I’ll start with the good. The desserts and bakeries in Paris are very good. I think I can safely say that in general, Paris bakeries are some of the best in the world. Overall just about anything you get in any Paris bakery will be very good. There may be some parts of the world that specialize in certain baked treats and desserts, and they might make that particular treat better, however Paris bakeries and desserts are overall better than most.
There are some exceptions to this of course, and I’ll get into that later, but I just love walking down a street in Paris and eating something with a light flaky crust and scattered with chocolate. Even the bread is just very good in most bakeries. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that the grocery store and convenience store baked goods are very good. Don’t get me wrong, the bakeries are better, but the level of baked goods in grocery stores is much better than most parts of the world.
The exception to this rule for me is some of the ultra fancy bakeries. While the small local bakeries in Paris are well worth the trip, I find that there’s a trend in Paris right now of making visually beautiful desserts. While these beautiful desserts aren’t bad, they’re not as good as the classics (in my opinion). Most of all I find that these beautiful desserts are a lot harder to get, and maybe not worth the effort. I saw several “fancy” bakeries and sweet shops with huge lines out front. I even saw a few that required reservations just to get in. What I’m saying is that the hype is not worth the result.
Finally I want to talk about candy and chocolate in Paris. I’ll say this first, Europe in general has some of the best candy and chocolate anywhere. However, I feel like Paris (and maybe even France) is not the best in Europe. I’d even go so far as to say that most French treats are not really worth it. The one thing worth noting is the fact that Paris does offer some great chocolate and even a few sweets, but if you look closer you’ll see that most of these are imported. There’s a great selection of Belgian, Swiss and German chocolate in Paris, but that doesn’t really count in my opinion. While Paris offers many of the classic and great candies and chocolates found in Europe, their own selection isn’t the best you’ll find in Europe.
As I said at the top of this post, I’ve never had a bad time in Paris, however, it’s never been one of my favourite places to visit Europe. I had some great meals, and some amazing baked goods, but I’m not a big fan of the fancy side of Paris when it comes to this. Candy and chocolate wise I have yet to find something that truly feels French, but I’m always happy to be proven wrong on this in the future if you disagree.
