Bathazar tartlettes

I'm not sure there's anything better than the warm chocolate cake at my all-time favorite restaurant, Balthazar...

Except maybe the strawberry rhubarb tartlette: the jammiest, sweetest, warmest tart, served with creme fraiche ice cream. It's served only as a special, so get it while you can.

Provencal tarts

I mean, how perfect is this? You couldn’t stage a display of freshly baked fruit tarts from the South of France any better if you tried.

There I was, strolling through Avignon, minding my own business, when I saw this.

Rhubarb, pear, chocolate hazelnut, deliciousness.

Look at this sea of blueberries. Hubba hubba!

The strawberry tart didn’t look so bad either.

Little slices of sunshine, aren’t they.

Sunday tea and macarons

Carette is a beautiful art deco salon de thé that’s been at Place du Trocadero for over 80 years. But this I didn’t know until Carol told me when we were sitting at the new Marais location. Whereas the original establishment is riche et royale, where we were perched was quite casual; the perfect spot from which to watch the world sashay by. (And sashay they did, these incorrigible Frenchies.)

So, a Sunday tea date. What might accompany my pot of thé de menthe?

I stole a look inside to let the taste buds start percolating. Strawberry and rhubarb tart with these naughty-looking crunchy bits?

Raspberry gateau? A hedonistic slice of rich, dark chocolate cake?

I’ve found I like things that begin with C. And so I got the classic cherry clafoutis (I even made this lovely custardy dessert once).



Carol ordered un chocolat. Trop modest, I thought, until I saw what she’d been up to earlier in the day.

All around us, people were indulging in plates of vibrantly-colored macarons.

Pistachio, cassis, café, lemon, vanilla, raspberry, rose…

As soon as Carol saw the colors, there was no going back. We went inside so she could buy a box.

A beautiful hot pink box! Filled with macarons!

I was very jealous, and contented myself with admiring the macaron displays.


(And plotting my return to get a box myself.)

New macaron flavors that make me happy

When you live in Paris, you can't help but fall in love with macarons. And with so many incredible flavor combinations—peach and ginger; litchi, rose and raspberry; caramel with salted butter—there is always something new to tickle your taste buds. Even though I’ve done considerable research and tasting, last weekend I sampled two brand new flavors that I loved.

The first was at Rachel Khoo’s dinner party. You might look at the lovely tray of petit green delights and think, Pistachio? Passionfruit? Green apple?


Wrong, wrong and wrong. Rachel made savory macarons: wasabi and olive. I didn’t try the olive one as I was saving my appetite for the five-course extravaganza that was ahead of us, but the wasabi macaron was delicious. The same delicate and creamy, moist but crisp texture, but it was a mouthful of savory instead of sweet. Surprising in a good way.

The next day I had lunch at Gaya and, after indulging in the heavenly chocolate praliné cake with rhubarb and hazelnut salted caramel ice cream (seriously)…

… we got a lovely little plate of petite fours, including macarons in another flavor that, shockingly, I’ve never seen or sampled: mint.


There is much to love in this city.

Crumbling at Les Deux Abeilles

Two years ago, when I visited Paris for the first time ever in summer, I was Velib’ing down rue de l'Université, when I slammed on the brakes and practically flew over my handlebars. The cause for this moment of graceless drama? The cakes and tarts beckoning from the window of Les Deux Abeilles.

This darling family-run tea salon is everything you envision a darling family-run tea salon to be: decorated with floral wallpaper and antique furniture and filled with warmth and light; run by a lovely, friendly staff that makes you feel at home; and, most important, a menu filled with homemade tarts and crumbles and cakes and scones, served alongside pots of tea or glasses of ginger lemonade.


I know all of this now since I finally made it back there for an afternoon indulgence.

Two years was worth the wait.

Out of all the irresistible-looking desserts, I came really, really close to selecting the pear-praliné clafoutis, which waved to me like a moist and dense, satisfying glimpse of heaven. I was also tempted by the tall, airy domes on the lemon meringue tart and the towering crust that surrounded the cheesecake.



But after a very laborious decision, I opted for the rhubarb-apple crumble.

It was served with a side of fresh whipped cream, and I ate it with French Vogue opened to the gorgeous Kate Moss spread. This was intended to inspire me not to finish the whole serving.


But it didn’t work. I crumbled (hardy har) and cleaned my plate.

189, rue de l'Université, 7eme

January Tour: A hop, skip and a cupcake

One street, three must-eat sweet spots. But since three seems a bit of a gyp compared to the gluttony of other months (well, it is January my friends, the month of great, big healthy intentions), all you have to do is pop around the corner for one last take-home indulgence—the icing on the cake, if you will.

Start at 35, rue Rambuteau. If you know your chocolate makers, you’ll know this is Pralus not by the claret red storefront but by the rainbow of colors of the chocolate pyramids (why they’re called pyramids instead of blocks, I’m not sure, seeing as they consist of 10 squares) and pink-spotted brioche (the famous “praluline”) in the window. The chocolate bars’ colored wrappings correspond to the origin of the cocoa beans. Aqua is from Cuba, violet, from Ghana, mustard yellow is from Indonesia. The pink in the brioche is from the (dyed) Piémont hazelnuts and Valencia almonds that are roasted, crushed and then baked into the sweet, buttery brioche. With either treat, it’s not the colors but the taste that matters (duh), and the flavors are indeed vibrant and delicious.

Speaking of color, a few doors down (23, rue Rambuteau) is the brash cupcake maker, Berko. They weren’t the first to seize the American trend in Paris, but they’re certainly the loudest. Crimson red, hot pink, florescent green, polka dots, gumdrops, chocolate swirls, cookie chunks—these cupcakes cause strollers to suffer from whiplash on the sidewalks every day. Other treats are equally colorful (and sinful), including cheesecake, custardy tarts and caramel-doused shortbread bars.

Jump to the other side of rue Rambuteau, where another patisserie creates sidewalk bottlenecks. Pain de Sucre, which was opened in 2004 by two pastry chefs, is the haute patisserie of the street. Great big, square tarts of rhubarb and raspberry are accented with rosemary; tablettes of chocolate are studded with wild strawberries or whole hazelnuts; and the perfect rows of macarons include flavors like elderflower, lime, chocolate mint and cherry-pistachio.

To bookend this short but sweet tour in chocolate, turn right onto rue des Archives for a visit to Jadis et Gourmande (39 rue des Archives). More gimmicky fun than serious artistry, this Parisian chocolate shop (one of five in the city) has chocolate Eiffel Towers, chocolate plaques that spell out P-A-R-I-S as well as delicious disks of milk and dark chocolate that are topped with dried fruit or nuts.