There is a particular sound a good croissant makes — a quiet crackle when you pull it apart, before the steam escapes and the smell of butter takes over the table. It is a small thing, but it only happens when the croissant is genuinely fresh. Not fresh-ish. Not delivered that week. Baked that morning, in the same building where you are sitting.

Why "baked today" matters so much

A croissant is mostly air and structure. The shatter of the crust, the soft pull of the crumb, the way it flakes instead of bends — all of that fades within hours of leaving the oven. By the next day, even a well-made croissant is a different, sadder pastry. That is why we do not bake ahead. Our dough is proofed slowly overnight, laminated with butter, and pulled warm from the oven each morning — the same rhythm we follow for our sourdough. It is one of the three promises we make on our letter to Lakeside: everything baked in-house, nothing rushed, nothing fake.

The overnight part is the secret

Good croissants cannot be hurried. The slow, cool overnight proof is what develops flavour — the faint tang, the depth that a rushed same-day dough never gets. So while Lakeside sleeps, our dough is quietly working. When the first light hits Machhapuchhre and the lakefront path fills with walkers, the oven is already warm. By the time we open at 7:00 am, the first trays are out. Come in the first hour and your croissant may still be warm at the centre.

Ways to eat a croissant here

Plain, with coffee, is never wrong. But our kitchen also builds proper plates around them:

  • Eggs Benedict with Avocado — a croissant topped with bacon, poached eggs and rich hollandaise. The croissant does what an English muffin only dreams of.
  • Croissant, Guacamole & Poached Eggs — with fresh rucola and grated parmesan. Green, golden and our hero for a reason.
  • Scrambled Egg Croissant Sandwich — fluffy scrambled eggs inside a warm, flaky croissant. The simplest of the three, and many mornings the best.

All three live in the sourdough, croissants and benedicts section of our menu, alongside the day's pastries and cakes at the counter — that selection changes with what we bake, so it is always worth a look on your way in.

What to drink with it

Coffee is the classic marriage, and we take our side of it seriously — poured by hand, never rushed, the way the whole room works. But a warm croissant next to a cold glass is its own kind of pleasure: try the Immune Booster — fresh orange, carrot, lemon and ginger — pressed that same dawn, or a dragon fruit and banana smoothie if the morning feels pink. The contrast of warm pastry and icy juice is one of those small luxuries that costs nothing extra and improves everything.

And its quieter sibling, the sourdough

The croissant gets the romance, but the same overnight patience goes into our sourdough — and the menu leans on it just as hard. The Dear Four-Way Toast stacks avocado, mushroom, cherry tomato and scrambled egg on it, four ways at once; Scrambled Eggs & Creamy Mushroom uses it as the warm floor under a very good idea. If you are the kind of table that argues croissant versus bread, order both and settle it empirically.

A croissant morning, done properly

Here is our honest advice. Come early — the bake is freshest and the room is quietest before nine. Sit by the window, order something cold-pressed or a coffee, and start with a croissant plate. If you are deciding between sweet and savoury, the guacamole croissant settles most arguments. And if you are planning a bigger morning, our Lakeside breakfast guide maps the whole hour out, from the lakefront walk to the last sip.

Eating well here does not stop at pastry, either — for bowls, keto plates and juices, read our letter on healthy breakfast in Pokhara. And for the slower, coffee-first version of the morning, there is one more letter waiting.

The croissants will be warm. We will see you at seven.

Yours, every morning,
— Dear Breakfast