Like my FACEBOOK PAGE or follow me on TWITTER / 微博!
Pierre Hermé
Add: 72 rue Bonaparte 75006 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 43 54 47 77
Hours: 10am~7pm (7:30pm on Thu-Fri, 8pm on Sat)
Website: www.pierreherme.com
Price: €4.50~7.30/individual dessert
Visited on: May 2013
From May 7 to June 30, Pierre Hermé reinterprets the classic Saint-Honoré in five flavors: traditional, Montebello (strawberry + pistachio), Ispahan (rose + raspberry + litchi), citron, and chocolate. Here’s Saint-Honoré Carrément Chocolat (€6.90), composed of puff pastry, caramelized choux pastry, chocolate mascarpone cream, and dark chocolate crisp.
Personally thought the caramel was too thick and instead of giving the Saint-Honoré a good crunch, it sticks to the teeth…c’est dommage.
Of course I couldn’t have walked away with just one pastry. Here’s Tarte Infiniment Vanille (€6.90), one of my favorite items at Pierre Hermé, and it’s composed of shortcrust pastry, white chocolate ganache with vanilla, tender biscuit moistened with vanilla, and vanilla-flavoured mascarpone cream. Pierre Hermé combines vanilla from Mexico, Tahiti and Madagascar to develop a “house vanilla”, and the whole tart is just bursting with this lovely flavor.
Tarte Infiniment Café (€6.90), shortcrust pastry, tender biscuit moistened with coffee, ganache and chantilly flavoured with Pierre Hermé’s special coffee blend. I decided to try this because we used the same recipe during our tarts week at Ferrandi (read about it here), but I’m not a huge fan of coffee desserts in general and wasn’t blown away by this one.
Plénitude (€6.90), chocolate macaron, dark chocolate chips with fleur de sel, bittersweet chocolate mousse, bittersweet chocolate ganache, crunchy caramel. This one is a bit monotonous in terms of texture (tasted the caramel, but didn’t feel the crunch) and wasn’t very memorable.
Macarons! This time I tried the Jardin d’Ambre (rose + ambergris), Arabesque (apricot + pistachio), and jasmine + rose. Jardin d’Ambre (bottom left) is part of Pierre Hermé’s garden series, and is amber paired with a light caramel cream, counterbalanced by rose-flavoured cream. Interesting…
If you like Pierre Hermé‘s Ispahan, then Croissant Ispahan (€1.80) is a must try. It’s a croissant with rose-flavored almond paste, raspberry litchi compote, then topped off with rosewater glaze and a sprinkling of small raspberry pieces. It’s quite sweet and is more like a dessert rather than a breakfast item, but hear me, it’s good.
If you don’t particularly like the flavors of Ispahan, the classic Croissant (€1.50) is also very well done. It appearance is not as beautiful as the ones from Des Gateaux et Du Pain, but in terms of texture and taste, it is very satisfying.
Kouign-Amann aux Fruits Rouges (€2.70), buttered and caramelized puff pastry filled with red berry marmalade. Like!
4 petits gateaux, 3 macarons, and 3 viennoiseries after, I think I’m ready for a (short) break from Pierre Hermé.
I think Saint-Honorés are my favorite pastries, so I’m excited to hear about this. That vanilla tarte looks right up my alley, too.
The vanilla tart is a must try! Though it’s not as well-known as Ispahan etc., it’s one of my favorites from PH :)
drooling at the over the photos…i love your closed up/dissected shots of each dessert you share. i find them more appealing than pics depicting pretty appearances.