MYTH: Paris is the city of good bread. Truth: Paris is full of “artisanal boulangeries” where you can get a tradi that is more or less always decent, but truly good boulangeries are hard to come by. The reasons for this are complex and perhaps will be the subject of another blog post. But in any case, Paris is a city full of mediocre boulangeries doing brisk business with meh patisseries, amidst which, these places stand out for holding up the myth a little:
This boulangerie by Place des Vosges is a globally excellent place–for food, price to quality, and a consistently lovely and efficient service. The patisseries are beautiful even though the tart base gets a bit repetitive–always a kind of sablé breton. For me, the winner however is the beautiful sourdough bread (meule céréales; polenta et herbes fraîches) which you can get a quarter of, sliced, for around 3 €. Fresh sourdough bread full of air holes and that oven-fresh yeasty, chewy texture. (Their ice-cream next door is pretty good too and they do catering online.)
Ah, when I used to live in a picture-perfect “garret” duplex in Ménilmontant, this boulangerie imbued my breakfasts with something like the meaning of life. The reason for this ties back to another place, in another time of my life, which is the Hungarian Pastry Shop in NYC. At the Hungarian Pastry Shop, there were cherry strudels, but the reason behind my great addiction to the place were the “cheese buns,” served with butter and a little dollop of apricot jam.
Fast forward to my life in Paris. I am not thinking about cheese buns, except sometimes I do think about them, but never did I ever imagine that I would meet cheese buns again. That is until, Terroirs d’Avenir ! Everything at Terroirs d’Avenir (and not just the boulangerie, but the boucherie, and the primeur) is great. The Kouign-amann is the most buttery, flaky, sinful thing. Sometimes, they even have a Provence speciality, the pissaladière (a savory tart of anchovies and onions). And the cheese bun, oh–the cheese buns are kinda like the homecoming that you did not expect your life to be graced with.
I never go to the Left Bank except when I have to run an errand at the Apple store, but I was rewarded by a boulangerie just next to it, that strikes the note between “just a normal boulangerie with a lunchtime crowd” and “a very good boulangerie.” The sandwich des legumes is gorgeous, with perfect bread, perfect peppery roquette and beautifully grilled vegetables for under 5 €. I suspect the other stuff isn’t bad either.
4. Utopie
Utopie is a heavy-hitter; it is known to be good–it is in a neighborhood (or even street) with many nice options and the store is cute. In my view, it has the best patisseries potentially, a casual showcase of French classics like the cheesecake, the tarte au citron, reworked into a rather light palette. The tarte au citron, which somehow reminds me of Japanese desserts, comes with a light shaving of lime, and lime just makes lemon, so much better.
And may I say, the sandwiches–kind of amazing.
Pardon my photo of the sandwich one bite in, but you get the idea. If you know of better boulangeries than these four, I’d obviously like to pick your brain (leave a comment!).
A Grumpy New Yorker in Paris 
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