We Tried Viral-Looking Pastries At This Modern French Bakery in Dallas

A properly made croissant draws us in like moths to a flame, and those served at D'Caramel Patisserie have 96 layers.

Baking croissants that good doesn't happen overnight, and that's why owner and chef Anna Narinan spent much allotted time training under world-renowned pastry chefs like Cedric Grolet, Stephane Glacier, Daniel Alvarez and Francois Brunet to perfect her modern French pastries.

Using ingredients sourced from around the world: butter and fruit puree from France, chocolate from Belgium, vanilla from Madagascar and dairy products from Texas, chef Narinan creates three-dimensional mousse desserts, croissants, danishes, canelés, individual cakes and surprise treats with each season.

When the bakery opened in 2023, it took Southlake by storm, and on our early-afternoon visit on a Wednesday a week or so back, the line was nearly out the door- and it will stay that way until you leave.
Unlike other pit-stops for sweets and a coffee, this bakery is a destination. It's best visited when you have time to sit down and savor everything. If left sitting out of refrigeration, the mousse pastries (the cool ones) will begin to melt, and you risk ruining them.

We didn't get that memo until we arrived, but our three mousse pastries survived a 30-minute drive back into Dallas. You can swing it if you place the box in your floorboard and blast all the AC on your feet.

It's no surprise that people drive even further to try these interesting treats. The sign on their counter suggests bringing a cooler or asking for ice if you're driving over 45 minutes, or a TSA-approved cold wrap if you're flying. That's dedication a punch card could never do justice.
You can view all the sweets before you get to the register. Starting with croissants, these were all available on the day we went in: hazelnut cruffin, caramel & hazelnut roll, chocolate roll, berry Danish, savory croissant, hazelnut croissant, pain au chocolat, almond croissant, and regular butter croissants. You can view all the current offerings on the shop's website.

A croissant or two is a must, but everyone comes for the iconic mousse desserts that come in interesting shapes like a coconut, coffee bean, raspberry, mango, pear and an acorn. Inside of them, there is a small, cake-like center that has a fruit puree to complement it. Then, the exterior is all a flavored mousse that's shaped and decorated into the final product.

We got the coffee bean, a tiramisu made with mascarpone mousse, coffee cremeux, almond and vanilla crunch and a vanilla biscuit; the lychee and rose with a lychee compote, vanilla mousse, rose glaze, raspberry coulis and a honey biscuit; and the raspberry, which is a dark chocolate and raspberry mousse with a chocolate biscuit and raspberry coulis inside — lastly, an apple yuzu croissant.
It's clear chef Narinan spent a lot of time getting the ratio and textures right on the tiramisu. The outside chocolate layer is so thin that it could be mistaken for the classic cocoa dusting the trays get. 

When you dig into it, it starts with the mascarpone mousse, a light bite to get things started. Then, the second spoonful, you get a little hunk of the almond and vanilla crunch, which is not a true crunch, but subtle enough to work in tandem with the mousse. It's all so precise, the flavors are great, and we wish all tiramisu could be served in the shape of this little bean.

If you're not grown, do not order the raspberry mousse. We've seen so many videos of people trying the raspberry, and they don't end up liking it, but it isn't because it's bad; we'll tell you that much. This mousse is not all that sweet and moreso bitter since it's made with dark chocolate (which is why most probably don't like it). It needs the right person to appreciate it, and we enjoyed the subtle raspberry hints throughout.

Also, we'd love to see how the chef gets the mousse to mold and sit into the form of a raspberry. Just by looking at it, you wouldn't guess it's a light and airy chocolate dessert.
The last two we tried were the lychee and rose and the apple yuzu croissant. The lychee was the lightest of everything we tried. It's vanilla-forward with subtle floral notes and a slight tang from the lychee. It eats like a cake, and so you're able to get all the elements in one solid bite.

After trying a bunch of intricate, carefully made desserts, it's only right that the croissant felt underwhelming, given how spoiled we were, but it was still the airy, buttery and flaky dessert we always crave. If you order any croissant with a filling, it's best to heat it up a touch before you eat it. The microwave is heinous, but if you don't have an air fryer and are too lazy to use the oven, it's the only way.

This way, the filling can soften a little and disperse through the croissant. Our apple yuzu was an immobile blob when we bit into it. Still very good and worth returning for, just not as much of a wow as tiramisu in the shape of a coffee bean. You know?
The best thing about these desserts is that each is an ideal serving if you don't have a huge sweet tooth. Also, they say you can keep them in the fridge for up to 72 hours. We did just that and all of them held up with integrity (not the croissant, but we ate that same day).

Right as we paid, we saw a fresh batch of coconuts being put out, and the matcha pastry they usually serve was sold out by the time we got there, but given that this patisserie is so close to the DFW airport, we know our next pick-me-up when we're in the area.

D'Caramel Patisserie, 2211 E. Southlake Blvd., Wednesday - Saturday, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Monday and Tuesday, closed.