A one-two chocolate punch

Jean-Paul Hévin, Patrick Roger, Un Dimanche à Paris… I was certainly getting around to my favorite chocolatiers during my last weeks in Paris. But in the very last few days, I made visits to two brand new chocolatiers: Chloe Chocolat and Franck Kestener.

My own copy of Chloé Doutre-Roussel’s bible, The Chocolate Connoisseur (2005), is a tattered, stained mess from all the bonbons I consumed while reading about Criollo trees and the tempering process. And when I spoke with Chloé at the Salon du Chocolat in October about the chocolate salon she was opening dangerously close to my apartment, needless to say I was as giddy as a kid in a candy shop. She debuted her two-story sliver of a salon just days before my departure, so I got to sit and chat with her and taste some mighty good chocolate.

What distinguishes Chloé—aside from being the former chocolate buyer for Fortnum & Mason and one of the very few female pros in an industry dominated by men—is how no-nonsense she is. She doesn’t scold about cocoa percentages or eschew milk chocolate for dark. She doesn’t make you feel like a chump for liking chocolate even if it’s not wrapped up from a “beans to bar” artisan or stamped with organic approval. “Don’t worry about where the beans come from,” she insists. “When you buy chocolate, you’re buying an emotional experience; it’s sensory.” Ah oui, merci!



That’s not to say she’s not on a crusade to make the world filled with better chocolate and more appreciation for it. Indeed, the intent of her new Marais home is to school both amateurs and connoisseurs through classes ranging from an introduction to chocolate to comprehensive international trends. She also offers two-and-a-half-hour walking tours that pay visits to some of the city’s most prestigious chocolatiers. And, once you’ve worked up a chocolate appetite, she offers milk and dark chocolate tablettes (in adorable packaging), both of which are divine and can be paired with carefully selected teas.

Across town, Meilleur Ouvrier de France Chocolatier, Franck Kestener offers a different, more decadent chocolate experience. It’s a posh shop near the Luxembourg Gardens, peddling marzipan, macarons, mendiants and more.



I went straight for his ganache-filled bonbons, which come in a beautiful and inspired range of flavors, from buttery tarte tatin to crisp mint to fruity juniper.

I saved my square of Atlantique—shortbread and salted caramel, topped with 66% dark chocolate—for the plane ride home, but piggishly ate two Nuages while strolling the streets of the sixth arrondissement.

Another one of the young chocolatier’s specialties, these treats look like cannelés but are filled with a light and fluffy whipped chocolate marshmallow.

It’s been over three weeks since those visits. My cupboard is finally depleted of the bars and bonbons I brought home with me. I think I need another Parisian chocolate run, don't you?

A last hurrah at Boulangerie Julien

They’re about as naughty as they look: praline brioche pastry, there on the left, and the chocolate-pistachio option on the right. filled with cream.

As fond as my experiences had been at Boulangerie Julien, I had to go back for one last breakfast run.

The praline brioche was much more subtle.

But then again, with the number of chocolate chips in the other, how could the chocolate pistachio be considered anything but over the top?

Cherry pistachio crumble from Eric Kayser

I am a sucker for a good crumble. But what I’ve learned is that a good crumble needs to be warm. It needs to be fresh. It needs to be balanced between the oozing fruit base and a melting, scattered topping. The fruits should lend tartness; the topping, sweetness.


Ergo, while Eric Kayser can do little wrong in my book, I think the crumbles are best left to tea salons and restaurants that can serve them from a big, oven-heated dish in which the juices and sugars are all baked together in one beautiful melty mess.

You know you’re in Paris in January when…

Every boulangerie and patisserie is peddling les galettes de rois.

Beautiful, delicious galettes de rois!


Thursday, January sixth is the Day of Epiphany in France, which is celebrated virtually all month with wonderful galettes des rois.


They're quite simple: essentially frangipane (almond cream) inside pâte feuilletée (flaky puff pastry), made in different sizes, usually round though sometimes square.

Some patissiers also add chocolate or fruit or alcohol, but it's always a recipe for deliciousness.

La Folie at La Patisserie des Reves

It’s true: craziness! As this lovely little baked good's name implies, it is sheer madness.

It may not look like much, standing there, properly lined up on the shelf with its peers.

But take it home and tear into it. Madness, I promise you!

The doughy, whipped brioche is densely construed and piped with thick vanilla pastry cream with just a titch of rum raisin.

All topped with praliné crumble and a touch of confectioner’s sugar.

I would kill to have a slice of Conticini’s 66-euro holiday buche.

But for two euro and some change, La Folie one of the best sweets—and craziest deals—I’ve had in a long time.

Dessert Blitz: rice pudding that will, I swear, convert you

Soon, I will be back in New York. I, of course, have mixed feelings about this. But one thing is for sure: I still have a lot of sweets to get through.

If you’re like me, rice pudding isn’t exactly the dessert of dreams. It doesn’t get my heart racing or make my stomach do cartwheels. But that started changing when Bennie ordered the rice pudding at Café Constant. It was exquisite. And then on a more recent visit to Chez l’Ami Jean, my esteem for rice pudding as one of the best all-around dessert options was solidified.

Of course everything at Chez l’Ami Jean is a little bigger and more decadent so the rice pudding was not a modest little boule. In fact, one serving—what you’re looking at—could easily feed a family of four.

Especially with the whipped salted caramel cream and candied granola it’s served with.



Tell me if there’s anything you want to sample vicariously through me… it would be a honor. And my pleasure.

Un Dimanche à Paris

One Sunday in Paris, I had good reason to visit Pierre Cluizel’s new chocolate salon.

Naturally, I was expecting a lovely chocolatier; one that would do his papa proud.

But I didn’t realize it would also be a salon de thé.

With event space.

And two kitchens: one for classes…

…and the other where the patisseries and desserts are made.

Indeed, it’s the first “chocolate concept store” the clerk explained to me, as I ogled the beautiful interior design…

…the rows and boxes of bonbons…



… the shelves stocked aplenty with truffles and tablettes, mendiants and chocolate-covered orange rinds.


I didn’t have any macarons or mini éclairs...

... but of course when I saw a chocolate chip cookie—made with all three chocolates: white, milk and dark—I had to sample.

The great search for le meiux in all of Paris continues.

But I will definitely be back to Un Dimanche another day for chocolaty treats before leaving Paris.

Cinnamon bun breakfast at Sugarplum cake shop

I’ve been keen to go to Sugarplum for some time now. A New Yorker emailed me with the hot tip of the new American-style cafe/bakery opening months ago and I know Melissa at Prete-Moi Paris is a huge fan.

But what can I say? I sometimes get lazy about going to a new arrondissement, especially when there is so much deliciousness in my own quartier.

But finally, with the excuse of meeting beautiful Britta of My Black Book on a snowy Saturday morning, I went. And now, of course, I’m kicking myself that it took so long.

Just look at this place:


Cakes, cookies, cupcakes!


Cinnamon buns, muffins, scones!


Pie, tarts and Hello Dollies!


It’s heaven.

Britta and I were both suckered by the giant cinnamon buns as Laurel told us they were the most recent items to be pulled from the oven.


Dense and warm, with a slightly sour cream cheese frosting, it was brilliant.

Our order didn’t stop Laurel from also generously sharing some cake with us: one was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and the other was a tart and lovely vanilla cake with lemon curd.

Both were delicious, as expected.

But now my big mission before leaving Paris is to get across town again to sample those chocolate chip cookies.