Paris – In Search of Bakeries

Yesterday I had a fantastic day in Paris visiting bakeries, a favourite pastime of mine and in the company of the charismatic Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.  What more can a girl like me ask for?

Walking from Gard du Nord we started in a bakery in Montmartre called Coquelicot, where I tasted with my first coffee of the day one of their sourdoughs, good crumb, good texture and lovely wheat aroma.  The bakery with an upstairs and being reasonably priced is very popular for breakfast and with students.

We walked past and had a brief look into Alexine bakery, a hole in the wall shop run by a wife and husband team, and as you can see it’s popular.

I had a longer visit to Arnaud Delmontel bakery, one of his three bakeries in the city.  A lovely man who started out with one baker, him and a girl behind the counter working 18 hour days.  Spoke English because he worked in London for a short while and then the US.

You can see below what loaf caught my eye, a 100% sourdough rye, a beauty, fabulous height for a free-form rye.

Put two men interested in the world of bread together and they’ll talk.  Mr Jean-Philippe de Tonnac & Mr Arnaud Delmontel.

I thought it was interesting that Arnaud has 2 full time bakers just churning out macarons all day long, knowing the craze about them in the blogger world it doesn’t surprise me at all.

I do like my desserts but in this visit they played second fiddle to my mission of finding good bakeries.

Our third stop was to the very trendy Gontran Cherrier bakery, someone who’s doing unusual things with his breads for the norm of Paris.

This very black bun was visually striking made with squid ink.  Filled with smoked salmon, ham and salad it was difficult to tell if it had a subtle flavour since the filling was strongly flavoured but it has intrigued me enough to want to try it at home.

Apart from the more normal loaves of Apricot, Cinnamon & Hazelnuts, or ones with Caraway & Cumin there was a more unusual one with Red Miso.  I tasted it and could detect the salty miso, not sure about eating it on its own but I can imagine pairing off nicely with the right food.  I also tasted a Fig & Caraway which was good.

Our last stop and by this time my feet were killing me was to my anticipated Du Pain et Des Idées bakery to try the famous Pain des Amis.

I found out about this bread through watching a youtube clip of Brad from Tartine bakery in San Francisco.  It’s baked in very large squares and sold cut in pieces.

I couldn’t wait to taste it.  The crumb was nothing special, good enough but I thought it lacked an outstanding flavour.  I thought the crumb in my first sourdough of the day had more aroma.

What was outstanding about this loaf was the crust, and sitting here writing this makes me want to try it again because there is a range of flavour I could detect, it’s an incredibly interesting crust, not the norm.  It has a strong taste of ash, I could also detect an occasional fruity flavour like that of an olive oil but only the top crust, the bottom crust was less complex.

I ate the whole top crust on the train on the way back, each time I chewed a new piece I was trying to figure out how you could achieve such a complex interesting flavour.

I did take a little notice of the city as we went through one place to another but I should explain that I have been to Paris a few times since being in my teens and this visit was a purpose-led one rather than a touristy one.

Jean-Philippe took me to one of his favourite parts of the city with a beautiful garden, a fountain and this square surrounding it with its Italian style arches.  It was very pretty and a part of the city I hadn’t seen before, just wish I was better at remembering the name of it.

In the middle of the day Jean-Philippe received the most wonderful news a parent can receive from his daughter, she had passed her exams top of her class and was now able to start her training to become a lawyer, a very memorable day.

We made to four bakeries but there were another possible four we didn’t manage to visit, Marianne Ganachaud a female baker and a daughter of a baker,  Lenotre, a patisserie Pain de Sucre and Eric Kayser bakery.  Sounds as if I need a second day in Paris.

I came back with aching feet but a joyous heart and a big smile.  I had a wonderful day.

Jean-Philippe was fantastic company with abundant energy for his favourite subject, I was only too happy to absorb it.  He has made me take the subject of flour more seriously.  He’s a man with a mission for his passion.  He’s a generous, kind and genuine person, a pleasure to meet.  Spending the day with him revitalised my ideas and re-enforced my plans for the future, and I shall be grateful for that.

If you ask Jean-Philippe where he would go for his favourite bread then it wouldn’t be Paris, it’s in a little place in the South of France here Les Maîtres de mon Moulin, where the baker Roland is baking with flour grown in the land around him.