Taste spotting in Paris! French dessert and pastry

[naf]

What I like about the dessert of Philippe Conticini, the flavours are frank yet they are still classical: for example if it is a vanilla dessert, it would taste maximum vanilla than you can think of (at times with different types of vanilla) and in different form and texture, pushing the ingredients to its limit but yet still remind loyal by not changing the fundamental of the classical aspect of the dessert. Good ingredients is essential, and a deep understanding of the classic to develop this reflexion. Good examples to illustrate this: Le Saint-Honoré, Tarte tatin and Calisson.

Le Saint-Honoré - A flaky pastry at the base, the chou were filled with caramel pastry cream, topped with a silky vanilla cream contrasted with crunchy caramel

An excellent classic revisited in form.

Lemon Meringue Tart - Soft and sweet meringue top contrasted with sour lemon cream. 6,80 €

I always find the meringue too sweet in a lemon tart, not this case, it was at the same time harmonious and complimentary.

Le Salambo

Tarte tatin - very impressive layer of melty apple with a flaky puff pastry 8 €

Opéra - intense taste of chocolate and coffee contrasted with an ultra crisp base, one of my favourite - 6.90 €

Calisson - More pleasant than a calisson, orange blossom favoured marzipan, orange compote buttercream and Swiss meringue with a lower crunchy almond cake. Complex yet good balance in taste. 8 €

(photo credit: lapatisseriedesreves.com)

Vanilla flan - flaky pastry base with vanilla pastry cream, a classic. 4.70 €

(photo credit: lapatisseriedesreves.com)

Pâtisserie des Rêves
Centre Beaugrenelle
12, rue Linois
75015 Paris

Other addresses in Paris:
lapatisseriedesreves.com/en

[winecountrygirl (Gwenn)]

@naf

The last cake is from Jean-Paul Hevin, a Goncourt Chocolat -

This looks so good I can’t even breath!

[naf]

I tried to find more information on this cake, I believe it was similar to Hévin’s famous Guayaquil. You should taste it if you can find a Jean-Paul Hévin shop, they exist now in many countries. The texture was interesting, not only the look.

[winecountrygirl (Gwenn)]

That opera cake looked great too, but I know where I can get that here!!!

[naf]

We were visiting La Goutte d’Or Patisserie by Yann Menguy, in the 18e. The talented pastry chef has worked in Masterclass of Christophe Michalak and as pastry conception chef in Ladurée before venturing in his own shop in 2016.

La Pavlova - lychee, rose water, raspberry, meringue and chantilly - 5,50 €

Le Citron Yuzu - lemon tart with yuzu. Yuzu added a complexity to the classic lemon tart, topped with meringue - 5,30 €

Le Gianduja - chocolate hazelnut - sublime! 5,50 €

Gianduja choclate icing, with a hazelnut cream, a disc of milk chocolate, moist chocolate cake, hazelnut praline, with a chocolate hazelnut biscuit as the base. Under the disc, there was a thin layer of chocolate chantilly.

La pomme soufflé - almond vanilla cream, pomme soufflé, almond praline - refreshing - 6€

Not to miss is La pomme, which is in the form an apple, which we didn’t see it this time. You can also eat in the shop, which is also a tiny salon de tea. Flan is only available on weekend.

La Goutte d’Or Patisserie
183 rue Marcadet
75018 Paris
Tel: +33 7 60 35 10 13

[naf]

The hottest “rock star” pastry chef in town, Cedric Grolet has just opened his first shop on 20 March, while keep his job pastry chef at Dalí, Meurice, which is quite rare. Don’t be surprise that the waiting line is at least 30 minutes minimum to get into the shop of Hotel Meurice.

Jewellery-like packaging

La pomme verte - 11 €

Granny Smith apple tart, aneth almond cream, apple granche, apple compote…

Tarte au café - 9 €

Very aromatic coffee cream

Citron vert - 17 €

Lime mousse, lime confit and marmelade with tarragon - quite acid, and not very sweet. You have the impression of eating a lime.

Noisette - 17€

Milk chocolate shell, caramel, hazelnut praline, cream of hazelnut with skin, dacquoise… very nutty taste, my favourite

Visually speaking, they are very impressive, that comes with a very high price tag.
Grolet signatures are sculptured fruit pastries which made him world famous in Instagram. The pastries selling in the shop were the past collection serving in the restaurant at teatime. Depending on your point of view, you need 50€ + to taste his cakes at the tea salon, so we might said it is a bargain now!

Taste wise, it is a bit complicated to describe and need some thinking. They are quite different from the usual taste from other pastries I had. Mr. naf liked them, noting the taste to be not too sweet. I find them very fine, delicate and original in taste, but I would have preferred the pastries to be sweeter, especially the lime. The apple tart I found it a bit bland. The coffee tart was good, but my favourite is still of Pierre Hermé. With the recent price tags getting higher and higher, it looks like Pierre Hermé is now a bargain! Personally, I would say the pastry of Grolet seduced more visually than the taste. If you like his pastries and up to some challenges, there are quite some French pastries blogs posting the recipes.

If you are going, be beware of the 4 pm closing time.

La Pâtisserie du Meurice par Cédric Grolet
6 Rue de Castiglione
75001 Paris

[Thimes]

Those are beautiful.

[naf]

Food porn!

[bcc]

For me food porn is jaozi.

[BigWoodenSpoon (Angela T Carlson)]

Wow, what awesome deliciousness!
If you would be so kind as to answer a question:
What are your current favorite Top 5 shops based on flavor, experience and value?
My husband and our teenager (who is learning French and loves French music) will be spending a few days in late July/early August based in the Gard du Nord neighborhood of Paris. Museums & gardens are on the list as well as pastries, bread and food in general. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[naf]

@BigWoodenSpoon

What are your current favorite Top 5 shops based on flavor, experience and value?

My top 2
Pierre Hermé - 72 rue Bonaparte Paris 5e is the flagship store. As for the other shops check before you go. Some are just selling macarons and chocolate, no pastries. Signature: Ispahan, Infinite vanilla tart, Coffee tart, mogador macaron…

La Pâtisserie des Rêves by Philippe Conticini - The taste is classic but Conticini uses good ingredient and pushes them to the limited, resulting in very intense flavour, never dull. Vanilla grand cru, Mille feuilles, Paris Brest, Tiramisu, noisette are some of my favourite.

Those 2 are important chefs, their work influenced the new young star chefs of today.

I like some of Christophe Michalak’s pastry, especially his yuzu lemon tart discussed in up thread, but they are only available in big cake portion. To avoid, his “jar” pastry, too expensive and plain.

Cyril Lignac pastries are quite even, good baba au rhum and lemon tart.

I must say, they are all expensive, maybe Yann Menguy’s La Goutte d’Or (18e which is quite close to Gare du Nord), the pastries are mostly between 5 and 6 euro.

As for the others, it depends a lot what you like. If you like choux pastry, you should try l’éclair de Génie of Christophe Adam. Since you are based in Gare du Nord, you can go to Gallery Lafayette gourmet in the 9e and try out several of them (Pierre Hermé, Café Pouchkine, l’Éclair de Génie, Jean-Paul Hevin, Sadaharu AOKI). Another shop I recommend is Fou de Patisserie (45 Rue Montorgueil, Paris 2e), they have a good selection of different chefs in 1 place, saving you time to go to different shops.

Avoid cakes from bread bakery, they are much cheaper but usually inferior. Brioche and viennoiseries are fine.

If you live in Gare du Nord, the bread bakery Du Pain et Des Idées (34 Rue Yves Toudic, 75010) is not too far, their bread have strong character.

[BoneAppetite]

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-paris-best-pastries/

[BigWoodenSpoon (Angela T Carlson)]

A million thank yous! I will pass along your list to my family as places to check out.

[naf]

Generally agree with the list. (I haven’t tried Sebastien Gaudard and Odette.)

Du Pain et des idées
Besides éscargots chocolate and pistachio, the apple tart there was quite good too. A few photos from my last visit last month.

Stohrer
More traditional pastries and cakes, you can have some real finds that exist in other regions in France.

Angelina
Maybe the only one on the list that I don’t agree with. I found their Mont Blanc too sweet and heavy, had difficulty in finishing it. I think @klyeoh had made a similar comment.

[Kuala Lumpur] New Japanese Eateries at Isetan, Lot 10

Henri Charpentier, the Japanese-French patisserie, serves up one of the best green tea matcha Swiss rolls I’d ever tasted anywhere! [image] The Mont Blanc here was marvellous, better than the Parisian version at Angelina’s, Capitol Piazza in Singapore, which I had recently. But the chestnut puree is still too sweet for my (personal) taste. [image] A good selection of cakes to choose from, all air-flown from Japan. [image] [image] [image]

[Kuala Lumpur] New Japanese Eateries at Isetan, Lot 10

naf - it’s the same thing, but Angelina’s was waaaay too sweet. This one I had a couple of months back when I was back in Singapore on home leave. [image] The one from Henri Charpentier has a creamier centre, and also a marron glace embedded inside.

I preferred Claire Heitzler’s Ladurée version.

Note that except Angelina, Mont Blanc is usually a pastry on sale around November and December each year.
(Claire Heizler has announced in end of March quitting Ladurée after 2 years at the post of Creation Chef, Yann Menguy has stayed 1 year. Looks like nobody wants this “prestigious” job…)

[naf]

You are welcome!

Here are some more pastry shops that has good reputation that I haven’t visited yet.

Café Pouchkine (Nina Métayer) - 2e, 8e and 9e
Patisserie Yann Couvreur - 4e and 10e
Karamel (Nicolas Haelewyn) - 7e
Jacque Genin - 3e and 7e - his lemon tart with the right acidity and lightness was a reference for the generation of today, the classic tart used to be sweeter and quite heavy.
Hugo et Victor (Hugues Pouget) 7e
Pâtisserie Gilles Marchal - 18e
Sebastien Gaudard - 1er and 9e

[winecountrygirl (Gwenn)]

Is there a bad bakery in Paris? This pictures are so great! I’m drooling!

[naf]

Unfortunately there is nothing interesting in the walking distance of my home. I am not trying to be demanding, but they are just reheating frozen goods, nothing artisan.

[naf]

An article from le Figaro on best Baba au rhum in Paris. Usually the test by LF is quite reliable.

Criteria. We selected four, each scored on 5 points for a final score out of 20. Either the appearance of the cake and the cream (shape, color, shine), the texture (homogeneity of the dough, consistency, freshness), the taste (balance in sugar, alcohol, quality and freshness of the cream, the dough) and finally the price-quality ratio. The babas of our test ranged from € 3.10 to € 8. This last criterion, taking into account these very large price differences, allowed us to weight the three previous ones.

Top 10 (out of 20)

The whole article is here, translation by google.

The Top 20 is here.

Original article (in French):

Les meilleurs babas au rhum de Paris

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Another article on Top 10 Baba au rhum by l’Express:
Article translated by google: here

Original article (in French):

Les 10 meilleurs babas au rhum de Paris

[naf]

Best kouign-amanns in Paris by le Figaro.

Criteria. We have selected four, each scored on 5 points, for our final out of 20. Either the appearance (shape, color of the cake and caramelized crust …), the taste (freshness and balance butter-sugar-caramel), the texture (soft and crisp, finesse of puff pastry, correctness of cooking) and finally the price-quality ratio. The price of kouign-amanns ranged from 1.40 € to 3.50 €. Differences sufficiently significant for this last criterion to weight the three preceding ones.

Top 10 (out of 20)

The whole article is here.

Top 20 is here. Both link is translated by Google.

Original article (in French) is here:

Les meilleurs kouign-amanns de Paris

[naf]

Another best of list! This time is top 10 Flans in Paris by l’Express.

Google translation: here

Les meilleurs flans de Paris