[Paris] Un Dimanche à Paris

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Un Dimanche à Paris

Add: 4 Cours du Commerce Saint-André, 75006 Paris
Tel: 01 56 81 18 18
Hours: [Mon] 12~8pm [Tue-Sat] 11am~8pm [Sun] 11am~7pm
Website: www.un-dimanche-a-paris.com
Price: €5~6/pastry
Visited on: Aug 2014

Un Dimanche à Paris remains one of my favorite pastry shops in Paris, largely because I spent 5 very happy months here as an intern right after Ferrandi. It is in this kitchen where I first learned the ways of a professional pâtissier – sure, the pastry program at Ferrandi is wonderful and I wholeheartedly recommend it, but school just can’t prepare you enough for working in a real kitchen. The team at UDAP has almost totally changed since then – only one current pâtissier (salut Alex!) was there during my epoch – but I happen to know the new chef, Nicolas Bacheyre, as we had worked together for a little bit at Fauchon where he was the sous chef. It is indeed a very small circle, this pastry world in Paris, and thanks to that I can go back to snoop around in the kitchen from time to time :)

sugared & spiced - paris un dimanche a paris

It’s barely over half a year since Nicolas started working as the chef pâtissier at UDAP, but he has already came up with plenty of new creations, many with interesting flavor combinations that you can’t find elsewhere. When I saw the picture and description of the latest Chou Bijou, for example, I simply had to go taste it…and of course came back with a bit more than just that.

sugared & spiced - paris un dimanche a paris

Here it is, Le Chou Bijou (€5.40), a jewel-like chou filled with black currant compote and topped with mirabelle tea chantilly cream. Black currant is not new to me as it’s a fruit frequently used in French pastries, but I had never tasted it in combination with the mirabelle tea flavor (and for that matter, I’d never had mirabelle tea before) and it’s really quite a lovely match. Like all the choux and éclairs at UDAP, this one is baked with crunchy bits of cocoa beans for extra flavor and crunch.

sugared & spiced - paris un dimanche a paris

sugared & spiced - paris un dimanche a paris

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[Pastry Diary] Un Dimanche à Paris

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As part of the Intensive Program in Professional Pastry at Ferrandi, all students are required to complete a 3~6-month internship. The school has contacts to some of the top pastry boutiques, hotels, and restaurants in Paris, and students have a certain degree of liberty in choosing the venue for his or her internship. I had set my mind on working at an independent boutique as opposed to a 5-star hotel or a 3 Michelin-star restaurants, and the place I eventually stumbled upon was Un Dimanche à Paris, a pastry shop tucked away in this cute passage in the stylish Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood.

Actually,  let me rephrase. Un Dimanche à Paris is a lot more than just a pastry shop. On the first floor there is a spacious boutique for pastries and chocolates, an exhibition kitchen, a restaurant that also functions as a tea salon in the afternoon, and up on the second floor there is a sleek teaching kitchen and lounge area. You can find out more  through its official website (French only).

So why did I choose Un Dimanche à Paris? Well, I didn’t, really. The situation was like this: despite Un Dimanche à Paris being one of the top pastry shops in Paris, no one from my session wanted to go there because UDAP only signs 2-month unpaid internships (which is actually not an uncommon practice among pastry shops in Paris). This means that not only do students not get paid, they also need to find another internship at the end of 2 months in order to fulfill the minimum of 3 months required by Ferrandi. Despite this, I visited the shop and had a good feeling about it…so I went ahead and signed – and thank god I did. I ended up loving the work and the people I worked with, and (fortunately) my team appreciated me as well and kept me for an extended internship of 5 months. It all worked out perfectly.

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