Living the sweet life in Paris
Parisians ‘have gone crazy over patisseries,’ and who can blame them?
Blame it on the religieuse pastry, two stacked, chocolate creamfilled puffs that sent me to patisserie nirvana the first week of my long-ago junior year in Paris. When you’re used to Twinkies, that kind of experience is, indeed, a revelation. After marrying a lemon-tart-loving Frenchman and producing a daughter (vanilla macaron) and son (coffee eclair) who share my passion, I thought I had pretty much covered the gamut of French pastries.
Until this past April, that is, when on a Sunday afternoon stroll with an old friend down the Rue de Rivoli, near the Louvre, I realized my guilty pleasure had emerged from the shadows and, seemingly, been embraced by le tout Paris.
“C’est la folie” — “It’s a madhouse!” — Agnes exclaimed when we noticed a throng of gourmands outside of Cedric Grolet’s new pastry boutique. We were just around the corner from Le Meurice, the historic hotel where I once spotted actress Catherine Deneuve in the powder room and where Grolet, 33, is the awardwinning head pastry chef at the Michelin two-star restaurant.
“Parisians have gone crazy over patisseries,” Agnes continued, “and this place is ground zero. It opened in March.” We observed the uniformed doorman admitting customers, one by one, into the narrow, laboratory-like sanctum.
“Grolet is famous for his fruit pastries,” Agnes said as we peered through the window. “They’re astonishing, because they look just like real fruit.” She told me she had tried his lemon creation, and that it was “one of the most delicious things” she’d ever tasted. “But you have to arrive early,” she warned, as we headed toward the Tuileries Garden, “because when they sell out, they close.”
Two days later, I was first in line when the boutique opened at noon. Discreet Edith Piaf melodies serenaded me as I pondered the day’s five options, which included two fruit confections (simply called grapefruit and passion fruit), plus three moretraditional choices: a hazelnut tart, a pistachio riff on the donutshaped, cream-filled Paris-Brest pastry, and an heirloom strawberry tart. Each pastry was about the size of a softball. The man behind me, a Parisian who said he was on a “top pastry chef ” quest, quickly opted for the Paris-Brest, at 10 euros (about $11.50). For the sake of research, I splurged on the grapefruit, at a whopping 17 euros. Price notwithstanding, I had a surreal “this is not a grapefruit” sensation as I watched the precious orb, which looked exactly like a ripe grapefruit, go into a box worthy of the jewelry stores on nearby Place Vendome.
That evening, I shared it with Agnes over a glass of wine. With trepidation, I broke the flawless “peel” with my spoon. A thick layer of white chocolate ganache buttressed the delicate outer shell. Inside, a transparent grapefruit gelee held gemlike nuggets of pink grapefruit and morsels of preserved peel that flowed slowly from the casing, like glowing lava. I dipped in my spoon. Frisky, fresh, intense, chewy and creamy, the vibrant taste and crazy textures sent me to pastry nirvana for the second time in my life.
“Pastries are kind of irresistible,” writes sociologist and trend forecaster Ronan Chastellier, a panelist at Paris’s inaugural Pastry Show, held in June. The show, attended by more than 25,000 visitors (including me) over three days is just one example of the city’s pastry obsession.
Ignited by the encounter with Grolet’s grapefruit, my renewed love for these quintessential French treats called for a pastry tour de Paris. With input from French friends, family, bloggers and even famous pastry chefs I met along the way, I made my list. Whether at five-star hotels where teatime includes inventive pastry menus prepared by celebrity chefs or along a street with an unusual concentration of patisseries or at modest shops thrust into the limelight by bloggers, it was a sweet way to experience perhaps the most elemental aspect of French culture: truly savoring what we eat.
The haute couture of Parisian pastries is found at the historic “palace hotels” (it’s an official classification, anointing the creme de la creme of five-star establishments), where ambitious pastry experts, who work alongside the restaurants’ executive chefs, are redefining French pastry art for the new generation with gold-flecked and colorswirled designer treats. Teatime, usually from 2:30 to 6 p.m. daily, offers a chance to sample some of the most innovative pastry art in Paris, all while recharging in the rarefied air of these landmarks.
I have a soft spot for Le Bristol’s romantic Cafe Antonia and the posh Jardin d’Hiver lounge at Hotel de Crillon, where pastry chefs Julien Alvarez and Pablo Gicquel, respectively, offer some of the most delicious — and interesting — teatime experiences in town.
For many pastry lovers, though, a trip to Paris is incomplete without a macaron feast. Blame it on Pierre Herme, father of the macaron renaissance. “When I began, in 1997, I had no idea the macaron would become as Parisian as the Eiffel Tower!” Herme said, speaking to a standing-room-only crowd at the Pastry Show. His newest venture, 86 Champs, is a mod cafe on the Champs-Elysees featuring an expansive macaron counter and a long dessert bar, where I watched a chef assemble my pastry order. Then, I devoured the best mille-feuille cake I have ever tasted, and with the most unusual flavor, too: Herme’s signature “Ispahan” rose, litchi and raspberry combo.
Herme has mentored many successful chefs, including Claire Damon, the publicity-shy pastry queen of cult favorite Des Gateaux et du Pain. One afternoon, I met French pastry blogger Xavier Martinage at Damon’s boutique on the Rue du Bac, perhaps the tastiest destination on the Left Bank.
Rue du Bac has become a magnet for sweet shops, Martinage said, as we chose our pastries from the sleek display case. Next door, the Patisserie des Reves was among the first to present fancy pastries under glass cloches, in 2009. Up the street, there is an outpost of Angelina, famous for hot chocolate and old-school pastries like the Mont Blanc. Around the corner is the stylish Hugo & Victor, featuring pastries with plant-based colorants and natural, organic ingredients.
Although Martinage thinks Claire Damon’s lemon tart is among the best, I prefer the version at Patisserie Nanan, a simple shop on a working-class street near Place de la Bastille, with its intense Sicilian lemon curd topped with a swish of lightly toasted meringue. Chef-owners Yukiko Sakka and Sophie Sauvage come from fine-dining backgrounds but wanted to have their own place “in a neighborhood where we could be close to our clients,” they said.
I wrapped up my Paris pastry tour on a tip from Gicquel, the Hotel de Crillon pastry chef, with a Saint Honore cake purchased from the niece of chef Gilles Marchal at his namesake — and homespun — Montmartre shop. “My uncle is usually here in the mornings,” she said, when she saw me peering into the tiny baking kitchen, where burnished copper pots hung on the wall.
Across the way, I spotted a worn park bench on Place EmileGoudeau, next to the studio where Picasso painted “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” in 1907. Early evening light filtered through the oak leaves and the velvety murmur of French voices rose from the cafe terrace below. I sat, plucked the caramel-glazed chou from atop the pastry and popped it into my mouth.
The French phrase for guilty pleasure directly translates as “cute sin.” Savoring a pastry named after St. Honoratus — the patron saint of pastry chefs — on the Mount of Martyrs, next to a place that revolutionized the art world? Now that is a sin I can live with.