Walking Gastronomical Tour of Paris

The Trip Advisor travel guide has a "Foodie Tour: East" option in the suggested itineraries.
We ended up doing bits of that plus a bit more. This is going to be pictorial account with a bit of commentary. I have added the details of the street just incase anybody wants to follow this in the future.

looks like a flower

The unofficial start of the food tour (unofficial because Cat did not join me...) started near the Pantheon at Amorino Gelato. This is a French gelato chain store. Instead of scoops, the gelato is sculpted into the shape of a flower with petals on the cone. The petite cone turned out to be huge and I was able to pick 3 flavours to go on it.


We started our food sampling tour at the corner of Rue de Medicis and Boulevard Saint-Michael at a shop called 'Dalloyau'. Charles Dalloyau baked for Louis XIV and is credited with the creation of the popular chocolate/coffee pastry named 'opera'.

We bought a couple of small macaroons to try. They were nice but quite heavy and a little crunchy.

The cakes in the window looked amazing but we have heaps more places to go so don't want to go into a diabetic coma after visiting only one shop.

top shelf: macaroons, bottom display: cakes... they all look great!

Just around the corner from Dalloyau and up Rue Souffet, there is a little pub called LaGueuze. We did not sample the beer but it apparently has a very impressive beer list with a lot of imports.

We continued up Rue Gay-Lussac and visited another couple of bakeries.

The nicer macaroons (or so both Cat and I thought) were to be found at Franc Kestener & Meilleur Ouvrier de France Chocolatier. The macaroons were larger and cheaper than Dalloyau and these ones just seemed to be lighter and just melted in your mouth.
We later rated these macaroons as the best ones we tasted all day.

There is also a selection of chocolates on offer here and we bought some samples. These too were very good. I would rate this shop as the best one we visited on our food tour.

The next stop was a shop a couple of doors down called La Petite Chocolatiere.
Well the shop was large enough but the selection of chocolates was indeed petite.
The person who served us - a young boy named Nathaniel, was probably the most friendly of all the bakery people we met. His kind and smiling manner made you want to buy his chocolates.
There were also macaroons but they did not look that appealing so we stuck to sampling some of the chocolates.

this is half of the display so it was a small selection

A little further up the road at the corner of Rue Gay-Lussac and Rue Saint-Jacques, there is a little deli/fruit shop. The fruit looks great but is slightly expensive. Strawberries are a great accompaniment to chocolates (and of course wine or champagne). We didn't buy any as we were so full but they can be bought here.
When you enter the fruit shop, the aisle loops around to take you out towards the deli and the checkout.
At the back of the deli is a cold display of cheeses. We decided to pick a cheese to try. The good thing is that they are quite small and one cheese cost less than €3.

we only picked one but we did pick a nice cheese

There is a street in the Fifth Arrondissement called 'Rue Mouffetard'. It is a cobbled stoned pedestrian street with food stores all along it. There are butcheries, bakeries, cheese and wine stores. Apparently in the movie 'Amelie', one of the characters - Monsieur Dominique Bretodeau purchased his beloved rotisserie chicken in a store on this street. We didn't recognise the shop though.

Along the street is a chocolate shop called 'Jeff de Bruges'. The window on the right has little chocolate bears which I thought were really cute.
Inside there is a large selection of chocolates.
The guy who served us did not seem particularly friendly and we noted throughout the day that French people are polite but rarely smile.

lots and lots of chocolates!

In Europe, a lot of the museums close on Mondays. Similarly, there are some shops closed on Mondays too. We were hoping to visit this cheese shop along Rue Mouffetard but alas it was closed.

 On the corner of Rue Mouffetard and Rue Censier there is another fruit shop that looks absolutely delicious.

After purchasing so many samples of macroons and chocolates and a cheese, we needed something to go with it all... so off to a liquor shop to try to find a nice bottle of wine.

We didn't end up getting any wine as Cat and I aren't big drinkers and couldn't find just a small bottle of wine. Our accommodation has no fridge and no space at all really and we didn't have long in Paris so we just decided not to get wine. I did, however, buy a small bottle of an apricot mixer drink that was really nice.

Here ends our afternoon gastronomical tour...

However, in the evening we happened to come across another couple of chocolate shops that were just irresistable.


In the evening, we decided to visit Sacre Coeur which is in the Montmartre area. I can't quite remember the address of these shops but they were just along the way as we were walking around Montmartre.

window display

The most beautiful display for chocolates and macaroons belongs to a shop called 'Christophe Roussel, duo creatif avec Julie'.

There is a beautiful macaroon display in the window. Inside there is a display of many flavours. The colouring of the macaroons makes the display look very very good.

They do sell macaroons individually but will only sell the chocolates by the box. Bought a macaroon to try and it was not as good as Kestener but was close.
The presentation really does look great but the immaculate presentation was not accompanied by good service. The guy who served me had a sour expression and was very rude.

beautifully sculptured chocolates!

We came across another chocolate place in Montmartre called 'Milson Georges Larnicol'. This store was huge and the doors indicated that it was also a small museum of chocolate.

Walking in the front door and to the left there is a massive pile of meringues of all different colours and flavours. Next to that there is a whole wall of pick-and-mix sweets.

To the right, there is a display shelf of chocolate sculptures that you can also purchase.

Straight infront there is an Eiffel tower display and it is made of chocolate. It looked quite impressive.

Inside there is a display window with a lot of different flavoured macaroons. And to the left of that and around the corner there is a selection of chocolates as well.

chocolate Eiffel tower

I thought this little sculpture was cute... and he only costs  €57.29

meringues of different colours and flavours

I was impressed with the intricate detail of this ship made of chocolate

mmm macaroons

So here ends our Gastronomical splurge in Paris. I don't think we will come back to Australia diabetics as we only sampled a little from each store. However, there were quite a few macaroons and chocolates consumed as it is Paris and you definitely need to try these things in Paris....