Playing the Eloise of Pastry at The Ritz in Paris
A fancy, fanciful and fun afternoon at Le Comptoir
Hello! Hello!
Yes, I fell in love with someone because he made a great cookie – I’m that kind of woman. I watched François Perret, the pastry chef of The Ritz, bake a cookie for his kids at home during the pandemic – thank you, Instagram – and that was it. I clicked “follow.” I baked the cookie. I fell in love. It was that simple. Here’s the recipe.
Because I didn’t know Perret, I didn’t know that the cookie was almost a prototype for his remarkable style. It looked playful – it had all the charm of a childhood treat – but it was elegant and full of unexpecteds. It was not very sweet and just a touch salty. It was chewy here and tender there. You couldn’t decide if you wanted to grab it with two hands and gobble it like a kid or take dainty bites and linger over its contradictions and pleasures. This is the kind of teeter-totter I love.
ONE SHOP, SO MANY SURPRISES
When I could finally return to Paris last summer, The Ritz had just opened Le Comptoir, a patisserie and tea salon that they might as well have called Perret’s Playground. It’s the most whimsical pastry shop in Paris – I dare anyone to walk in and not giggle. The look is another teeter-totter, this time between Ritz refinement and glee. My friend, Navah Perlman Frost (take a look at her cakes!), said it reminded her of a Wes Anderson set. It’s the perfect stage for Francois’ pastries.
Photo: Bernhard Winkelmann | Courtesy of DM MEDIA / FRANCE
That “cookie as big as The Ritz,” as the New York Times called it when I wrote about it for the Magazine, is in the pastry case, its caramel topping dotted with flakes of salt, but if you miss it, I’ll understand – there’s so much to look at, starting with the chef’s revolutionary croissants. Perret completely rethought the shape of the croissant, making it slender and long and, in the process, completely changing how we eat it and the way we experience it – his croissant is almost entirely crust and crunch.
Pain au chocolat and sandwiches, including jambon-beurre, photographed by Bernhard Winkelmann | Courtesy of DM MEDIA / FRANCE
He uses the shape for his pain au chocolat, so that you get “bread” and chocolate in every bite – this is how it should always have been! And now, he’s used the form to make sandwiches. It’s a revelation to have France’s most famous ham and cheese sandwich, the jambon-beurre, in Perret’s version: it’s almost Cartesian – all of the sudden the ratio of bread to filling is just right! And it’s adorable.
When I was there last week, Perret had turned the idea sweet, molding puff pastry in the long, thin shape and filling it with the fruit-of-the-moment, cherries.
I don’t know how the chef makes his Cake-Shakes – I was told that that’s one of the only recipes he won’t share – but however he does it, they’re crazy! You think you won’t have room for one – that’s what I thought. I was wrong. You’ll be wrong too.
A mini version of the maximal Cake-Shake
And then there’s the parfait. I was there when Perret was putting the finishing touches on his latest and I got a taste. It’s an homage to the Pêche Melba, which was created by the grand chef of The Ritz (in Paris and then London), Auguste Escoffier, and named for the opera singer, Nellie Melba. From the top it looks like a raspberry sundae, but once I wriggled my spoon all the way down to the bottom, it came up with caramelized almonds, vanilla parfait (like semifreddo), white peach poached in raspberry jus (swoon), cream and fresh raspberries.
Those raspberries were the same as the ones on the tart I brought home – they were both sweet and acidic (the sharpness was great in the parfait) and huge! The berries were so large that I actually pulled out my ruler: the average berry was an inch long.
DON’T MISS THE MADELEINES
You can’t really miss them since they’re so important to Perret that they’re part of the shop’s décor. There are madeleines on the walls, one big, beautiful madeleine in a painting and real madeleines of all colors, flavors and sizes. While I was pondering what to choose from the pastry counter, Perret solved the problem for me, “Have the passion fruit madeleine,” he said Like all of his pastries, it’s beautiful on the outside and surprising within – there’s cake, of course, a passion fruit center and a cream so light it’s almost ethereal.
I left with a box of five different flavored madeleines. I meant to save them to give as a gift. Alas …
I may never be able to stay at The Ritz, to follow in the footsteps of legends like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Chanel, Audrey Hepburn and Auguste Escoffier, for whom the hotel’s cooking school is named, but I can linger over pastries at the Comptoir Ritz whenever I want – which is often. Yet another reason to love Paris.
I hope you have a great weekend. Moi? I’ll be dreaming of Paris, getting re-settled in Connecticut and trying to shake jet lag.
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I miss Paris ... so this will "take me there". Merci.
Enchanting and luscious pictures, these are what eye candy is all about.