Paris: Ladurée Pattiserie & Tearoom

On our first day in Paris, we don’t have much of a plan. We dump our bags in the hotel and fly out the revolving doors into the avenue of Champs-Élysées. The avenue is perennially jammed (and Parisian drivers aren’t the most genteel, no matter how pretty they sound when they speak).  

With the Arc De Triomphe at its west end, the iconic avenue is one of the most expensive in the world and the most stunning tribute to consumerism (probably sacrilegious to label it as such). It’s 2km long and filled with every luxury designer store and eatery you can think of, and lined by horse chestnut trees clipped into squares – that’s the one of the first things we notice, that the trees in Paris are square.  

 

We’re hungry, so we nip into the prettiest tearoom we see, which just so happens to be Ladurée, Paris’s first and grandest luxury patisserie and tearoom established as far back as 1862. It was one of the first few places in the city where groups of women would meet for tea – that’s saying something back in the 1900s when women weren’t even allowed to go out without male companions.

Image courtesy of www.alifewortheating.com

We step into Ladurée and there’s a round of ooh’s and aah’s – low-hanging lights cast a soft glow over the customers queuing up at the pastry counter. A closer look shows why …

Image courtesy of www.alifewortheating.com

… gorgeous, too pretty to be eaten.

I bet they’re buying them to have them framed up at home.

Anyways, we decide to have a quick bite and soon find out that the most elegant tearoom in Paris doesn’t exactly have the most efficient service. The room is packed to the brim and cramped – think elbow battles and heavy eavesdropping. It takes forever for the waiter to attend to us despite several attempts to attract his attention. Obviously, he doesn’t particularly care that we’re starving to death. Maybe it isn’t terribly fashionable to be starving to death in Paris.

When he finally does come, we discover that he understands no English – not surprising, of course. Luckily, the menu is translated into English (not all restaurants in Paris offer the same benefit) and we have to do a lot of pointing to get our orders across. He doesn’t crack even the faintest smile.

It takes forever for the food to come. The bill takes forever too.

Despite the rather lukewarm first-time experience, we decide to breakfast there the next day after hearing a local wax rapturous about it. Well, it is the most famous patisserie in Paris. Just as everybody knows that the best ice-cream in the city is Berthillon …

… a French luxury ice-cream and sorbet that’s found at every corner …

like here …

… here …

… and here, the best pastries can be found at Ladurée. And since we’d pretty much do anything for a sugar high (including suffering the indignities of being pooh-poohed at by a stony-faced waiter), we decide to give Ladurée another go.

When we arrive the next morning, we are directed to the breakfast area (Stone Face is nowhere to be seen) situated in another section of the tearoom. It’s like entering an underwater world almost … with its soothing shades of celadon and shimmering glass windows. You feel totally cut off from the outside and can easily lose track of time in here if you’re not careful.

 

We order the breakfast set …

… and this glorious slice of cake – I forget the name – with its layers of cream and caramelised biscuit in some sort of cappuccino flavour. It is sinful. And therefore utterly delicious. I fight the urge to order another slice. Instead, we join the line to buy some pastries to go – we get a bunch of stuff plus, of course, what they’re most famous for: macaroons!

Buying macaroons anywhere other than Ladurée when you’re in Paris is considered brutish and sacrilegious. The confection comes in every imaginable flavour – coffee, rose, blackcurrant, caramel, lemon … the list is endless. Our plan is to stuff ourselves silly, then sashay it off. That’s how French women stay skinny, so we figure we’d give it a go too. (The scale proves this method futile – a horrifying fact I discover only two days later and therefore, too late).

Ladurée can also be found in London (we spot it in Harrods), Geneva and Tokyo – definitely worth checking out. Maybe I’ll manage to get better pictures next time round.