Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Ladurée One of Paris' First Tea Salons

Ladurée is one of Paris' first tea salons and remains one of the most famous -- so famous, in fact, that Boucheron, one of Paris' and the world's leading luxury jewelers, dedicated an entire jewelry line to Jeanne Souchard, its founder, as I wrote about in the previous post, Boucheron Immortalizes Ladurée Macarons.

So today I'm sharing with you just what Ladurée, their pastries and signature macarons look like as well as just a bit of their history.

The house of Ladurée opened as a bread bakery in 1862 at 16 Rue Royale by Louis Ernest Ladurée.

Nine years later, a fire prompted a whole new look, and his wife, Jeanne Souchard, conceived the idea to transform the bakery into a tea salon -- part café, part pâtisserie -- where women could freely go even if unaccompanied by a man.

Soon Parisians were going to the tea salons to see and be seen much as today's American teens go to the mall.

The decor was put in the hands of Jules Cheret, a famous painter and poster artist of the end of the 19th century, who used lots of cherubs and Chinoiserie motif, which was popular at the time.


At the beginning of the 20th century, Ladurée's cousin Pierre Desfontaines thought of taking two plain almond macarons and sandwiching them with a ganache, Oreo-style, thus creating Ladurée's signature cookie. Each half of this almond cookie is slightly crunchy on the thin outside crust while remaining soft and moist on the inside.











All photos from Flickr's public files. Click to enlarge and hover to see credits.

Related Posts On Joy Of Desserts:
Boucheron Immortalizes Ladurée's Macarons
Authentic Macarons Des Soeurs From City Of Nancy

9 comments:

  1. Gorgeous--what a fantastic desserts display! Enjoyed the video, too.

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  2. Thank you, Amanda. Glad you enjoyed the video too. "Ça c'est Paris!" as the French say.

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  3. It's so girly and wonderful. I want to move in there.

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  4. Joie de vivre: You are so right, and when we are in a Paris salon de thé we never want to leave either.

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  5. Oh my how beautiful, but I gained another 5 pounds!

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  6. Oh my! Looks like a dream! Thank you for checking out my blog. I will definately be stopping back...sweets are my weakness. ;)

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  7. Katie: Ladurée is really like a dream fantasy. I'm glad you liked my blog and will be back. I look forward to your visits.

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  8. I love love love Ladurée!!! The video brought a smile to my face :) I just wish you posted a link to blog, because of one the pictures of the counter is mine.

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  9. Anonymous: Glad it made you smile. I'm unsure what you mean by "wish you posted a link to blog." If you mean a photo credit, as I indicated at the bottom of the post, you can see the photo credits by hovering over each photo. ("All photos from Flickr's public files. Click to enlarge and hover to see credits.")

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