Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [104]
As much as I love Pierre Hermé, I also love the chocolates at other Parisian shops:
Jean-Paul Hévin (231 rue Saint-Honoré, 1er / 3 rue Vavin, 6ème / 23 bis avenue de la Motte-Picquet, 7ème / jphevin.com). At the rue Saint-Honoré shop chocolates may be purchased to take away or enjoyed in the salon de thé upstairs.
Aoki (25 rue Pérignon, 15ème / 35 rue de Vaugirard, 6ème / 56 boulevard de Port-Royal, 5ème, with a salon de thé / Lafayette Gourmet, 40 boulevard Haussmann, 9ème, sada haruaoki.com). Like Pierre Hermé, Sadaharu Aoki is also a pastry chef, and he brings a matchless Japanese sense of order and aesthetics to classic French pâtissier.
La Maison du Chocolat (nine locations; its first, since 1977, is at 52 rue François-1er, 1er / lamaisonduchocolat.com). Though Maison now has stores elsewhere in the world, including New York, I still think the quality of the chocolates is excellent, and Maison hot chocolate is still the best. (Many folks say the best is at Angelina, 226 rue de Rivoli, but they’ve probably just never had it at La Maison du Chocolat.)
Debauve & Gallais (30 rue des Saint-Pères, 7ème / 33 rue Vivienne, 2ème / debauve-et-gallais.com). Paris’s oldest chocolate maker retains a soft spot in my heart even though I prefer the other chocolatiers here—I love the interior of the rue des Saint-Pères shop, dating from 1800. The old-fashioned, though exquisite, selections and packaging make better gifts for more traditional palates.
La Chocolaterie de Jacques Genin (133 rue de Turenne, 3ème). Genin’s creations were praised by Mort Rosenblum in Chocolate as his favorite chocolates in the world.) Before Genin’s Marais shop opened in 2008, he supplied Alain Ducasse’s restaurants, hotels like the George V and Le Crillon, and shops like Hédiard. Anyone else who wanted to try his chocolates had to make an appointment at his fifteenth arrondissement lab and agree to purchase a minimum order of one kilogram. In an interview with Lennox Morrison for the Wall Street Journal, Genin described himself as a rebel. “I don’t even want to be called a master chocolate maker. I call myself a foundry man who works with chocolate because that is what I do. I melt down chocolate to create fresh products.” In 1991 he went to La Maison du Chocolat and worked as head pâtissier, then left five years later to go off on his own. I know I’m not alone in being grateful for the new shop. Many people rave about the caramels, but I myself am partial to the chestnut-flavored sucre d’or, and I love the JG-monogrammed silver boxes—very classy.
The Anatomy of Success
Rémi Flachard, International Specialist
in Vintage Cookbooks
NAOMI BARRY
I HAD NEVER heard of Rémi Flachard before I read this piece, and I cannot wait to visit his bookshop the next time I am in Paris. Only Naomi Barry would describe it as a “gallimaufry,” which sent me to the dictionary, where I learned it means a hodgepodge or jumble. Perfect! Just my kind of shop. Though I’m of course interested to look at the “uncharted sea of books,” I’m even more interested in the menus marking historic occasions.
THE SUBJECT OF gastronomy, like the subject of love, has been the stuff of literature for thousands of years. To read about food is to extend the pleasure of actually eating it. To read the menu of an inspired meal is enough to set the taste buds quivering. The market expert in this mouthwatering domain of bibliophilia is Rémi Flachard, who for the past twenty years has been supplying collectors around the world with works pertaining to their passion.
Flachard’s headquarters is a modest bookshop at 9 rue du Bac in the seventh arrondissement of Paris. His little shop, furnished in False Gothic, is a gallimaufry of vintage cookbooks ranging from rare to rarissime, plus a selection of quality titles from the twentieth century. Those from earlier centuries are splendidly leather-bound and generously tooled in gold. An important section of the stock is devoted to wine and vineyard culture. Another group