The 16 Best Patisseries in Paris

After founding contemporary bakery Liberté back in 2013, Benoit Castel has continued in the vein of “freeing” French pastry from its stodgy reputation at his eponymous boutiques, which break from tradition in more ways than one. Marrying the idea of a café and that of a patisserie, Castel offers visitors the rare Parisian space where you can dig into treats on-site.

Offerings range from simple traveling cakes like almond flour financiers and madeleines to modern plays on classics like a deconstructed fraisier or a lemon “tart” featuring nine perfectly piped dollops of curd arranged across a square shortbread biscuit–one of the house specialties. Supersized cream puffs are filled with coffee or chocolate; seasonal offerings like tarte tatin or clafoutis make the most of fresh fruit.

Once an employee of his now arch-rival Ladurée, Pierre Hermé has risen to become Paris’ inarguable macaron king. His offerings range from classics like chocolate and caramel to seasonal offerings taking inspiration from elsewhere. Strawberry is paired with pungent Japanese wasabi, pistachio, and sour cherry are punched up with a hint of cinnamon.

While some of Hermé’s shops sell only macarons and chocolates, at other outposts, you may be able to try his equally delicious pastries, from the Piedmont hazelnut millefeuille to the Ispahan—a macaron base filled with raspberries and scented with rose and litchi.

François Perret has been making pastry at the glamorous Ritz since 2015, but it wasn’t until 2021 that he launched the Ritz Le Comptoir pastry shop, where even those who aren’t guests of the palace hotel can get a taste of his delicious creations.

The menu features the madeleine trompe l’oeil cake he crafted at the luxury hotel’s Bar Vendôme, comprised of a Savoy biscuit, toasted almonds, and a chestnut honey center. The madeleines author Marcel Proust so loved—and for whom the hotel’s Salon de Proust is named—are filled with jam, chocolate, or chestnut honey. In a nod to the “to-go” mentality of the shop, viennoiseries and even sandwiches are served in an ultra-long, mess-free format that is perfect for enjoying while you flâne.

This shop boasts no pastry chef. Instead, Fou de Pâtisserie unites the best pastries from over a dozen of the capital’s top pâtissiers. While offerings revolve regularly, frequent fliers include the nut tartlet from Nicolas Haelewyn, with its rich caramel coating and an assortment of hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, and macadamia nuts. There are also gluten-free options and easy-to-transport cookies, babka, and loaf cake.

The braided Polish babka has taken Paris by storm, joining classic French viennoiseries in many a bakery window. But at Babka Zana, it’s the true star of the menu. This pastry shop specializes almost exclusively in babka, with flavors including chocolate hazelnut, lemon halva, or cinnamon. Joining the namesake pastries are light, fluffy labneh cheesecakes and rugelach, as well as a handful of savory options like sabiches or boreka.

The plaque proudly placed in front of this rue Montorgueil pastry shop proclaims it as Paris’ oldest patisserie. Founded in 1730 by Nicolas Stohrer, the pastry chef to King Louis XV, Stohrer boasts a beautifully tiled interior and an appetizing window of all French pastry classics. From chocolate-coffee opéra to hazelnut Paris-Brest, vanilla-caramel Saint-Honoré to lemon tart, this is the place to come if you’re in the market for a truly traditional Parisian pastry experience.

Few pastry chefs of Marletti’s caliber commit to the sheer variety of pastries you’ll find at his eponymous 5^th arrondissement shop. Indeed, the choice can be paralyzing but know that it’s hard to go wrong – especially if you snag something made with choux pastry, like his seasonal éclair or purple Lily Valley, named for his florist wife and boasting violet-scented pastry cream and purple sugar décor. Skip the too-sweet macarons, but grab a citrus-infused gâteau basque in its buttery pastry casing – the perfect transportable snack for later.

Claire Damon’s rural French childhood informs her pastry approach at Des Gâteaux et du Pain, with fruit-driven pastries crafted by way of classic French technique. Organic ingredients sourced from small producers are at the heart of her masterpieces, ranging from rhubarb cream puffs to raspberry cheesecake to a wild strawberry tart almost too pretty to eat.

Utopie offers exquisite examples of pastry and viennoiserie – something many shops are hard-pressed to do. And while its croissants and breads are excellent, it’s the pastry that keeps us coming back, with unique, internationally-inspired cakes like a stunner of a sesame-lime creation (a creamy dome dusted in black sesame) or strawberry entremets paired with pecan cream, black lemon Chantilly, and basil oil.

Cream puffs can be found at almost every pastry shop in Paris, but rarely are they treated with such care as at this mono-pastry shop in Montmartre. At Les Choupettes de Chouchou, the choux pastry puffs are filled to order with organic Chantilly cream: chocolate, coffee, lemon, or plain vanilla. An occasional seasonal flavor joins the melee, and savory iterations can be ordered in advance.