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