“I just want to slap people when they say Ladurée or Pierre Hermé make the best macarons in Paris,” says Adam Wayda, the sharp-tongued sweet freak behind the website Paris Pâtisseries. “It’s not that they don’t have great macarons. It’s that there are so many amazing macs that putting one shop ahead of the others is like choosing a favorite child. It’s unseemly. You need to spend time with them all.” We’ll take that slap, having just named Ladurée and Pierre Hermé among our Five Great for Macarons, but we need to know: what other children macarons does Adam want to eat?
Adam Wayda’s Top Five Paris Macarons
- Hugo & Victor - Mangue. The mango macaron “stands out as the most perfect realization of macarons’ potential… an intoxicatingly transcendent mélange of black pepper, vanilla, cinnamon, clove, star anise, and nutmeg. The fruit and spices echo back and forth off of one another in the most mind-bendingly symphonic ricochet of tones and nuances you could never have otherwise imagined.” >read his full post
- Ladurée - Fleur d’Oranger. The orange blossom mac “is like eating springtime. Put another way, one might say that Vivaldi’s Primavera revs into full orchestral mode right on your tongue…It is at once intensely floral, yet sophisticated and soothing.” >read his full post
- Sadaharu Aoki- Violette. Aoki’s violet mac is “the greatest celebration of the violette parfum, among all the Parisian pastries that attempt to harness its majesty,” Adam told us via email.
- Café Pouchkine - Fraise Coeur Pistache. This strawberry mac with a pistachio center is “is texturally perfect, and the flavors are nothing short of exquisite,” says Adam. ”And who doesn’t love a festive dot in the center of their shell? It’s different without being weird or overthought – the best type of design sensibility.” >read his full post
- Un Dimanche à Paris - Coquelicot. “A sublime distillation of the poppy flower essence,” Adam told us via email.
Wanna slap us, too? Don’t worry, we kind of like it. Tell us what we and Adam overlooked in the comments below.
Related Macaron Reading
- Free sweets on March 20 for the Jour du Macaron
- Our own roundup of Five Great for Macarons
- Macarons
by Pierre Hermé
- Contributing editor Dorie Greenspan’s books on Desserts by Pierre Hermé
and Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
The universal omission of Georges Larnicol’s light and delicate macarons from every article of list puzzles me. To me, they are, compared to all other Paris macarons, like a cluster of tender daisies in a field of coarse rutabagas.
They are filled with almond cream, not greasy-gooey ganaches or cloying fillings, and that makes them heavenly. Never too sweet, very tasty. Try the almond or passionfruit flavor and then Ladurée or Hermé will never look the same again.
You mentioned this to me before, Sophie, and I admit that I’m intrigued. I’m not a fan of Larnicol’s chocolates (kids’ love the sculptures but there’s less fun in the mouth), and so I perhaps wrongly assumed that his macarons would be of similar quality. But you mentioned that his MOF award is actually for macarons, and so I’m eager to return and try them.
FWIW, I frequently drop by the Rue de Rivoli branch of Georges Larnicol but ONLY for their Kouignettes. I gave up on the macarons (a waste of money) and their chocolates (mediocre) after the very first trip. Maybe I got stuck with a bad lot.
Well, the Larnicol macarons are simply the only ones I can abide. That is all I can say. Larnicol is Meilleur Ouvrier de France for macarons. Saying that they’re a waste of money is not exactly how I would describe them.
I cannot wait to find out for myself. Thanks for inspiring me to eat more macarons.
The small local shops have much tastier and more delicate macarons than the glitzy mass-produced ones. I tried 30 shops in Paris; Ladurée and Pierre Hermé did not even make my top 10 and nor did Georges Larnicol or Un Dimanche a Paris. The best was Pascal Pinaud at 70 rue Monge in the 5ème. Unrivalled for flavour, texture, and particularly the balance between the outside and the filling, neither of which should dominate. These are less sweet than the more ”famous” shops, so that the flavours can speak for themselves. Of course everyone has their own preferences but if you want macarons that are lovingly handmade by one guy, with an outside that is delicate but does not simply vanish as soon as it hits the tongue, and an inside that is rich but does not over power the outside go to Pinaud and tell them “On tutoie les anges”.
Indeed everyone has their own preferences. Pinaud is in my neighborhood and I never found anything remarkable about his macarons, even leaving aside their flashy colors. Mentioning them here would never have occurred to me. Clearly everyone has their own definition of “delicate”.
You have missed the best macaroon in Paris, it’s the Caramel Fleur du Sel at Carrette in the Trocadero…unlike most others, the center is a gooey surprise