Generally, I am not a fan of culinary dogma–I don’t believe in the innate superiority of the white truffle over nearly all other ingredients, nor do I really think there is anything wrong with drinking a latte or cappuccino in the evening, or with sprinkling a little cheese on your seafood, if that is what you prefer– but there is one rule of baking that is ineluctably true: there is nothing better than a well-made plain croissant. I don’t deny for a moment that a pain au chocolat or almond croissant can be exquisitely delicious. But there is no denying that good quality chocolate or almond paste can cover up some pretty shameful pastry making sins, shifting focus away from soggy layers or burnt edges. On the other hand, a pure, unadulterated croissant bravely draws all of an eater’s attention to itself, placing both strengths and flaws on full display. The plain croissant plays a high-stakes game of flakiness, and it is one that very few outside of France or Québec manage to win.

Until this week, HungryMan and I probably would have said that Financier Patisserie on Stone Street made our favorite croissants in New York, and although they are genuinely very good, they wouldn’t quite make a Parisian or Québécois swoon. Everything changed when we finally dropped by Patisserie Claude on West 4th Street, after months of reading about their pains au chocolat. Call it fate, but as we walked through Greenwich Village, HungryMom picked the perfect moment to announce, “Oooh, I’m feeling peckish! What’s good to snack on around here?” So it was that we ducked into Claude’s nondescript storefront and found ourselves in a displaced little corner of Paris’s 11th arrondisement, complete with cranky proprietor glowering at us through the kitchen’s pass-through window.

The po-faced man in the back was, of course, Claude, the shop’s owner and chief baker. His crabbiness is well-documented and quite frankly, not the point. If you say hello to him (extra points for doing it in French), he’ll brighten considerably, as most people do when they’re treated like…well, people. Claude’s talent is not as a sales person or interior decorator, but as a patissier, and in that arena, he is among the best anywhere. We left the shop with two plain croissants and two brioches (each $1.50) and could barely keep ourselves from devouring them as we rode back to the Noshpad. Once we did tuck in, we immediately understood that we were in the presence of greatness– greatness that wouldn’t last another ninety seconds. Truly superb croissants achieve two opposite textures at the same time: they are crispy on the outside–so brittle even that they splinter and shatter when they are bitten or torn–and soft on the inside, with dozens of atom-thin layers of striated dough. These gossamer sheets are formed during baking, when layers of dough, separated from each other by butter, rise and trap bubbles of steam. On the other hand, bad croissants can be too watery, too greasy, too doughy, too stiff, too crunchy, overdone or underdone: there are a hundred ways to screw up, and sadly, most bakeries do. But not Claude. His croissants were crisp, light, soft inside, buttery, and just barely, nearly unnoticeably sweet.

Unsurprisingly, his brioches were also nearly perfect in their toothsome, eggy flavor and ultra-tender crumb. One of the two brioches we bought was a bit over-browned on the bottom, but even that portion of the little roll was better than any other brioche we’ve tasted in several months. Word on the web is that the chocolate croissants (pains au chocolat) are also divine, as are the éclairs and napoléons. We don’t doubt it. If his other desserts are a third as good as his croissants and brioches, they are well worth the subway or cab fare to West 4th Street, as well as the small emotional cost of suffering through the scowls Claude will probably cast in your direction. But our advice is just to smile, say “Bonjour, Monsieur” and order as much as you can possibly carry out of the shop.

Patisserie Claude, 187 West 4th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues), 212-255-5911