A crazy project

We haven't grown up in the French fry in generations. No. It's... it's a love at first sight that happened in Brussels many years ago. We were completely astonished when we discovered in the middle of the afternoon endless queues in front of the famous Belgian fry shacks. What a craze for such a simple dish!

Back in France, completely seduced by this discovery, we wanted to learn more about this potato stick. Armed with Wikipedia and several history books, we not only discovered its link with our gastronomy, but also the passionate relationship that the French have with it. However, many questions quickly came to light.

Why is the French fry, which has the power to delight young and old alike, systematically placed in the background on our plates? How can we give it the leading role that it so deserves and that our dear neighbours have been able to attribute to it for decades? We had to intervene.

Our ambition: to create the best French fries in the world and serve them to you simply (but elegantly!).

The Birth of French Fries

With no culinary training in our pocket, we were at first sight unarmed to revolutionize this monument of our gastronomy. In our modest arsenal: a deep fryer, a balcony and above all a lot of tenacity and extreme motivation!

However, after several months of research, after carrying out hundreds of tests, after carrying 25 kilo bags of potatoes on our bicycle, after cooking French fries at night, armed with a headlamp and an umbrella, we have reached our grail: a delicate, tasty and crispy French fry at the same time.

11,000 kilos of potatoes? Not even afraid!

Convinced that we had created the "perfect" French fry, we now had to make it available to as many people as possible.

So we had to first make a lot of fries (without production tools) and then sell them to the general public (without a shop). A perilous mission to say the least!  But it was without counting on our determination (and our obstinacy)!

To solve this manufacturing problem, we rented a professional kitchen of 15 m2, ordered 11 tons of potatoes and we got down to business! After 6 months spent peeling, sorting, slicing, cooking and freezing, we did our accounts, we had 3,500 precious kilos of French Fries.

The creation of Croustiller

Now that we had enough fries, we applied as a restaurateur at large gatherings. Music festival, gastronomic fair, street-food events, we were extremely motivated! Unfortunately our applications were always rejected due to lack of experience and months went by.

Then came the deliverance, when in September 2017 we received the agreement of the city of Lyon to participate in the Christmas Market. 2 months later, after having fine-tuned the smallest details to make our chalet as elegant and welcoming as possible, we were finally able to show our creation to thousands of gourmets!

The success of this event marked the beginning of a new chapter in the crazy history of Croustiller. It allowed us to grow by opening our own manufacturing workshop in 2018 and our 1st store in December 2019.

Today, we are very moved and proud to welcome you every day in our Lyon store to offer you a moment of pleasure and simplicity.