A Totally Subjective Guide to French Pastries That Could Ruin You (In a Good Way)

(6 minute read)

Fair warning: once the bakery is a short walk from your door, there's no going back.

I moved to France, and a small, buttery tragedy has been unfolding ever since: no pastry anywhere else will ever fully satisfy me again. The bakery here is a daily fact of life, not a treat, and after a couple of years of dedicated "research," I have opinions. This is not a complete list, or a fair one, or an objective one. It's a love letter, written from a village in Burgundy, to the things that have quietly wrecked me. Proceed at your own risk.

Gougères, because you're in Burgundy now

Not every French pastry is sweet, and the gougère is my favorite proof. A savory choux puff made with cheese, it's a Burgundy specialty that turns up at nearly every apéro (the pre-dinner drinks spread) around here, warm, airy, and impossible to eat just one of. If a Burgundian sets a plate of these in front of you before dinner, go ahead and cancel your plans to have an appetite.

The chou à la crème that flattened me

The pastry that undid me, and my number one to this day, wasn't the famous one at all. It was a chou à la crème, a choux-pastry puff filled with cream, served to me at someone's house, where I spent the whole visit trying not to visibly become a gourmand (the French have an affectionate word for the sin of loving food a little too much, and I was committing it in real time). It was that good. In fairness, it may have been that one particular bakery, and I've been chasing the high ever since. But when a cream puff reorganizes your priorities at a dinner party, you don't forget it.

The croissant and its chocolate cousin

There's a reason the croissant is the famous one, and living here hasn't made me cynical about it: a fresh one from the bakery, shattering faintly as you bite, is hard to beat with a morning coffee. That ooey-gooey cousin is the pain au chocolat, which, depending on which corner of France you're standing in, you may be firmly corrected into calling a chocolatine (the north-versus-southwest naming war is real, and people will die on this hill). My first one here came warm and half-melted from my village boulangerie and quietly recalibrated what the word meant. We buy a bag of both whenever friends come to stay, which is either hospitality or a cry for help.

Tarte au citron, my runner-up

If I'm ranking, and this is a totally subjective guide, so I kind of am, the tarte au citron comes in second. I love it for the contradiction: a lemon custard that manages creamy and rich and bracingly sharp all at once, tart enough to pucker and sweet enough to keep you going back for the next forkful. In a crisp shell, ideally still a little cold from the case, it's the one I reach for when I want a pastry that argues back.

Palmiers, the ones that never make it home

The palmier, that crisp, caramelized, elephant-ear spiral of sugar and pastry, is my personal proof that I have no self-control. I buy a bag with every intention of rationing it. The bag is empty by the second sitting, sometimes the first. They are not filling. They are not a meal. They disappear anyway.

Chausson aux pommes, my apple pie from home

The chausson aux pommes, a flaky golden turnover packed with soft spiced apple, is the closest thing France gives me to an apple pie, which makes it more than just good. It's a small hit of home. Back in the US, my apple fix came from a bear claw at the donut shop, a slab of pie at a barbecue, or, when standards were low, the folded cardboard kind from McDonald's. This is that exact craving, answered by a French bakery, which is to say answered a great deal better.

Madeleines, sweet and (surprise) savory

I thought I had the madeleine figured out, the little shell-shaped sponge cake with the telltale bump. Then at a party recently someone handed me a savory one, dusted in rosemary, then a sweet one, and I had to rearrange my understanding of the whole genre on the spot. The rosemary one was a small revelation. But if you're making me choose, I'm still team sweet: buttery, faintly lemony, and exactly as it was meant to be. Either way, I now want a plate of them at every apéro alongside the gougères.

Paris-Brest, when you can find it done right

The Paris-Brest, a ring of choux pastry split and filled with praline cream, is a big favorite of mine, with an asterisk. My French friends all warn that a truly great one is weirdly hard to find, and they're right. Done well, it's nutty, light, and a real menace to your afternoon plans. Done badly, it's a heavy hazelnut disappointment. When you find a bakery that's clearly proud of theirs, that's your moment.

A brief, honest confession about éclairs

I love éclairs. I loved them back in the US. And I have to report, at some personal risk, that not one éclair I've had in France has matched the ones I remember from home. I keep ordering them, hoping. I keep being politely let down. If you know the bakery that's going to fix this for me, the comments are open and I am not too proud to beg.

Paul's corner

My business partner Paul would stage a revolt if this list ended without his favorites, so: the mille-feuille, that precarious architectural stack of pastry and cream (you may know it as a napoleon), is his idea of perfection, and bugnes, the fried, sugar-dusted dough of his childhood, are his undisputed number one. I'm told there is no arguing the point.

Honorable mentions

A quick lightning round of things I couldn't fit but couldn't leave out. Brioche with good jam is one of the finest breakfasts going. A Basque cheesecake we had recently was startlingly good. The quatre-quart, the French pound cake, literally "four quarters," is permanently in our kitchen because Paul's mother makes it on repeat. And the galette des rois is a delicious annual event every January, though that one arrives with a paper crown and a hidden fève, and deserves a story of its own.

Let it ruin you

This is the real hazard of eating your way through France. You don't just enjoy it. You get spoiled by it, permanently, and then you go home and stand in front of a pastry case that used to make you happy and feel faintly betrayed. Worth it. Every single time. The crumbs at the bottom of the bag are the only souvenir worth keeping.

Which French pastry wrecked you, and which bakery is quietly perfect? Tell us in the comments. And if you know where I can find a life-changing éclair in this country, name the place and I will owe you forever.