If you haven’t guessed by now in reading my blog or following my instagram, I have an insatiable sweet tooth.  Visiting Paris with my eleven year old niece, Aubrey, allowed me to indulge a bit more than normal (or at least I felt that I had a good excuse for more than one dessert/indulgence each day).  Thinking that we needed to do interactive things in Paris to keep things interesting, I found a behind the scenes Paris macarons and chocolate tour of a pastry kitchen.  While there are many food tours in the city as well as cooking classes/demonstrations at a dizzying array of pricing,  I decided on the Viator tour which was less than $35 per person for the one hour visit (prices vary due to exchange rates).   There were a few outlets for this tour and the prices were all about the same (British Airways priced in GBP, Viator priced in USD, direct with the vendor, Meeting the French priced in Euros). Meeting the French offers a plethora of interesting options for group and private tours.

I had read this New York Time article about macarons which surprised me to learn that the two most famous Parisian macarons makers, Laduree and Pierre Hermes are no longer made in Paris but in a factory outside the city. They are then frozen before they make their way to the cafes/stores (they still taste fabulous in my opinion). Even more surprising is the McDonalds sell their own macarons in their McCafe!  The macaron has gone a bit mainstream and I was interested to see if some of the macaron magic still existed in Paris.  With this tour, we visited Gerard Mulot, a pastry shop in the 13th arr that still makes the macarons by hand daily (6,000 per day in 18 flavors) as well as a variety of pastries/cakes to supply it’s many shops in the city.  You can’t get fresher than that!

As we would be traveling, I asked the hotel to confirm our tour and obtain the directions as the location was not provided when booking.  They were given the address for the tour in the 13th arr, which was two metros and about 12 stops from our hotel in the 5th arr. I allowed an hour travel time for connections, getting lost, etc.  Once off the metro, it was easy to find the group outside the bakery.

There were two guides that met us, Agate and Mariette, and their initial plan was to split the large group of 18 into two groups – one for macarons and one for chocolate. We would then swap but the plans were changed by the shop when we arrived.  We would go en masse into the very, very small spaces all decked out in our paper hats, booties and gowns (super cute!).

Macarons

There were three main pastry people we would see – the head pastry chef and his two assistants working on filling the macarons.  He was working on World Cup macarons during our visit.  There were other pastry people in the back working on macaron prep, making pastries and cakes, etc.

The batter was made and the chef poured the mixture into the one machine with specific proportions set in the computer.

The machine dropped batter to fill the baking sheets pretty quickly- the shape reminded me of a Hershey’s Kiss.

He would load the sheet in and out onto the baking rack.  Once all the racks were full, he pushed the carts into the spinning oven and 11-12 minutes later they would be done. Once cooled, the macarons were passed to the next person to sort and then be ready to be hand filled and flipped over to complete.

They are very delicate so you need to be careful not to break them.  This labor intensive process and high end ingredients explains why they cost so much per macaron. With so many flavors offered, this is a very busy kitchen.  Our guide would translate and ask the chef any questions we had – we had a few.  I asked if the chef ate macarons or was sick of them by now he said “he ate them as he needed to test them for flavor, texture, etc. and create new flavors”. They were nice to allow photos but 18 people really was cramped as the chefs had to work around us (the tour max is 20 people but they usually split up so not sure why we couldn’t that day).

Chocolate Lab

On the way to the macarons, we passed a very small space of chocolate – the chocolate lab.

The chocolate lab is aptly named as the chefs are creating masterpieces in my opinion.  Cooking up new creations to satisfy all of us chocolate lovers. I’ve taken a few chocolate classes over the years as well as toured pastry kitchens and met a few local Philly pastry chefs-  it is quite hard work especially in a small space.

There are molds, overnight setting, delicate design and shaping as well as machine work to coat the chocolates and fruits. The labor intensive work also translates to higher prices per piece but wow, oh wow, always worth it to taste chocolates enveloped or infused with the best local fruits, high end vanillas or other ingredients (Aubrey and I would have a chocolate truffle tour of Paris and London taste testing so many varieties of chocolates – it was tough work!).

We met the chocolate pastry chef who explained via the guide his process, the type of chocolate he uses with cocoa content, the various ways to decorate the chocolate (edible stencils, handpainting, etc.).

This room was even smaller so my niece was annoyed by the cramped space and the fact that people were pushing her to get a closer photo.  I tried to get her up front with the other two teens but by this time she was counting minutes until she could escape (she doesn’t quite have the patience for tours yet as I would learn later at Versailles).

Overall

This was a good tour and I had fun (Aubrey liked it until she didn’t).  It would be great if it was more intimate with a maximum of ten people in my opinion as was originally planned.  It is a popular tour and reasonably priced for one hour, where else can you peek into the labor intensive world of macarons and chocolate in Paris and get fresh samples? Sadly, after our macaron and chocolate tasting, we didn’t buy any macarons to go (we really should have) as we thought we’d find one of their shops later in the city (we didn’t). If you see this sign, do go in and treat yourself to pastries, macarons and chocolate – a trifecta of Parisian artistry and taste.