Visiting Pierre Hermé's Pastry Shop in Paris

Keywords:	Pastry ¦ Paris ¦ Pierre Hermé ¦ Affordable gourmet ¦ Reportage ¦ Shop
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I have scrupulously visited every high-end pastry shop in Paris. I have French pastry guidebooks. And Pierre Hermé is the best. Not the biggest, not even the most famous, but there is not question his pastry is in a league of its own. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat you a pound of Ladurée macaroons any day, but where else can you get White truffle hazelnut macaroons?

As you draw near on a Saturday afternoon, you see a troop of people waiting eagerly. Are they distributing hundred-Euros notes? Or maybe it's the Rolling Stones shopping for clothes? No, business as usual at Pierre Hermé. You wait in line to enter the shop.

Pastry is the most affordable way of enjoying French gastronomy. Most tourists and locals are priced out of Paris haute restaurants, but anybody can afford a €1.50 macaroon. Patrons at Pierre Hermé are regular people, with the occasional delivery boy coming to pick up €200 worth of cakes for a corporate event.

Pierre Hermé does not stock croissants or any traditional pastry. He fancies himself as couture pastry. Two collections a year. The only staple are macaroons, but they change too. Don't look for plain-chocolate macaroons for your auntie.

The extra-large macaroons above cost €3.60 a piece while the smaller ones are sold for €72 a kilo. Now you have to realize that macarons is the aristocracy of pastry. Everybody can make a croissant, but a convincing macaroon takes aged egg whites, double-sieved white almond powder, confectioner's sugar and lots of skill. And then there is the filling. Oh the filling!

This one had pure gold powder on the top. It gives it an intriguing shine - to say the least.

This delicious macaroon uses a winning combination of a candied chestnut cream with a layer of matcha tea ganache.

The famed white-truffle-hazelnut macaroon with lightly toasted Italian hazelnut in a thick white truffle ganache. An almost aphrodisiac combination.

This one must be second favorite - the Passion fruit macaroon filled with milk chocolate.

You forgive everything to a shop like this. Sure, the wait is long and you wouldn't come back just for the staff's smiles. And the pastry names can be somewhat tacky 'Velvet', 'Symphony' etc ... The small booklet describing the year's collection makes for fantastic reading, complete with a very interesting interview of Pierre Hermé. But it looks like it's been done by two teenagers cooking up a fanzine in their bedroom, with an out of color 'FETISH' written in gothic on top. The reader is almost surprised the booklet doesn't sell rubber overalls. But happiness is in the pastry. You quickly forget these small false notes and rush home to feast on these delicacies.

I have all of Mr Hermé's books. If he had more telegenic looks, was less humble and spoke English, he could be a major celebrity chef overnight. But Pierre Hermé is a modest man and he does not seek celebrity. Apart from a boutique in Tokyo, he has only two tiny shops in Paris.

There is something historical about shopping at Pierre Hermé. This is a man at the top of his art. When he goes, we'll only be able to reproduce his old recipes but it's unlikely somebody will invent new ones at his level before long. I mean, most pastry chef use recipes that haven't change for a century and most bold new combinations they try just don't work.If, a century from now, somebody asks me 'What did you do in your time?' I'll answer 'I once tasted Pierre Hermé's pastry in Paris'.

Pierre Hermé
www.pierreherme.com
72 rue Bonaparte or
185 rue Vaugirard
Paris, France

Also in Tokyo at the food mart in the entrails of Isetan in Shinjuku and 3 other locations. Not as big an assortment but better service than in Paris - not a surprise.

Notes: Pierre Hermé is pronounced [py-air air-meh], not [peeeee-err her-mee]. Rue Bonaparte is named after Napoleon, seen as a hero in France. Don't try to discuss his historical merit with the French unless you want to praise him. Pierre Hermé is in the Rue Vaugirard shop and looks like two professional wrestlers but is a very nice man and a true artist.