where jess ate

Ladurée (@MaisonLaduree), the iconic Paris bakery, all started back in 1862 by Louis Ernest Ladurée. Fast forward to 2013 and Ladurée is internationally known with stores all over the world including Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and our neighbors in the US. Sadly, nothing in Canada…yet.

Credited with the invention of the macaron, we couldn’t come to Paris without making a visit to Ladurée. With numerous locations across the city, we decided to drop by the one on Champs-Élysées.

The space, inside and out, is decorated in a very elegant and sophisticated manner with its signature pastel green and gold. This location has a tea room but we opted to purchase our goodies to go so we got in line with all the other tourists.

Displayed in their glass counters, you’ll find their famous macarons, chocolates, individual-sized cakes/tarts and baked goods (croissants, pain au chocolats, etc).

If there’s one thing that Ladurée is known for, it’s definitely their Macarons. We purchased a box of 8 – salted caramel, chocolate, vanilla, chocolate coconut, Marie Antoinette, coffee, yuzu-ginger and strawberry candy.

The macarons had a thin, crisp exterior like an egg shell and a sweet, creamy ganache filling. These little bites definitely pack a sweet punch.

My favourites were the salted caramel and coffee. I also found the Marie Antoinette macaron to be quite interesting. It was flavoured with Ladurée’s Marie Antoinette tea and had a citrusy honey filling.

Overall, we felt they were good macarons however they just didn’t live up to all the hype. But in all honesty, we went to Ladurée towards the end of our trip and by then I was all macaron-ed out!

In addition to the macarons, we also purchased the Dark Rhum Mille-feuille (6.3€). It consisted of caramelized puff pastry layers sandwiching a rich vanilla cream that’s been flavoured with old dark rum.

The cream was quite strong on the rum so if you don’t like the taste of rum, I’d steer clear of this one and purchase the strawberry mille-feuille instead.

The mille-feuille at Ladurée obviously wasn’t as fresh as the made-to-order version at Jacques Genin but the layers still had a nice flakiness to them. It was a solid mille-feuille!

With all the hype around Ladurée, I can’t help but feel that it’s a little overrated. Sure, we enjoyed our purchases but would I go out of the way for them? No.

At a glance:
• Iconic Paris bakery which first opened in 1862; there are now stores all over the world including Hong Kong, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the US
• Numerous locations in Paris – We visited the Champs-Élysées location which has a tea room
• Great selection of sweet treats – macarons, desserts, baked goods, chocolates
• Famous for their macarons
• Enjoyed the macarons and mille-feuille but felt they were overrated

Ratings (out of 5):
• Food: 3.5 stars
• Service: N/A
• Atmosphere: N/A