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The Best Macarons in Paris

By Paris Defined Magazine
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The Best Macarons in Paris

Aaaaaah, macarons. These ultra-famous, round little suckers were indeed invented in Paris (and life has not been the same for anyone since). Some *will* try to convince you they are Italian, but that’s just a fake news — VIIIth century edition. 

While vast majority of places offer only the sweet version of the macarons,  I found a savory version once, filled with blood sausage, at l’Avant-Comptoir at Odéon. Dare to taste it! In the meantime, reach a ~macaron nirvana~ by following the list below. Just do us all a favour and don’t ever call it « sandwich cookies » again. That’s a blasphemy we won’t tolerate in here.

Stohrer

This place holds the title for the old­est bak­ery in Paris. Opened in 1730, they are still con­sid­ered one of the best places to go get that French pas­try that you’ve always want­ed to try. You know those eclairs and mac­arons that you dream (and see Pin­ter­est pho­tos) about? They look extreme­ly sim­i­lar to the ones you can find at Stohrer. If you don’t mind the ele­vat­ed price (a quick reminder that you are in Paris and that in itself comes with a price), then this small bak­ery is the one for you.

ADDRESS: 51 Rue Mon­torgueil (2nd arr.)

MÉTRO: Éti­enne Mar­cel (line 4) or Sen­tier (line 3)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Les Halles

NUMBER: +33 1 42 33 38 20

INSTAGRAM: @stohrer

Le Lautrec Chocolatier

Are you a lit­tle bit crazy about mac­arons and you’re sure « you’ve had them all »? Or maybe you find the whole ~pump~ about those cook­ies obnox­ious? That’s when La Lautrec comes in. Here you can try fla­vors like Vio­lets, Bora Bora, or Cot­ton Can­dy (lit­er­al­ly called « dad’s beard » in French, which we all, as a col­lec­tive, decid­ed not to com­ment on). Their best fla­vors, how­ev­er, are ephemer­al, one for every month and each bet­ter than the for­mer: sheep cheese with cher­ries for April, straw­ber­ry moji­to for sum­mer months, mulled wine for Novem­ber… Thanks to Lautrec, every month is a new adventure.

ADDRESS: 60 Rue du Roi de Sicile (4th arr.)

METRO: Hôtel de Ville (lines 1 and 11)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Le Marais

NUMBER: +33 1 71 93 18 08

INSTAGRAM: @lelautrec

Pierre Hermé

Pierre Her­mé start­ed the new wave of cre­ative mac­arons, when it became obvi­ous that the mac­arons from Ladurée were becoming…ubiquitous. Now there are two camps: The tra­di­tion­al­ists who remain loy­al to Ladurée, and the bobos who lean more Pierre Her­mé. You should taste them both regard­less; and when at Pierre Her­mé, do not miss his sig­na­ture mac­aron fla­vor, the ‘Ispa­han’: a secret mix of rose, rasp­ber­ry and lychee flavors.

ADDRESS: 4 Rue Cam­bon (1st arr.) / 18 Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bre­ton­ner­ie (4th arr.) / 126 boule­vard Saint-Ger­main (6th arr.) / 43 rue Saint-Placide (6th arr.) / Place de la Résis­tance (7th arr.) / 1 cour de Rome (8th arr.) / 86 avenue des Champs-Elysées (8th arr.) / 133 avenue des Champs Elysées (8th arr.) / 40 boule­vard Hauss­mann (9th arr.) / Place Louis-Armand — Hall 1 Galeries des Fresques (12th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Arc de Tri­om­phe / Champs-Elysées / Concorde

NUMBER: +33 1 45 12 24 02

INSTAGRAM: @pierrehermeoffcial

Carette

The first Carette resto and tea room has appar­ent­ly opened way back in the 1920s and became an instant hit through the chic inhab­i­tants of Tro­cadéro quar­ter. Now, with three dif­fer­ent loca­tions around the city, it’s high­ly like­ly you’ll see at least one lucky per­son walk­ing with that beau­ti­ful magen­ta box full of mac­arons down the road. Carette has late­ly earned a cer­tain sta­tus on social media and is cur­rent­ly being flood­ed with tourists (espe­cial­ly in their Place de Vos­ges loca­tion), but this should­n’t dis­cour­age you, cer­tain­ly not from their great mac­arons. I always go for the black cur­rant or hazel­nut, but even the pain vanil­la is total­ly worth try­ing out. Don’t miss out on their hot choco­late, and if you’re feel­ing like grab­bing a bite, they def­i­nite­ly know their ways around the eggs as well.

ADDRESS: 25 Place des Vos­ges (3rd arr.) / 4 Place du Tro­cadéro et du 11 Novem­bre (16th arr.) / 7 Place du Tertre (18th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Haut Marais

NUMBER: +33 1 48 87 94 07

INSTAGRAM: @caretteofficiel

Hugo & Victor

The own­er and for­mer stu­dent of Guy Savoy, Hugues Pouget, rep­re­sents a new school of the mac­arons. He prides him­self in using only sea­son­al, region­al ingre­di­ents and nat­ur­al aro­mas and col­orants (which in case of mac­arons… well, is unfor­tu­nate­ly not always obvi­ous). Apart from  the mac­arons (the pome­lo and black cher­ry are your go-to), you should get some of their home­made marsh­mal­lows — your hot choco­late will nev­er be the same.

ADDRESS: 40 Boule­vard Ras­pail (7th arr.)

MÉTRO: Sèvres — Baby­lone (lines 10,12) or Saint Sulpice (line 4)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Sèvres — Babylone 

NUMBER:+33 1 44 39 97 73

INSTAGRAM: @hugovictor_paris

Pierre Marcolini

Bel­gian super-star Pierre Mar­col­i­ni is known for his choco­lats, but his mac­arons do not dis­ap­point either. With his shops all around the world, he def­i­nite­ly has a way of get­ting all the ingre­di­ents right at the source. While the fla­vor palette is pret­ty tra­di­tion­al (do not con­fuse with basic), def­i­nite­ly go for the sig­na­ture home-made choco­late (with a hint of vanil­la), or rasp­ber­ry with milk chocolate.

ADDRESS: 89 Rue de Seine (6th arr.) / Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées (8th arr.) 35 Boule­vard Hauss­mann (9th arr.) / 64 Rue du Com­merce (15th arr.) 

NEIGHBORHOOD:Champs-Elysées

INSTAGRAM: @pierremarcolini

Dalloyau

Dal­loy­au has a very posh his­to­ry. Found­ed in 1682 by Charles Dal­loy­au, who not only had the high­est gas­tron­o­my posi­tion in the French court (the com­pa­ny has occu­pied its Faubourg loca­tion since the ear­ly 1800s), but also invent­ed the con­cept of take­out (Oui/LOL). The House of Dal­loy­au also claims to have invent­ed the Opera cake.

Today Dal­loy­au oper­ates as a rather dis­tin­guished estab­lish­ment, com­posed of a restau­rant, gourmet gift ser­vice, recep­tion hall and bak­ery, while occu­py­ing sev­er­al loca­tions in Paris. There’s a rumor that, for the oral por­tion of your French Cit­i­zen­ship exam, if you can pro­nounce « Dal­loy­au » cor­rect­ly five times fast with a Parisian-lev­el of con­fi­dence, you are basi­cal­ly IN. Oh, and DO get their mac­arons while you are there.

ADDRESS: 9 Rue de la Mon­naie (1st arr.) / 101 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Hon­oré (8th arr.) / 35 boule­vard Hauss­mann (9th arr.) / Quai Hall Seine — Gare d’Austerlitz (13th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Champs-Élysées

NUMBER: +33 1 42 99 09 08

INSTAGRAM: @dalloyauparis

Fauchon

First, a bit of his­to­ry: Baby-faced Cédric Gro­let (he of Parisian pas­tries super-star fame), came up on the mean streets of the Fau­chon kitchens, where he was tasked with slav­ing away at the mac­aron dough mix­ers, a noto­ri­ous­ly bor­ing task. Since then, the mac­arons here do seem to have been blessed by the gold­en hands of Mon­sieur Gro­let, so don’t skip them.

ADDRESS: 11 Place de la Madeleine (8th arr.) / 35 Boule­vard Haus­mann (9th arr.) / 64 Boule­vard Haus­mann (9th arr.) / 18 Rue de Dunkerque (10th arr.) / 2 Place de la Porte Mail­lot (17th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Grands Boule­vards

NUMBER: +33 1 70 39 38 00

INSTAGRAM: @fauchon_paris

Ladurée

Ladurée is the grand-dad­dy of the mac­aron uni­verse. It’s hard NOT to find these mac­arons some­where. They’re even at the air­port. They are still good after all these years, but let’s face it: they are mass-pro­duced. The added bonus advan­tage of going for Ladurée is get­ting the eye-can­dy from those gild­ed tra­di­tion­al interiors.

ADDRESS:  14 Rue de Cas­tiglione (1st arr.) / 99 Rue de Riv­o­li Emplace­ment M11 (1st arr.) / 14 Rue de Bre­tagne (3rd arr.) / 21 Rue Bona­parte (6th arr.) / 47 Rue Cler (7th arr.) / 41–43 Rue de Varenne (7th arr.) / 75 Ave des Champs-Élysées (8th arr.) / 16 Rue Royale (8th arr.) /13 Rue Lin­coln (8th arr.) / 62 Bd Hauss­mann (9th arr.) / Gare de Lyon (12th arr.) / 15 Rue Linois (15th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Con­corde

NUMBER: +33 1 42 60 21 79

INSTAGRAM: @maisonladuree

Jean Paul Hevin

Not a lot of peo­ple treats choco­late as seri­ous­ly as JP Hevin. Every 3 months he picks one of his favourite and makes 3 new cre­ations out if it, one of them being a sweet sweet mac­aron. I won’t (and not plan­ning to) be objec­tive if I say that these are the most beau­ti­ful ones you can find in the whole city (or in Japan or Tai­wan for that mat­ter). With dou­ble coloured shells and names that can stand as sen­tences on it’s own, their taste is just like a small fire­work show but with taste buds. Check out all the cool mix­es or go for the sig­na­ture Grand Cru dark choco­late — worth every pen­ny you def­i­nite­ly *will* spend on these lit­tle deli­cious bastards.

ADDRESS: 108 Rue Saint-Hon­oré (1st arr.) / 231 Rue Saint-Hon­oré (1st arr.) / 41 Rue de Bre­tagne (3rd arr.) / 3 Rue Vavin / 23bis Avenue de la Motte Pic­quet (7th arr.) / 93 Rue du Bac (7th ar..) / 35 Boule­vard Hauss­mann (9th arr.) / 101 Rue de Cour­celles (17th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Lou­vre / Riv­o­li / Tuileries

NUMBER: +33 145 51 45 99

INSTAGRAM: @jeanpaul_hevin

La Maison du Chocolat

Call­ing your­self a choco­late lover, are we? Well, we’ve got some­thing for you, Sweet­ie. La Mai­son du Choco­lat (lit­er­al­ly: The House of Choco­late) lives up to his name and offers this sent-by-god-to-help-with-pms-and-breakups deli­cious­ness in var­i­ous shapes and sizes. Their mac­arons are no dif­fer­ent, with flavours like: plain choco­late, rasp­ber­ry choco­late, vanil­la choco­late, cof­fee choco­late, caramel choco­late… You get it. 

ADDRESS: 99 rue De Riv­o­li (1st arr.) / 14 Rue De Bre­tagne (3rd arr.) / 19 Rue De Sèvres (6th arr.) / 225 Rue Du Faubourg St Hon­oré (8th arr.) / 52 Rue François 1Er (8th arr.) / 133 Avenue Des Champs Elysées (8th arr.) / 8 Boule­vard De La Madeleine (9th arr.) / 35 boule­vard Hauss­mann (9th arr.) / 120 Avenue Vic­tor Hugo (16th arr.)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Lou­vre / Riv­o­li / Tuileries

NUMBER:+33 1 42 27 39 44

INSTAGRAM: @lamaisonduchocolat_paris

Papy Bio

The Spe­cial Mac­aron Award (we just made that award up, but it’s valu­able nonethe­less) goes to…Papy Bio.

I pass by Papy’s (that means Grand­pa en Français) lit­tle work­shop on my dai­ly com­mute as he and I have been neigh­bors for almost 5 years. You can rec­og­nize Papy as he’s chillax­ing with his soap operas in between batch­es and looks like a sailor with his beau­coup tats — but instead of Mom and naked ladies he’s got a tow­er of mac­arons on his neck. The Orig­i­nal Gangs­ta of the bak­ing scene, Papy can teach you to make your own mac­arons, or you can just buy them by the box­ful — he sells what­ev­er is left­over from his cater­ing oper­a­tion so fla­vors vary. Vanil­la is blue for some rea­son but the taste is legit.

You’ll find him not only giv­ing work­shops in his ‘sui gener­is’ lit­tle ‘ate­lier’ but also bask­ing in the glow of count­less French celebri­ties who have signed auto­graphs for him, thank­ing him for his famous pièces mon­tées — mac­aron tow­ers made for spe­cial occa­sions. For being a mod­est lit­tle spot off of Place Sainte-Marthe (Paris’ most insoumise lit­tle square) his mac­arons can go crust to crust with the big guys from the fan­cy parts of town. It’s like the com­mu­nist par­ty entered a souped-up Lada in the For­mu­la 1, dri­ven by the coolest Boomer in the hood, and placed in the top 5…

ADDRESS: 20 Rue Jean et Marie Moinon (10th arr.)

MÉTRO: Belleville (lines 2, 11) or Colonel Fabi­en (line 2)

NEIGHBORHOOD: Sainte-Marte / Combat

NUMBER: +33 06 45 74 17 13

INSTAGRAM: @ateliermacarons / papybio.fr

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