Founded in 1761, A la Mère de Famille, is Paris’s oldest sweets shop. With its period exterior and furnishings, the store on rue du Faubourg Montmartre is like a time capsule, filled with traditional sweets of all kinds: artisanal chocolates, jams, candied fruit, calissons, marrons glacés and teas from around the world line its shelves [...]

Founded in 1802, Maison Dalloyau is one of the oldest pastry shops in Paris. Charles Dalloyau, personal chef to King Louis XIV, was the first in a long line of Dalloyau family members to master the art of pâtisserie, long before the company that bears the family name was born. In fact, the Dalloyau family’s descendants [...]

Since its launch one year ago, Sébastien Gaudard’s Pâtisserie des Martyrs (9th arr.) has made a name for itself serving up traditional French pastries in its lovely vintage locale. (The store is located in the premises of the former Pâtisserie Seurre, one of the oldest in Paris.) For the Yuletide season, Chef Gaudard, named “Best Pastry Chef [...]

For Valentine’s Day 2012, Dalloyau has created his and hers gourmand pastries: Valentine & Valentin, a tasty duo of religieuses, the round éclairs first invented in 1856 at the Café Frascati in Paris. The Frascati, an upscale establishment immortalised in the works of Honoré de Balzac and Alexandre Dumas, was located at the corner of [...]

The famous Paris pâtisserie Ladurée is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. To mark this milestone, the company has launched a line-up of spectacular desserts and pastries — one for every month. The sweets, created under the direction of Ladurée head pastry chef Vincent Lemains, will be unveiled one at a time, throughout 2012. January’s [...]

Paris’s oldest sweets shop, A la Mère de Famille, is one of the city’s most famous historic shops. Founded in 1761, the flagship store on rue du Faubourg Montmartre has been operating in the same location for more than 250 years. Both the exterior façade and the interior décor date from the 18th century. A [...]

With its origins dating back to 1682, Dalloyau has been making exquisite cakes and pastries for more than 300 years. The renowned Parisian pastry shop, chocolatier and caterer today has several stores in Paris as well as boutiques in Japan, Korea, Dubai and Doha. For this year’s holiday collection the theme is gold and light, [...]

Macaron lovers in New York will be happy to know that legendary Parisian pastry shop Ladurée has announced plans to open a store in that city as early as this summer, according to press reports. Founded in Paris in 1862 by Louis-Ernest Ladurée, the company is notably famous for inventing the double-sided macaron that has [...]

Fouquet (no relation to the restaurant of the same name) was founded in 1852 on rue Lafitte. It is one of Paris’s oldest sweets shops. The Chambeau-Mimard family took over the business in the early 1900s, and it has remained in their hands ever since, passing from one generation to another. The second store, on [...]

Chocolatier Alain Furet has been at the helm of this venerable sweets shop, founded by the Tanrade family in 1728, for the last two decades. He took over the business when the last generation of Tanrade family members retired in 1987. After working for Gaston Lenôtre and Maison Boissier, another long-established Parisian sweets shops, today [...]

Paris’s oldest sweet shop, founded in 1761 and still operating in its original location, is a marvellous little store that hasn’t changed much over the past 250 years. Here, chocolate lovers will find ice cream in several enticing flavors, among them chocolate sorbet, chocolate-mint, and chocolate with candied orange and a hint of vodka. Of [...]

This little shop from another era has been open in the same location since 1730. Its founder, Nicolas Stohrer, invented the delicious rum-soaked cakes called baba au rhum. Stohrer was the personal pastry chef of Marie Leszczynska, the daughter of Poland’s King Stanislas (1677-1766), later Duke of Lorraine. When Marie married France’s King Louis XV [...]

This elegant pastry shop, boulangerie and restaurant located just steps from the Assemblée Nationale, in one of the city’s poshest neighbourhoods, is a Paris institution. Open in this location since 1859, Rollet-Pradier offers classic pastries and chocolates, as well as sandwiches and other light snacks. On the upper floor there’s a tearoom, which also serves [...]

The store on rue Royale dates back to 1862, when founder Louis-Ernest Ladurée opened a bakery, which, following a fire in 1871, he transformed into a pastry shop. Louis-Ernest’s wife, Jeanne Souchard, hit upon the idea of combining a café with the pastry shop, and one of Paris’s first tea rooms was born. The company’s [...]

The Debauve & Gallais chocolate shop on rue des Saint-Pères, near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, has been operating in the same location for almost 200 years. The boutique’s legendary wood-panelled interior and semicircular chocolate counter are truly awe-inspring. The chocolates themselves, not overly sweetened, according to French tradition, are amazing, if expensive. Debauve & Gallais’ signature items include [...]