The croissant's ancestor, the kipferl, comes from Austria, not France.

The crescent-shaped pastry now considered a symbol of French baking traces back to the Austrian kipferl, a crescent-shaped bread or pastry documented in Austria for centuries before the croissant existed in France. Various origin stories link the shape to Vienna, including one tying it to the Ottoman siege of the city, though historians treat that specific tale as folklore rather than confirmed history.

What is well documented is that Austrian bakers brought the kipferl to Paris, most notably through a Viennese bakery opened there in the 1830s, and French bakers adapted the recipe using laminated, layered puff pastry dough to create the buttery, flakier croissant recognizable today. The name itself is simply French for “crescent,” describing the shape inherited from its Austrian predecessor.