The XXL croissant is a giant pastry from a pastry giant
Philippe Conticini's foot-and-a-half croissant is every inch the folly it was probably meant to be.
Nowhere in my video about the XXL croissant of Philippe Conticini do you find the obligatory shot of me attempting to dunk the 45-centimetre pastry into a café au lait. There’s no selfie showing me and a group of friends engaged in a buttery bacchanal, ripping apart this foot-and-a-half folly in an uproarious, made-for-TikTok tug of war.
Sadly I missed all the golden photo ops presented by this oversized undertaking.
I had ventured to the Islington location of the Philippe Conticini corner café, less than a mile from my North London flat, to size up the giant pastry from a pastry giant. I didn’t recognise this Instagram sensation for what it is: Gen Z play food.
Some 30 years ago, Conticini confirmed his status as a master of French patisserie by inventing the verrine, a dessert in a glass. By transferring the layers of his creations from flat plates to vertical verrines (small glasses or jars) he changed how desserts and later savoury dishes were presented, perceived, tasted and understood.
He is again playing with perceptions, distorting the way we experience the croissant as well as the pain au chocolat, two breakfast pastries as much a part of every morning as 8:45am.
The XXL croissant (£25) is not a pretty thing. In contrast to Conticini’s regular croissant (£2.75), an elegant spiral in a 3D diamond shape, the XXL is more of a swaddled mass, a puffy jacket of laminated dough. The flaky curls have been smoothed out; the exposed bumps, raised edges and beloved hidden crevices, stretched out of being.
A mini croissant has purpose. Its tightly wound geometry gives you more crispness and less fluff. There are flakes in every nibble. It’s not necessarily superior or inferior to a regular croissant. With good choices there are always tradeoffs.
The maxi croissant has no real purpose. Conticini might defend it as a communal pastry inspired by ceremonial wedding breads like the bridal brioche or the tear-and-share challah. But the XXL has no interest in marriage. It’s all about engagement. It’s raison d’être is making great suckers, not great pastry.
Jack Dee, an English comedian beloved for his grumpy sarcasm, coined the verb “sprank” for when older folks try too hard to be cool. When boomers use buzzwords and idioms that are much too young for them to say, they are spranking us.
I suspect Conticini is spranking us, only with viennoiserie, not verbiage. The genius of French patisserie, now 61, is providing clever content for the amusement of influencers and their followers, most of whom were born years after he invented the verrine.
He wants props from the zoomers so he makes them props.