The past few years have seen a deluge of top-notch patisseries and pop-ups serving damn fine pastries — to our mind, some of the best San Francisco has ever seen. We set forth to crown the best of the best of this new buttery regime from the city’s finest pastry chefs. Here they are, in no particular order.

Must order: Coconut scroll

Melissa Chou based her just-sweet-enough coconut scroll on a classic Chinese “cocktail bun” but upped the ante by taking milk-bread dough, laminating it with butter like a croissant, then rolling it up with “frangipane” made of sugar and toasted coconut. The result looks like a sacred, golden spiral — one that begs you to unravel its mystery until you get to the gooey coconut center. Remember, it’s available on weekends only. Grand Opening, 28 Waverly Place, Chinatown 

Must order: Pistachio-cardamom-sugar croissant 

The first flavor Sophie Smith drummed up continues to be one of her best. Butter & Crumble’s classic plain croissant is already excellent, but filled with unctuous cream made from real pistachios and a smidge of pistachio essence sourced from France, with a hint of citrusy cardamom, it is over-the-top delicious. Butter & Crumble, 271 Francisco Street, North Beach 

Must order: Manjari chocolate, passion fruit, and hazelnut choux

Though its Cubano croissant has been front and center since winning this year’s Best Croissant in SF competition, Juniper, the bakery from the Saint Frank team, primarily shines a spotlight on choux, the delicate pastry dough used to make eclairs and cream puffs. Andrea Correa created this eye-catching little treat, which toes the line between sweet and too-sweet thanks to a heady combination of fruity dark chocolate and hazelnut-cream filling. A blast of tart passion fruit keeps things in balance, while the crackly, pineapple bun-like exterior provides a welcome hint of crunch. Juniper, 1401 Polk St., Polk Gulch

Must order: Kalbijjim croissant

Short ribs might not sound like something you want with your morning coffee, but one bite of this croissant will convince you otherwise. The pastry — a collaboration between Jina Bakes and nearby Korean restaurant Daeho Kalbijjim, which draws long lines for its cheese-topped beef stew — is a flaky, buttery croissant with a sweet-savory center of shredded beef and tomato. As a finishing touch, it’s topped with melted mozzarella that gets torched to achieve leopard spots of caramelization. Jina Bakes, 1581 Webster St. #150, Japantown

Must order: Walnut-poppyseed babka roll

Two years into the life of this delightful cafe focused on the Jewish baking diaspora, we still can’t get enough of the deservedly popular babka rolls that take three days to make. Pastry chef Kristina Costa makes a salted chocolate version, but for us, it’s all about the mesmerizing layers of poppyseeds, which are ground to a paste and mixed with honey and walnuts, begging for a pairing of coffee and a schmooze. Loquat, 198 Gough St., Hayes Valley

Must order: Guava tart

Not to be dramatic, but a bite of this tart from this itinerant pop-up is like a tropical evening with a stripe of clouds set against the most gentle hint of sunset. Lined with almond praliné, the paper-thin pâte sablée shell that holds this pretty young thing is so delicate it will crumble if you look at it sideways. As a counter to the guava curd, which is ginned up with a little lemon and salt, Marisa Williams tops half the tartlet with whipped ganache made with Valrhona’s white chocolate. Check Instagram for pop-up dates and locations.

Must order: Canelé

We believe in the magic alchemy of Michelle Hernández’s excellent canelé, the simple but complex pastry that hails from the Bordeaux region of France. The exterior is daringly just a hair’s breadth from burned. One bite elicits an audible crunch, making way for deeply caramelized sugar that melts into something pleasantly bittersweet. The interior reveals a bread-pudding-like sponge in a honeycomb pattern. At $4.50 each, the two-bite wonders aren’t cheap, but they are well worth it. Le Dix-Sept, 455 Carolina St., Potrero Hill; 3376 18th St., Mission