Sweet pleasures of Paris

This one calls to me from behind the glass at patissier Pierre Herme’s thronged Paris shop on the Rue Bonaparte. It’s a study in elegant, precise strata: layers of hazelnut dacquoise; crunchy praline mixed with crushed hazelnuts, Piemontese hazelnut paste and La Viette butter; and chocolate ganache and milk chocolate Chantilly cream sandwiched between fine sheaves of chocolate. One of Herme’s classics, it’s an over-the-top dessert aptly named “plaisir sucre.”

Which is exactly why I’ve come to Paris--for all of its plaisirs sucres, or sweet pleasures. Because what is Paris but pastries?

Call it an obsession: I seek out vanilla-flecked custard, chocolate ganache, dense little cakes soaked in orange-blossom-scented syrup and rolled in coarse sugar, slabs of griotte cherry clafouti, macarons filled with peach-apricot-saffron buttercream. It’s a spur-of-the-moment trip, an I-need-good-brioche-and-I-need-it-now sort of a trip. And because of a canceled flight, I have only a few days. But the moment is right--the city is enjoying a new wave of patisseries. Herme plans to open not one but two more Paris boutiques by the end of the year. Famed patissier Philippe Conticini is back on the scene with a tiny new shop, Exceptions Gourmandes, in the Marais district. Upstarts such as Herme alum Claire Damon (Des Gateaux et du Pain), Fabrice Le Bourdat of Le Bristol (Ble Sucre) and former Pierre Gagnaire pastry chefs Didier Mathray and Nathalie Robert (Pain de Sucre) have launched their own patisseries.

My strategy is to focus on the patisseries of the Left Bank because the highest concentration of the best and the most inventive are in the 6th and 7th arrondissements. I’m traveling alone because I don’t want to be slowed down; for maximum efficiency, I map out clusters of pastry and chocolate shops. You can keep your art, your fashion, your history. I’m here for the gateaux.

For the most part, I won’t need the Metro, a cab or even one of those Patrick Jouin-designed Velib’ (for velos libres--”free bikes”) that are all the rage. I’ll walk to (and off) my pastries, which makes me fearless in the face of butter, cream and sugar-induced calories. I’ve chosen a hotel with an ideal location at the edge of the 7th, on the Rue de Verneuil (the street where French pop legend Serge Gainsbourg once lived). I say ideal because it’s about equidistant from Boulangerie Kayser down the block and oh-so-popular-in-the-19th-century chocolatier Debauve & Gallais around the corner on Rue des St.-Peres. That means easy access to a breakfast of brioche or petit pain mendiant (a small loaf of bread studded with dates, almonds and hazelnuts) and cafe creme at Kayser, as well as one, or maybe two, of D&G;’s gold-foil-wrapped, chocolate-covered praline and nougatine pearls (its chocolates are very ancien regime chic).

St.-Germain-des-Pres’ winding, cobbled streets are lined with antiques stores, galleries and hard-to-resist boutiques (shoe-aholics, stay focused and avoid turning down the Rue de Grenelle). I plan a route between the Bon Marche (my favorite Paris department store, thanks to its extravagant Grande Epicerie food market) and the Jardin du Luxembourg. It’s a course that roughly follows the unassuming Rue d’Assas, a veritable chocolate-and-pastry row. Not far from the Bon Marche is La Maison du Chocolat, the house that Basque chocolatier--a.k.a. “sorcerer of ganache”--Robert Linxe built. I already know what I want: a box of seasonal, mellow Marroni chocolates filled with a delicate candied chestnut mousse and a few chocolate-covered, candied griottes, those French dark-juiced sour cherries that are everywhere these days--in cakes, compotes, macarons--popularly paired with pistachio, as in a tart smeared with pistachio paste and dotted with griottes.

At the legendary boulangerie Poilane, tucked into the north side of the Rue du Cherche-Midi, the morning crush jostles for croissants (better than at Kayser--they’re more buttery-tasting), little apple tarts and sourdough batons.

I want the punitions, or “punishments”--fine-textured, scallop-edged cookies made with three kinds of butter. I love that they’re called punishments. For what offense? I take samples from a basket--they’re buttery (of course), not too sweet and melt-in-your-mouth tender--and I buy a box for later, along with a miniature sourdough loaf studded with walnuts.

After lunch at Helene Darroze around the corner, in the restaurant’s salon (where I’m less impressed by several courses of tapas than by dessert--Armagnac-soaked baba with citrus sorbet and chestnuts from the Ardeche mountains), I stop at Christian Constant for gianduja-filled chocolates and at the shop of Jean-Charles Rochoux, protege of master chocolatier Michel Chaudun. A couple of well-coiffed ladies are cooing over his detailed chocolate sculptures--round-headed babies in various poses, a bust of Moliere, teddy bears in embrace, the Arc de Triomphe, a crocodile with its head reared and tail curled.

At Sadaharu Aoki, eager patrons are mesmerized by the Technicolor display of the Japanese pastry chef’s pristine desserts--domes of chocolate cake layered with ginger mousse and caramel, and large violet macarons filled with raspberries and Earl Grey creme brulee. Shopping in this starkly white boite is a stylishly distilled experience, Paris through the lens of pastry--elegant, modern, perfect--each green tea opera or black sesame eclair a symbol of joie de vivre. I wonder what it might be like to dive into one. I mean literally--crashing through the thin, brittle wafer of a meringue-topped tart and landing in all that soft, luscious pastry cream.

At the Jardin du Luxembourg, I find a bench where a cranky-looking, gray-haired boule player takes a seat next to me. He looks me up and down, then mutters something in French that I think means “nice macarons.” I am not inclined to share.

The next day, I wake up not grossed out, but reinvigorated. My hotel room is littered with chocolate wrappers, chic boxes of bonbons and butter-soaked bags of half-eaten croissants. Still, I want more. So (after coffee and a canele at Kayser) I trek east a mile and a half across the 7th, past the National Assembly, through the Esplanade des Invalides and into Michel Chaudun’s tiny corner chocolate shop on the Rue de l’Universite. A relaxing vacation? Mais non! Pastry is serious business.

Chaudun’s shop is crammed with chocolate sculptures of soccer balls, Hermes bags, sausages, a sphinx. His paves are tiny cubes of silky ganache dusted with cocoa, so delicate that you use a tiny wooden skewer included in the box to pick them up. The saleswoman tells me I should eat them within 10 days. Ha--it won’t take 10 minutes.

On the Rue Jean-Nicot, just past the Bellota-Bellota store packed with Spanish jamon, Patisserie-Boulangerie Secco is stacked with croissants, lemon tarts, fluted vanilla cakes and cheesecake. Neighborhood office workers drop in for lunch--quiches; pissaladieres, or pizza slices, covered with caramelized onions, anchovies and olives; and gratin dauphinois with thinly sliced potatoes, cream and Gruyere.

I ask for a slice of the pissaladiere “chaud” (heated), walk down the Rue St.-Dominique and do that non-French thing of eating on the street. It’s so warm and delicious that I don’t notice that I’ve dropped a glove until a passerby taps me on the shoulder and hands it to me. I head a little farther east and am rewarded with a sudden view of the Eiffel Tower. I love Paris!

What is it about marshmallows (guimauves) that so captivates the French? They’re everywhere. As I make one more pastry run before dinner in the 6th, I find them at Pierre Marcolini’s polished boutique on the Rue de Seine. The Belgian chocolatier is known for the refined, subtle flavors of his bonbons, but just as delicious are his chocolate-covered guimauves. They’re fantastic--a thin coating of dark, crisp chocolate covers the vanilla-scented marshmallow. At the even-older-than-Debauve & Gallais confiserie A la Mere de Famille, they tie long strands of them in knots. At Pain de Sucre in the Marais, they’re displayed in big glass vases in several flavors or served on a stick like a lollipop or even en brochette (skewered).

Down the street on the Rue de Seine is Gerard Mulot. Everyone has their favorite macarons (Laduree’s, Pierre Herme’s and so on), and the macarons at Mulot are mine. They have a crisp exterior and dense interior, the perfect amount of filling and a deep, dark chocolate flavor. A luscious lemon tart is only 3.25 euros--$5 for a slice of Paris!

The near-closing-time crowd at Pierre Herme is jockeying for (yet more) macarons--25-year-aged balsamic vinegar, black truffle, fleur de sel caramel, olive oil with vanilla. I slip into the store just before the silk curtain is drawn over the sliding glass door, and then I see them--rows of chocolate and foie gras macarons--really beautiful red macarons burnished with gold dust and filled with chocolate ganache and a daub of foie gras in the center. As weird as they are, I can’t resist them, as well as the intensely flavored rose-raspberry-litchi pate de fruit (despite already having loaded up on pate de fruit--and lime caramels--earlier at Patrick Roger) and one of the plaisirs sucres. (Herme also has the best croissants in Paris, according to Le Figaro, which determines such things.)

By the time I get to dinner at the bistro Le Gorille Blanc, I’m so hungry from all that walking and carrying bags of pastries (marshmallows can get heavy, if you tote enough of them) that I order a terrine de canard (duck terrine), a lentil salad with pork-cheek confit and duck confit croustillant with sauteed potatoes. Yes, it’s great to eat something savory. But what I really want is, you know, dessert. The problem is, I can’t decide which to order. Shall I have the croustade, layers of buttery filo filled with apples and Armagnac-soaked prunes? Or an apple-topped flognarde with Calvados?

Well, I have so little time left in Paris. I have both. Sans regret.

--

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Address book

6th ARRONDISSEMENT

Christian Constant

37 Rue d’Assas; 01-53-63-15-15,

www.christianconstant.com

Gerard Mulot 76 Rue de Seine; 01-43-26-85-77,

www.gerardmulot.com

Jean-Charles Rochoux

16 Rue d’Assas; 01-42-84-29-45,

www.jcrochoux.fr

La Maison du Chocolat

19 Rue de Sevres*; 01-45-44-20-40,

www.lamaisonduchocolat.com

Patrick Roger 108 Boulevard St. Germain*;

01-43-29-38-42, www.patrickroger.com

Pierre Herme

72 Rue Bonaparte*; 01-43-54-47-77,

www.pierreherme.com

Pierre Marcolini

86 Rue de Seine; 01-44-07-39-07,

www.marcolinichocolatier.com

Poilane

8 Rue du Cherche-Midi*;

01-45-48-42-59, www.poilane.fr

Sadaharu Aoki

35 Rue de Vaugirard*; 01-45-44-48-90,

www.sadaharuaoki.com

7th ARRONDISSEMENT

Debauve & Gallais

30 Rue des St.-Peres*;

01-45-48-54-67, www.debauveandgallais.com

Boulangerie Kayser

18 Rue du Bac*;

01-42-61-27-63,

www.maison-kayser.com

Michel Chaudun

149 Rue de l’Universite;

01-47-53-74-40

Patisserie-Boulangerie Secco

20 Rue Jean Nicot;

01-43-17-35-20

WHERE TO STAY

Hotel Verneuil

8 Rue de Verneuil

(7th arrondissement);

01-42-60-82-14,

www.hotel-verneuil.com

Doubles start at $263.

* and other locations