The macarons from Pierre Hermé are the best macarons I’ve ever had in my entire life! It was the first place my better half wanted to go to when we were in Paris earlier this year. We went to two of his shops – the original one is at Pâtisserie Pierre Hermé Paris in Bonaparte but their Macarons & Chocolats Pierre Hermé Paris boutiques at Galeries Lafayette has seating arrangements!
Pierre Hermé also sells a wide variety of fantastic chocolates and pastries but we were here for the macarons so we got a pack of 7 macarons and opted to eat at the beautiful rooftop with an amazing 360 degree view of Paris instead of at the boutique itself.
My dear liked the Les Incontournables De Paris (The Essentials Of Paris) box so I got that for her. It costs €18 for a box of 7. The friendly attendant was even kind enough to let us pick the flavors (it’s supposed to be a fixed box set) and even include *limited edition macarons* from the Pierre Hermé Paris ‘Les Jardins’ Collection 2014!
Pierre Hermé has a total of 23 (!!!) flavors of macarons at any time. However, most of their box sets have a theme e.g. the Initiation 20-piece Assortment (€59) only has 4 different types of macarons. There’s no set price per macaron, it depends on what you get and the price can range from €2 – €3 per macaron. We got ours for slightly over €2.50 each (about RM 11 per macaron).
The French guy serving us allowed us to choose anything (including limited editions) from the 23 different flavors for the 7-pack, so we took turns choosing macarons:
HUILE D’OLIVE & VANILLE
Olive Oil Fruite Vert, Vanilla & bits of Green Olive
CRÈME BRÛLÉE
Vanillas & Caramel bits
MOGADOR
Milk Chocolate & Passion Fruit
MILÉNA
Fresh Mint & Red Berries
MONTEBELLO
Pistachio & Raspberry compote
JARDIN DES 8 TRÉSORS
Lotus Seed, Red Date, Wolfberry, Rosebud, Dried Orange Peel, Dried Longan Fruit, Chrysanthemum and Osmanthus
INFINIMENT ROSE
Rose & Rose Petals
I just love how weird and quirky the flavors are! It’s not just for the “wow factor” too, the combinations works very well! My first choice was the delectable Huile d’olive & Vanille with bits of *real* green olive!
I’ve never had an olive macaron (with REAL olive pieces inside) before and we both loved it!
My dear went for the Crème Brûlée which actually tastes remarkably like the real thing! I couldn’t believe it.
The delicate Infiniment Rose is made from rose and has rose petals (!!!) in the macaron!
We loved every single macaron – there were no duds or mediocre ones in the box, every single macaron was balanced well, not the sickly sweet macarons we get here but an amazing symphony of perfection.
The other highlight was Jardin des 8 Trésors – the April 2014 monthly limited edition macaron from the Pierre Hermé Paris ‘Les Jardins’ Collection 2014 with 8 different Asian treasures packed into 1 macaron – lotus seed, red date, wolfberry, rosebud, dried orange peel, dried longan fruit, chrysanthemum and osmanthus with incredibly complex flavor and texture profiles.
We were munching on the macarons in a sky park on top of Galeries Lafayette on a sunny spring day with lots of other locals camped out to enjoy the fresh air and the amazing panoramic view of Paris.
It was one of the highlights of our trip – enjoying good food, each other, and the Parisian experience!
I have never had a better macaron than Pierre Hermé in Paris! Adriano Zumbo comes close and Ladurée is a distant third. I highly recommend eating the original ones from France in France, you can’t keep it for more than 4 days and I dub Pierre Hermé the best macarons I’ve ever had in my life and my dear agrees! 🙂
These things are originally French, aren’t they? Too sweet for me, don’t mind those not thus inclined though…but I guess you can’t get that unless you make your own at home and reduce the sugar.
Yup, Laduree claims to have invented the modern macaron! 🙂
BTW, macarons from France are not sweet at all! You really have to try the ones from there when you get the chance! It’s not like local macarons, which are sooo sweet it’s almost inedible.
You don’t need to make it yourself, the local “macarons” have fooled too many people into thinking it’s supposed to be a saccharine sweet confection when it’s actually not.
I love the Huile d’olive & Vanille from Pierre Herme – there’s barely a hint of sweetness, it’s mostly vanilla from real dried vanilla beans and REAL pieces of OLIVE inside the macaron, making it slightly salty. It’s amazing, my favorite macaron.
Pierre Herme makes the best, IMHO.
Wow….so much macarons there and they looks so good. Both of you seems macarons lovers!
Yeah, we wanted to try the two best ones from France when we went to Paris! 🙂
I think we had this the second day we were day, went out specially to get Pierre Herme macarons, and then Laduree macarons.
It was a bit of a foodie trip, I had made a booking at a 2 Michelin star restaurant in Paris too.
After reading your post, I think I really need to go get some macaroons to try.. I’m not good at baking, so I won’t be baking it.. Looks like a lot of work anyways, with the colouring & filling and all, and I heard it’s not easy to make those, if you don’t have the strategy, although they are just egg whites..
Yeah, macarons aren’t exactly hard to make! 🙂
It’s just hard to make *well*. Lots of local bakers have macarons but I’ve yet to try one that can compare with the ones from France or even Adriano Zumbo from Australia.
We haven’t tried out our Zumbaron baking kit yet, should do that soon.
macaron mania! the limited-edition asian one sounds amazing, very complex … and all those ingredients are available in malaysia (wolfberries, lotus seed, longan, osmanthus, etc), so theoretically, a malaysian macaron maker should be able to produce a similar herbal-flowery-fruity macaron here too. though it sounds like it’ll need a lot of work to make sure the flavours balance well. i’d love to have tasted it 🙂
great photo of both of you with the parisian backdrop too! 😀
Yeah, that’s the limited edition macaron from the Pierre Herme Jardin collection for April 2014! 🙂
They have one new macaron for the Jardin collection every month, it’s supposed to be sold in it’s own “Les Jardin 2014” box but my better half liked this box and wanted it to collect so the guy was kind enough to let us choose the April 2014 “8 Asian Treasures” macaron as one of our 7 macarons.
It’s the one that has the special green receptacle in the pop-up display, the other macarons don’t have the special display so I chose that to try too.
However, I liked the olive macaron with real olives best, it was really delicious and unique.
Cheers mate! Yeah, I reckon a Malaysian can make that macaron too, but it seems the ones I’ve tasted here are too sweet and unimaginative – maybe we don’t get as good raw ingredients here or they’re trying to make it sweeter for the local market? I don’t get why we can’t have good macarons in KL either.
They really are amazing macarons I agree. His flavour combinations are sublime! 😀
Yeah, sublime is the word I was looking for! 🙂
Heh! Thanks Lorraine!
I think Pierre Herme makes the best ones, Laduree seems to mass produce their macarons nowadays (not sure if that’s the case, but their outlet at Champs-Elysees is like a factory – herding people in and out for their EXTREMELY popular macarons). It’s just tooo big, and I guess the location is a factor too, there’s too many people there as well.
You can have a nice tea or breakfast at Laduree though, they have a sit down service but we had eaten lunch and arrived late so their breakfast service was closed when we got there.
Adriano Zumbo in Australia makes pretty good ones too, not as good as Pierre Herme, but close!
The ones in our country are definitely too sweet.
Out of topic here but before I got to Paris, I’ve often imagined it to be an awesome place to be. You know fashion city and all but the moment I stepped foot there, it was a city of stones or metals or whatever there is but no greens. No trees no nothing. The only greens I see is the grass where many couples chilled on.
Ok end of rant. Haha.. >_<
Yeah, I get what you mean! 🙂
I’ve been to Paris during my previous Europe trip though so I knew how it was going to be like – most Western European cities look pretty much the same, although London definitely has heritage going, with their preservation of old building (at least the front facades) and Amsterdam is unique with its canal system.
There are trees in Paris though, there’s a nice park full of trees just beside the Eiffel Tower and our apartment was beside a museum where there are lots of trees.
I agree, I don’t know why the macarons in KL are so sweet, they’re not supposed to be.
I guess the French still make the best sweets eh? Incredible range of flavors too.
Btw, love that selfie with the Eiffel Tower in the background! 🙂
Yeah, I think most of the classics are still the best in France! 🙂
The flavors of macarons on offer is pretty large too, so I always find it a bit weird that we only have a few boring flavors locally. The ones in Malaysia are really low quality too, using cheap off-the-shelf “cooking grade” chocolate while a lot of the ones in France makes them with Valrhona chocolate.
Cheers! I like that photo too!
Amboi! Both of you love birds were sweeter than the macaroons in Paris! I get diabetes looking at your photos always. Wakakakaka
My wife has successfully made perfect macaroons recently and would be rolling out new trays for several bloggers this week.
Hmm…I reckon that’s true since the macarons in France isn’t sweet at all! 🙂
Nice! We’re trying to make our own macarons too – bought a box of mix from Adriano Zumbo.
wow…very pricey leh. But then go all the way there must try la else what for go, right?
Yeah, it’ll be such a waste to go all the way there and not indulge in the local food! 🙂
We went to Paris to eat macarons and made a booking at a 2 Michelin star restaurant to eat classical French dishes too!
It was a foodie expedition, although we also went to see the sights and walk around and stayed in a Paris apartment. Took the ICE/TGV high speed train from Frankfurt for about Euro 200 per pax including taxes and other charges one way.
My friend bought a box and I got to try this a few days ago..and OH MY…these are delicious! Totally changed my view abt macarons…i thought all macarons are sweet but these are not and the taste brought me to heaven and back..:D
That’s great Christina! 🙂
Yeah, the macarons we get locally are pretty much crap – sugar filled confections with no real resemblance to true macarons.
Pierre Herme is our favorite too, with Adriano Zumbo (Australia) second and Laduree as the third. Their macarons are not sweet but balanced very well, some are even salty!
Good to hear you loved them too!