In Paris, haute couture extends all the way to the dessert trolley. Even a venerable let-them-eat-cake institution like Angelina, founded in 1903, has to keep up with the trifle trends.

On April 29, with the accompanying pops of pink champagne, Angelina unveiled the dernier cri on the calorie chart with its spring-summer 2014 pastry collection. Dark chocolate and truffles are beating a retreat, and sunny color combinations—raspberry with ecru-tinted Earl Gray cream; mellow peach with casual crumble accents—are on the rise.

Even the ultra-classic mont blanc, the Hermès scarf of the Angelina empire chocking up 600 sales a day, gets a summer makeover. It’s keeping its famous sugar-dusted toupée of chestnut spaghetti cream… but adding a light, bright strawberry center to its Chantilly/meringue base.

Angelina has a history of adopting new food-stuffs from outside Europe. (Think of how it perfected the chocolat chaud adored by the French royal family since the early 17th century.) This season, Angelina has looked even farther afield for rare and unusual ingredients…

… Eastern Pennsylvania.

Yes, this summer Angelina débuts its first cheesecake and the fromage in question comes from Philadelphia. However, Angelina’s Chef Christophe Appert is quick to deny any undue American influence. ”American cheesecakes are always baked,” he explains. ”Ours consists of an uncooked cheese froth served on a bed of confit d’abricot and madeleine-inspired sablé crust.”

(Apparently, soggy graham crackers just don’t make the cut.)

These treats – rounded out with other ephemeral Angelina creations like peach/vanilla tarts, raspberry/macaroon courtisanes, and strawberry/whipped cream/hazlenut éclairs – can be sampled for under 7€/each at Angelina’s nine French locations in Paris, Versailles and Lyon.

Angelina. 226 rue de Rivoli (75001), 108 rue du Bac (75007), 19 rue de vaugirard (75006), Chateau de Versailles, and other locations.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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After making a name for himself in the candy business in the south of France, Antoine Rumpelmayer, originally from Austria, opened a tea room in Paris’s most fashionable commercial quarter in 1903 and named it after his daughter-in-law Angeline. Rue de Rivioli, where it borders the Tuileries Garden, was then part of the most exclusive commercial district in the city thanks to the presence of the grand hotels of the late 19th-century (the Meurice, the Ritz, the Hotel du Louvre, et al.), the Garnier Opera, the high jewelry business then claiming Place Vendôme as its home (Boucheron, Cartier and Chaumet were then present), and the haute couture business that had been taking shape.

The brand was expanding to Japan while Angelina was still in its 90s, but that expansion has been occurring at more corporate speed since its purchase five years ago by Groupe Bernard, the fifth owner in Angelina’s history.

Japan now has two Angelina tea rooms along with 14 corners and boutiques. Franchises opened in Beijing and in Dubai this fall, with one in Doha slated for this winter. There’s an outlet at Galeries Lafayette in Lyon. Closer to home, there are currently seven outlets in Paris (not franchises), including the original tea room on rue de Rivoli, and a new bakery at 108 rue du Bac.

Hot Chocolate at Versailles

There’s also a tea room inside the Palace of Versailles and an Angelina counter by the entrance to the Petit Trianon. Angelina’s presence at Versailles is first and foremost a reflection of the need of the gatekeepers to the palace-museum to augment state subsidies, but its presence is also a charming historical reminder of Louis XIV’s and his queen Marie-Thérèse’s enjoyment of hot chocolate, which helped launch the beverage in France. France got a taste for hot chocolate in the 17th-century via Iberian Penninsula whose conquistadors first encountered cacao during their South American conquest. Marie-Thérèse, l’infante d’Espagne, was in fact the daughter of the king of Spain. Admitted, Angelina’s chocolate is proudly African whereas the chocolate of Versailles was South American. No matter, it makes for a good little lesson in the history of chocolate.

L’Africain

L’Africain, as Angelina calls its hot chocolate, derives its name from the use of four types of African cacao in the mix. The unsweetened whipped cream served with it may be caloric overkill, but its nevertheless useful in toning down the bitterness that some—particularly Americans since we’re less accustom to eating/drinking dark chocolates—taste with a first mouthful of Angelina’s thick nectar. L’Africain used to beat the competition in Paris hands down, but thick hot chocolates can now be found elsewhere in the capital. Still, it’s a joy. Six hundred servings are ordered at the Rivoli tea room each day.

L’Africain is also sold in bottles to be heated up at home, a creation that in 2009 began replacing the previously sold powder to which one added milk. As of this fall travelers can even order Angelina hot chocolate at the snack bar on the TGV high speed trains in France, poured from a single-serving bottle and heated by microwave behind the counter. I enjoy a little history with my Angelina hot chocolate and tend to recommend drinking it from a porcelain cup from the original tea room, but a paper cup on the TGV is not to be scoffed at, especially when traveling with children.

Groupe Bertrand

Angelina’s expansion under Groupe Bertrand hasn’t eased its 4pm lines under the arcades of rue de Rivoli any more than Ladurée’s expansion under Groupe Holder has shortened the queues for macaroons at its main outlets.

Groupe Bertrand owns or franchises numerous restaurants, fast-food joints, pubs, brasseries and cafeterias in Paris, the Paris region and well beyond. In addition to Angelina, their most notable Paris properties are Brasserie Lipp, Charlie Birdy, Sir Winston and Tsé , while the group also operates restaurants in the Printemps department store.

The Mont-Blanc

No documents have been found to indicate precisely when the tea room began selling its most famous pastry, the mont-blanc, but Angelina’s archives show that it already appeared on menus from the 1930s. The blob-shaped mont-blanc may look less refined and delicate than other pastries chez Angelina, but that copper brown ball of sweet chestnut cream surrounding unsweetened whipped cream and a meringue heart remains worthy of admiration for any sweet-tooth and cream-hound. Angelina sells 2500 of them each day in France. (A serving of hot chocolate and mont-blanc being far too rich for most mortals, it might be advisable to accompany the pastry with tea or coffee or simply to share.)

Expanding the Angelina brand also means adding new pastry recipes to the display counter, such as the cassis-flavored mont blanc that reached rue de Rivoli to coincide with the 110th anniversary and the babylon, an almond dacquoise with vanilla mousse, candied raspberries and strawberry marshmallow created to mark the opening of Angelina Rive Gauche, the brand’s new pastry shop at 108 rue du Bac.

The light and relatively pricey lunch at Angelina is not my cup of tea, personally, but at any time of day the Belle Epoque tea room holds its historical aura. However, that aura disappears when seated in one of the back rooms. As to the space upstairs, some see it as being too close to les toilettes or away from the action of the main room, but in its far reaches, with the right company or alone with a good book or a promising text, it can feel nicely private, even exclusive.

Le Club des Gourmandes

There, in May 2013, Angela held its first invitation-only meeting of Le Club des Gourmandes, a gathering of “influential” women who delight in partaking of good food, with a special affection for sweet delicacies (gourmandises). “Influential” largely refers thus far to women in the media.

At the second gathering in October 2013, five gourmandes were inducted into the clubs,

– Natasha Harry, a television personality, who adores milk chocolate;
– Isabelle Bourdet, Director-General of the Press Club of Paris, who prefers a good ol’ pain aux raisins;
– Mercotte, a cookbook author and co-host of Le Meilleur Pâtissier, a top pastry chef competition, who claims a special affection for the classic French pastry the Paris-Brest, made by Philippe Conticini (founder of La Pâtisserie des Rêves);
– Sonia Ezgulian, a journalist, cookbook author and culinary consultant, who’s a fan of Calissons Petit Duc, a diamond-shaped almond-paste confection, and
– Catherine Guérin, founder of the international culinary public relations firm Toques Connection, a fan of anything containing almonds.

Asked what it meant to be honored into the Club des Gourmandes, Guérin said that “gathering around gourmandises gives positive energy—it’s a breath of fresh air.”

Here’s to many more years of positive energy!

Angelina, 226 rue de Rivoli, 1st arr. Metro Tuileries. Tel. 01 42 60 82 00. Open daily: Mon.–Fri. 7:30am-7pm, Sat. and Sun. 8:30am-7pm. The site has a complete list of the Angelina’s outlets in Paris and elsewhere.

The post Angelina At 110 Pursues the Sweet Life In Paris and Beyond appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

It’s hard to imagine that a district as well-trodden as the 6th arrondissement would still have anything resembling a backstreet, but if a backstreet in Paris can be defined as a street with neither thru-traffic nor croissants—selling croissants requires sufficient morning traffic or an elementary school nearby—then rue de l’Abbé Grégoire fits the bill.

Ferrandi, the French School of Gastronomy

Actually, there are croissants on rue de l’Abbé Grégoire, but they aren’t for public sale. They’re made as a practical exercise during baking class at the Ferrandi School.

Ferrandi is well known in Paris’s gastronomic circles for its secondary school curricula covering all aspects of the culinary arts and the restaurant business, from chef to manager. The school also offers short and long programs for amateur or professional chefs, and foreigners may apply for any of the school’s programs.

The culinary school also houses one of the best kept gastronomic secrets in Paris. Anyone, upon reservation, can become the well-fed guinea pig for the cuisine and services of the school’s young and budding chefs and restaurant staff at Ferrandi’s two dining rooms, les restaurants d’application.

A 3-course lunch menu is served Tues.-Fri. for 25€ or 30€, depending on the dining room. A 3-course dinner menu is served Mon. and Tues. (45€) and the occasional Thurs. (40€). Prices exclude beverages; there’s a decent wine list here. The students in the kitchen and in the dining room are being trained in French gastronomy, so whether achieved or not in every dish and every gesture, each meal has gastronomic leanings in its preparation and service.

Each table is requested to select a variety of dishes so as to give the chefs practice in the full range of the day’s menu. Come as a couple if you like, but as a restaurant experience a meal chez Ferrandi is especially endearing for a party of four or more. You’ll find the wait staff more willing to speak with diners than other waiters about town (students are expected to attain a certain proficiency in English) and you may even have the occasion to meet the young chefs before they head to their next class, or out for a smoke.

Ferrandi Paris, 28 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire, 6th arr. Tel. 01 49 54 28 00. Saint-Placide (line 4) is the closest metro station to Ferrandi and to the shops below, while the Rennes station (line 12) is just a bit further.

Backstreet doesn’t mean that Abbé Grégoire is difficult to find (the liberal, revolutionary abbot himself is entombed in the Pantheon) but that the neighboring streets are more commonly shopped and strolled and transited: rue du Cherche-Midi, rue de Vaugirard, rue Saint-Placide, rue de Rennes.

Colorova, Pastry Shop and Tea/Lunch Room

Guillaume Gil, the chef and owner of Colorova, a shop across the street from Ferrandi, is a 2004 graduate of the school, pastry section. Though he speaks highly of education at Ferrandi, it isn’t an attachment to the school that brought him to rue de l’Abbé Grégoire but the possibility in 2012, at the age of 31, to deploy his dream of operating his own business after honing his skills as an apprentice at the Plaza-Athenée, as commis chef at La Maison Blanche and as second and then chef at the Terrass Hotel.

At first glance, Colorova could be taken for an architect’s office, a frame shop, a design shop or a decorator’s showroom. You’ll likely first notice the light jade Smeg fridge to one side of the window and the Florentine nest of tables and woven-fabric-covered footstools to the other before catching sight of the presentation counters. And even then you might notice the slats that decorate the side of the counters before the array of pastries on top. But there they are: Guillaume Gil’s beautiful and delicious creations, and behind one of the counters, the man himself, working away with an assistant or two in the open kitchen.

About ten different pastries appear on the counter on a given day. Since the pastry presentation isn’t the focus of the room, the offerings of about 10 different pastries can appear rather sparse, but that illusion disappears as soon as you take on the challenge of trying to select one.

Gil’s luscious modern pastries stray noticeably if slightly from the canons of classic fine pastry-making without being avant-garde, e.g. a commendable caramel mousse tarte with a ring of speculoos and peanuts; a candied raspberry and chocolate tart; a café mousse with amaretto mascarpone. Gil eschews traditional pastries such as éclairs and basic fruit tarts. Viennoiserie (croissants, pains au chocolat and other morning pastries) are also absent, other than on weekends and holidays, when Colorova serves what has become a very popular brunch (26€ or 35€, reservations required). Weekday lunch, also prepared by Gil and his assistance, is also available. Pastries remain his true expertise.

The large minimalist boutique area and additional seating area, both enlivened with splashes of color, have an air of refinement but neither snobbery nor exclusivity. Anyone will feel comfortable here. In the morning and during afternoon tea, Colorova is a fairly quiet place that makes for a sweet, perhaps romantic linger.

Since Gil’s aren’t pastries that one can easily eat while walking, it’s best to choose one and have a seat. Pastries cost 4€50-5€50, so you might as well take a seat and savor the pleasure along with a Lov Organic tea or Nespresso coffee or a thick hot chocolate for overkill. A nice breakfast is also available at 12€ consisting of a slice of soft, delicate French toast (from a brioche made here); a whipped vanilla cream, caramel and apple compote; a hot drink and orange juice; bread (not made here), and homemade jams, a chocolate spread and a caramel spread.

Colorova, 47 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire, 6th arr. Tel. 01 45 44 67 56. Open Tues. 10am-5pm, Wed.-Fri. 7:30am-7pm, Sat.Sun. 9am-7pm. Weekend brunch is served at three seatings: beginning at 11/11:30am, 1/1:30pm and 3:30/4pm.

Le Vin en Bouche, Wine Shop

While Colorova, at first glance, looks like a design shop, Le Vin en Bouche, when I first walked by, looked as though someone had left the door open to the back pantry. I say that fondly because this quirky little wine shop and tasting room has an inviting spirit that comes from the knowledge and personalities of its two dissimilar owners, Vincent Martin, 41, and Jonathan Jean, 24, either of which would make a fine drinking companion.

Vincent Martin is a Ferrandi graduate, where he studied the culinary arts from 1993 to 1995 after three years in hotel school and where he discovered an aptitude for and an interest in the subtleties of wine. He was head sommelier at La Truffière, where he worked from 2000 to 2010 and helped develop the gastronomic restaurant’s tremendous wine cellar. He and Jean met when the latter, then in his teens, was hired as his apprentice.

Combining Martin’s great experience and Jean’s knowledgeable and engaging enthusiasm, they opened their little shop as peers in 2012. Whether you come upon one or the other you’ll get expert advice on an eclectic selection of wines and spirits and can pursue the conversation with them or with your travel companions over a glass and some well-selected charcuterie or fromage at the narrow table by the brick wall. They also offer wine tasting workshops and events, and Martin continues to advise restaurants and individuals on constituting wine lists and wine cellars.

Martin has personally visited each of the vineyards represented in the shop. But that’s not the end of his purchase policy. More than a dozen bottles are open at the shop at any time. The purpose of the open bottles isn’t simply to give clients a taste or larger pour, but also because Martin believes that for a wine to be worthy it must, among other qualities, be able to stand up to having been opened for a week or so. He continues to test open bottles for up to ten days to understand how they evolve. They’re simply recorked after each taste, without any air pump device, and either left on the table or placed in the wine fridge. “It’s a little extreme,” he acknowledges, “but I don’t like to leave things to chance.”

Martin and Jean’s small selection echoes their “passion for the wines of small winegrowers that truly represent their place of origin [terroir],” as Martin says. That’s a formula, at once trendy and old-fashion, that the traveler is well-advised to take as his own motto while getting to know French wines.  In wine tastings with those unaccustomed to French and European appellations, Martin joins many small-shop owners in saying that one of his tasks with New World consumers it to get them to loosen their focus on expecting a particular taste from a particular grape varietal.

These aren’t necessarily pricey wines. Most are in the 15-35€ range, along with a splash of more expensive wines from notable low-yield vineyards. There’s no Bordeaux in the shop, as Martin explains, because he finds that too many vintners and traders of the Bordeaux region have generally opted to sell through large distribution channels, meaning that any retail price that he might have for such wines would far exceed their price in chain shops, which would in term make him and Jean look like a price gougers. Actually, Martin does have some well-aging Bordeaux along with along with other “vins de garde” and old vintages in a private cellar in the 5th arrondissement. Those wines are also available for sale, so knowledgeable wine-lovers might wish to inquire about wines beyond those found in this wonderful little wine pantry.

Le Vin en Bouche, 27 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire, 6th arr. Tél. 01 42 22 02 97. Open Mon.-Sat. 10am-8pm.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris Street Talk: Gastronomy, Pastries and Wine on Rue de l’Abbé Grégoire, 6th Arr. appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Aspiring 21st century novelist Gil Pender walks away perplexed but elated after a conversation with Ernest Hemingway at Restaurant Polidor in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Hemingway promises to show his novel to Gertrude Stein, and Pender is off to pick up the draft when he remembers that he never established a place to meet Hemingway on his next magical midnight excursion to the 1920s. Turning back to retrace his steps in the darkness of early morning, Le Polidor has vanished and Gil finds a sleepy green glow illuminating dormant machines in a laundromat where moments before Hemingway had been drinking wine and imparting truncated macho aphorisms.

At that moment I was still laughing at the caricature of Hemingway. He was so like the cartoonish image I had envisioned decades earlier within the penumbra of mid-20th century America when many English majors  suffered what Hemingway biographer A.E. Hotchner described as “an affliction common to our generation: Hemingway Awe.” But I laughed more when I recognized the laundromat as the one that is directly across the street from the Polidor on rue Monsieur le Prince. My laundry had tumbled in those machines a number of times. I suspect that, like me, other aging English majors continue to be charmed by the “lost generation” that Woody Allen eulogizes and laughs at in Midnight in Paris. And like me, they may still carry a notebook wherever they go—even to a laundromat.

The last time I did my laundry on rue Monsieur Le Prince it was early morning. My husband was off to a business meeting in Lille and I was alone on a rainy and chilly summer day in Paris. I looked forward to just walking and finding a comfortable spot to read and write. After depositing my laundry in a washing machine, I headed toward the Luxembourg Gardens. I was attired very casually since I couldn’t dress for the day until my laundry was done. I felt comfortably anonymous, and when I stepped under the awning of Le Rostand, I chose to sit outdoors even though all of the other customers were inside.

I took a table next to the door, furthest from the street and the rain. The waiter came and then went to get my café and I opened my notebook. I glanced toward the gardens just opposite and felt a wonderful sense of satisfaction.

I looked up when the waiter returned and saw that another woman was electing to sit outdoors, but in contrast to my well-worn zip-front and Velcro nylon rain jacket and Teva sandals, this woman wore an elegantly tailored fitted raincoat, an indigo silk scarf shimmering around her neck, and flesh-colored pumps. She carried an umbrella and a small buttery handbag.

When the waiter noticed her he almost clicked his heels. She greeted him by name and looked toward my table: I knew instantly that it was hers. When she took the table next to mine the bulge of my backpack in which I had carried the laundry seemed to groan with shame. As she sat, she put her purse on the table; our eyes met and she smiled. She knew I felt ill at ease. I murmured “Bonjour, Madame.”

The waiter took her order and then she rose to go indoors. She was about my age and I knew where she was headed. She was about to take her pocketbook with her when she changed her mind. No matter how nice the café, the toilettes is a limited space at best. She intimated with gesture and a knowing smile that I should keep an eye on it, and with some stumbling French I nodded in accord. How many times had these same silent messages been passed between me and female friends at home? I was amazed by her delicate sense of civility and at her graciousness in acceding to a sisterhood of trust. The rain came down harder as I waited for her return and I felt a compliment that almost moved me to tears.

The watched purse engendered conversation when she returned. She thanked me with a warm, sincere smile. I introduced myself as Elizabeth and she said she was Josette. There was no need to say I was an American. She told me in French that although she knew some English, she did not speak it because her mastery of it was flawed. At that moment I was grateful that this was the last leg of a three-week trip that had taken us through Provence and into the Dordogne; as always, language improves with immersion. I was happy to struggle with French and she was gracious. The waiter watched as we chatted.

Josette asked what brought me to France and I told her about our vacation in the south and the few days in Paris where my husband had business. She asked where I was from in the U.S. and I told her I lived outside of Philadelphia, not too far from New York City. She said she had lived briefly in New York and that was where she had practiced the English she had learned in school but never quite mastered. She said that she felt inadequate during that time and that it ruined any desire to stumble with English again. I encouraged her by citing my own joyful struggles with French, but I understood that this was a matter of principal and pride that was deeply woven into her being. In response to my question as to what took her to New York to live, she told me her husband worked for the government. She did not tell me his position and I refrained from asking, but she said that because of it, they had lived around the world for many years. When she spoke of “his work” I was acutely aware that we were close to the French Senate as well as the University of Paris. I also recalled how the waiter deferred to her.

For the next forty minutes I extracted from myself all the French I knew, and because of both her patience and steadfast avoidance of English, as we spoke of children and schools and travel, I learned a few new words and validated my long-held belief that great conversation is always possible when strangers look to each other with respect.

The richest part of our conversation was about Paris. When I told her how I had come to envision and love France and Paris as a young woman reading de Maupassant and Hugo and Flaubert and Fitzgerald and Hemingway, she nodded with understanding and said that Madame Bovary was a particular favorite of hers. It was one of mine, as well. She asked if I had been to the Pantheon to visit the tombs of Hugo and Zola. She said that to her Paris was very beautiful in a physical sense but that more importantly it was a reminder that mankind is capable of beauté et dignité.

When we first began talking I was dreading the moment when my laundry would be done and I would have to excuse myself from the conversation; I was certain that this was a woman who rarely washed her own clothes. My pride, bedraped by worn travel clothes and a backpack, was inflamed. In my mind I had conjured excuses: “Excusez- moi, mais j’ai un rendezvous” or perhaps “Excusez-moi, je dois quitter de rencontrer a un ami.” As the hands on my watch approached the time, however, I felt that I was at the end of a chance meeting with an elegant, perhaps important woman who had savored our forty-minute conversation on a rainy morning in Paris as much as I had. I knew that she appreciated my enthusiastic, often bumbling French and she complimented my accent a couple of times. More than that, however, we had spoken as women speak everywhere; we unfolded a bit of the panorama of our lives before each other, and in between words there were smiles, nods, and eyes that met in understanding—just as they had met when I realized I was sitting at her usual table and when she asked me to watch her lovely handbag.

When I knew I had to leave I said, “Excusez-moi. Je dois prendre mes vêtements à la laverie de la rue Monsieur Le Prince.”  We smiled, shook hands warmly, uttered each other’s name as we said au revoir, and I walked back to the laundromat in the gentle rain.

While my clothes were tossing in the dryer I took out my notebook and jotted down what I remembered about my early morning café at Le Rostand. I wanted to save the moment because I knew that if, like Woody Allen’s Gil, I retraced my steps, it would be gone.

© 2013, Elizabeth Esris

Other great travel stories and poetry by Elizabeth Esris can be found here.

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