At Crapulix, there's one thing I'd like to know besides the croissant: when does Olivier actually sleep?

Croissants, pain au chocolat, baguettes, tartelettes – he makes everything for his shop alone and by hand. Other places call that a team.

Of course, a croissant isn't automatically good just because someone worked hard on it. What's more interesting is what all that work is meant to achieve. Olivier puts it quite plainly: in the croissant you should taste the butter, in the pain au chocolat the chocolate. That's more useful than any promise of eating breakfast like you're in France.

Crapulix – first a Michelin kitchen, then the bakery

Steglitz · Schildhornstraße 87

Before Olivier baked croissants, he cooked: he trained in a Michelin-starred kitchen, then moved through many kitchens, including restaurants of his own. Over the years, pastry mattered more and more, until it became Crapulix.

Still, the résumé isn't what decides the order. The pastry is. And I'd start with the plainest piece.

The croissant doesn't need a filling

First order: the croissant, nothing added. Crapulix describes it in two words: buttery, classic.

At a pâtisserie, I find the unfilled croissant the most interesting thing to order. No cream covering everything else, no glaze demanding attention first. You end up dealing with what actually matters: crust, dough and butter.

And those are exactly right here: flaky and crisp outside, soft and buttery inside. You really do taste the butter Olivier cares about.

This isn't a stand against chocolate. Breakfast doesn't need to be that strict. But before the pain au chocolat comes along, the plain croissant gets its chance.

The second piece is a canelé

Crapulix also makes canelés: the small fluted cakes from Bordeaux, crisp outside, vanilla and caramel inside.

I'd put a canelé next to the croissant, because it takes the order in two directions: butter and flaky layers on one side, vanilla and caramel on the other.

The order: a croissant and a canelé.

You don't have to go to Steglitz

On Saturdays, Crapulix has a stall at Winterfeldtmarkt in Schöneberg – which is where it started, before there was a shop. Croissants can be preordered for both the market and the café, by phone or message.

The shop in Steglitz is open Wednesday to Friday from 10am to 6pm, Saturday from 8am to 4pm and Sunday from 9am to 2pm. It's closed Monday and Tuesday.

Preordering breakfast sounds like a lot of planning at first. Then again: setting out for a croissant and coming back without one would be the worse plan.