Why haven't I reviewed Ladurée before? Surely everyone's been there? Well, not me. Until last week.
This is the place where Ladies who Lunch lunch in Paris. Ladurée is well-known as the home of the most famous macarons in Paris. Macarons are nothing like 'macaroons' and hardly a visitor goes home without one of their little duck-egg-blue patisserie boxes. Where we see a fairly dry tea biscuit, the French see high art. A Ladurée macaron is two light, meringue-y cakes stuck together with a layer of creamy goo, and it comes in any flavour from caramel au beurre salé (salty butter-caramel) to citron-basilic (lime/basil). Some of them taste as powdery as they look: violette is like perfume, almost like eating your own lipstick. But then Ladurée did produce a range of lipgloss for Sephora. And somehow I love food that tastes a little like non-food. For the full effect, choose a plateful of the mini-versions from the counter downstairs.
Head upstairs to the shady tearoom on the upper floor and, after your decadent Ladurée signature club sandwich with foie gras, your waitress will bring up your little plate of heaven along with your pot of Oolong.
Favourite flavours below, please!
...Or imaginary flavours (I recently read an interview with Laduree's chief patissier in which he said he dreamt of creating a carrot-hazlenut macaron. He also gave a basic recipe and I actually had a go at making macarons at home, with surprising, though not completely elegant, success).
21, rue Bonaparte, 75006, Métro: St Germain, tel : 01.44.07.64.87






Recent Comments