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.
