Ladurée: Parisian Macarons Land In New York

October 6, 2011  by Amy Thomas

Ladurée macarons in their sleek box (Louis Beche)

For years, everyone—especially New Yorkers—has been clamoring for the death of the cupcakes. Let those pastel-colored, frosting-slathered, sprinkled-adorned, oh-so-cute sugar bombs be over! Can we puh-leeze move on?? And it would appear, with Ladurée’s arrival on Madison Avenue, New Yorkers may finally get their wish: the macaron could soon trump the cupcake as the sweet du jour.

Ladurée’s new NYC store, and its line of fans (Amy Thomas)

Of course Parisians are well acquainted with Ladurée, the 149-year-old salon de thé that purportedly invented the macaron. But with the exception of savvy New Yorkers who used to raid the Champs-Elysées store for a box of Technicolor two-bite treats, and then proudly parade their pale green shopping bags around the Upper East Side, the French brand has remained an exotic import to New Yorkers. Which explains the two-hour queues.

Ladurée macarons (Yuichi Sakuraba)

To be fair, by the time I made it to Ladurée, three weeks after it opened, the line was down to a 15-minute wait. As if I were a macaron virgin, the dauntless teenager in front of me who had previously waited hours for a Ladurée hit, told me the sweets “were totally worth the wait.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Food, Travel | 11 Comments »

Following the Chocolate in Paris

June 4, 2009  by Tory Hoen

photos courtesy of laduree.fr & chocolatezoom.com

There are many ways to experience Paris, but one of the more decadent ones is, simply, to follow the chocolate. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of doing just that when I tagged along on Context Tour’s “Chocolate Walk,” a chocoholic’s dream that took me to many of the Left Bank’s most delicious (and gastronomically prestigious) addresses.

We began the tour in front of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church, where our docent, Camille Labro, pulled an actual cocoa pod (which she had recently brought from Brazil) out of her handbag and gave us a quick rundown on the plant’s important role in world history.  Over the next few hours, we would learn the ins-and-outs of chocolate production and consumption, from its historical roots in South America to its modern incarnations in Paris and throughout the world. Continue Reading »

Posted in Food, Parisian Living, Tours and Classes | 10 Comments »