My Marais tours are my speciality and one of the things I like most is showing people the wonderful gourmet and food shops in the area. Two of my favorites are a creative chocolate shop with the most unusual chocolate sculptures and one of the top patisseries in Paris.

I call it my double sugar whammy part of the tour and usually after walking around the neighborhood seeing the splendid historical buildings and beautiful parks & gardens, we work up a bit of hunger and thirst and I ask the client if they would like to stop for coffee. I take them to Gerard Mulot off the Place des Vosges, one of the master pastry chefs of Paris emporium, and the client’s eyes bulge and their mouths salivate over the glistening, mouthwatering pastries. One of their specialties is their famous macarons in over 15 flavors including classic fillings of raspberry, lemon, almond, caramel, and chocolate and more exotic ones like passion fruit, cassis, and rose caramel. After the client finally narrows down the tough choice of picking one pastry or a few flavors of macarons, we sit and inhale our treats and wash it down with their strong coffee, which energizes us to continue the tour.

Delightful (and extremely naughty) Treats

As if we didn’t indulge enough with the pastries, the next stop is Josephine Vannier, a delectable chocolate shop a few doors down. We marvel at the incredible chocolate sculptures in the window and the latest theme is a collection of chocolate boxes with varying yellow happy and sad faces painted on each one. Once inside we are assailed with an intense scent of chocolate and amused by the other sculptures of musical instruments, cell phones, Eiffel Towers, and globes. As wonderful as the sculptures are, they are not the most transportable, so the client usually opts for something they can munch on right away. I suggest the exotic flavored chocolate bars with combinations of salt & pepper, dried raspberry, spice bread, curry & pimento spice, and dried apple & pear.

Chocolate Delights at Josephine Vannier's

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Residents in the Paris district of Marais are upset that there is a plan to use a house in their neighbourhood as a base for France’s very popular Star Academy reality TV show.

Star Academy at The Marais, image courtesy Daquella Manera, Flick

The genteel inhabitants of the district, which contains the beautiful Place Des Voges (Paris’ Oldest Square) and the Musee Picasso, are worried that their lives will be tuned upside down with comings and goings and rehearsals for the reality show - I suppose it depends on how good they are…