and taste them, I find they are like Swiss brioches from Paris, but what makes them original is that they are savory: they fill them with ham and cheese or with sobrassada and honey.

On the other hand, at L’Atelier, French-born pastry chef Eric Ortuño, together with Ximena Pastor, create two types of pain au chocolat that could compete with the best in Paris: the classic and the innovation. They cost €3.30 and are made with croissant dough, with an inverted lamination and with lines of cocoa on top that make the croissant dough look streaky, black streaks. It has a rounded shape and the bite is crunchy, ethereal. It also has the right amount of chocolate, not too much, not too little, nor liquid. At Mervier Canal pastry shop, Toni Vera also makes them; he sells them for €3.20. "People buy more chocolate croissants from us even though they are made with the same dough and the same filling," comments Vera, who highlights the innovation they have made with their pain au chocolat: the dough is bicolor, because that way it is more attractive. And, furthermore, they have also started making Swiss brioches. They are aware of the big trend coming from Paris. For his part, pastry chef Oriol Carrió points out that he makes them and puts three chocolate bars in them (€2.50). At Morreig, Alsatian pastry chef Matthieu Atzenhoffer prepares pain au chocolat (€2.80) with chocolate coating on the inside, because he believes that classic bars contain more sugar than cocoa. "Ours are less sweet and tastier," he says. At Forn Sant Josep, they also make them, alongside lard croissants (with horns), which sell up to 80% more than butter ones, states the owner, Emili Feliu.

Finally, baker and pastry chef Anna Bellsolà, from Baluard bakeries, explains that she also makes pain au chocolat and sells it for €2.45, and Christian Escribà maintains that he sells more of the croissant he makes than his pain au chocolat

(€2.50). However, he has created two good alternatives to the croissant: "The cremadet and the kouign amann from French Brittany are at the same sales level as croissants," all made with croissant dough, but in the case of the kouign amann, with more butter than sugar; on the outside, crunchy like a palm leaf, and on the inside, a croissant. I conclude with this: Paris and Barcelona are united by creativity with croissant dough, which arouses passions in different forms.

The Croiss & Fest returns to Poble Espanyol

From May 1st to 3rd, some of Barcelona's pastry shops will once again meet at Poble Espanyol for a festival that aims to showcase the great moment that croissants of all kinds, both sweet and savory, are experiencing. Attendees will also be able to vote for the best one they taste.