Paris is filled with bakery cafes in every neighborhood, where the pastries and breads are mostly baked on site. Here are two of our recent favorites.
Café Marie Antoinette
When the Aux Petite Versailles Boulangerie and Patisserie, which has hand painted ceilings resembling Versailles, decided to open a tea salon adjacent to its location in the Marais neighborhood, it was only natural to name it Marie Antoinette.
The interior, decorated with Louis XVI-style sofas and chairs, crystal chandeliers, and hand-painted mirrored ceilings with a royal crest and angels, is fit for a queen. Once you are seated on the plush sofa, upholstered in cream colored silk, a friendly server, presents a tray piled with the most tempting tarts, eclairs and other French pastries. After you choose your pastry, Monica—in our case—lets you browse through the drink menu, which offers a selection of herbal teas, coffees and a rich hot chocolate. Café Marie Antoinette has a savory food menu, too, with sandwiches, quiches, salads, a plat du jour and croque monsieurs.
All the menu items at Café Marie Antoinette are sourced from Aux Petit Versailles Boulangerie and Patisserie, which bakes its pastries fresh daily on the premises, and the baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, and apple turnovers are baked on rotating schedule throughout the day.
Good to know: Aux Petit Versailles was bestowed the prize for the second-best baguette in Paris in 2014, to pastry chef Christian Vabret, who also operates a baking and pastry making school in mid-France. If you are lucky, you may get a warm baguette right out of the oven.
Café Marie Antoinette is open Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; it's closed Monday. Au Petit Versailles is open Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; it's closed Sunday.
Sain Boulangerie
In the less tourist-oriented upper Marais, Sain Boulangerie is almost the opposite of Café Marie Antoinette. It's located in a more rustic setting with exposed wood beams, utilitarian tables and chairs, and glass partitions where you can see the bakers kneading their dough in plain sight.
At the front counter, wicker baskets are brimming with croissants, gigantic elephant ears, chocolate escargot-shaped pastries and Kouign-amann, a specialty from Brittany with layers of flaky pastry and burnt sugar. The wood shelves are lined with gigantic loaves of whole grain, dark and sourdough breads.
Baker/owner Anthony Courteille uses techniques and flours from before 1950 and before breads were mass produced using processed flour. He works with small producers of organic flour and the breads have a lower gluten content than most commercial bread.
Sain Boulangerie also has a lunch menu, and we enjoyed a sandwich with slices of roasted duck breast and shredded beets as well as a croissant filled with asparagus, bechamel sauce and pecorino cheese. It was almost impossible to choose one dessert, so we had two: A Matcha and cherry loaf cake topped with a cream cheese icing and the chocolate éclair, studded with shards of dark chocolate, which was one of the best we’ve ever had in Paris.
Sain Boulangerie is open Monday to Saturday, 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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