The pastry shop of Cédric Grolet, pastry chef at Le Meurice

If you're a pastry lover, you'll be familiar with Cédric Grolet, the pastry chef at Le Meurice, famous for his fascinating cakes, and especially for his fruit sculptures! While his cakes used to be served only in Le Meurice restaurants, you can now delight your loved ones with his pastries, available to take away. You're sure to fall in love!

In the large family of great addresses that make Paris' gourmet reputation, I ask for Cédric Grolet at Le Meurice, who was finally voted best restaurant pastry chef in the world in October 2017 at the Les Grandes Tables du monde gala.

While the Le Dali tea room is often fully booked at tea-time, there aren't many Parisians in attendance, perhaps a desire to enjoy pastries in the parks or to share them at home.

No problem, Le Meurice has realized how lucky it is to have a star pastry chef, and will be transforming a former meeting room into a boutique on Rue de Castiglione, ideal for grabbing your favorite pastry between lunch and dinner.

All day long, Cédric Grolet's brigade will bring the boutique to life: assembling and baking desserts in front of the window, baking kouglofs (served from 5pm for afternoon tea), small tastings - Le Meurice really wanted to make this boutique the standard-bearer for French gourmet delights.

Carved fruit, Paris-Brest, chocolate tart, koughof and cookies, we can already feel that the counter is going to compete with Angelina, and we already know that we'll be stopping by often to satisfy our sweet tooth!

And that's not all: you'll also be able to pick up some of the family cakes for which the chef is famous: Saint-Honoré, Tarte aux pommes, Rubik's Cube, at last, you'll be able to share these delights at Sunday lunchtimes. The only drawback is that these cakes have to be reserved 48 hours in advance, making it impossible to go to the store and try to find one.

At the opening lunchtime on Tuesday, March 20, the chef delighted gourmets from all over the world, signing his book on Fruits sculptés, offering photos and thanking long-time fans (although we're the ones who should be thanking him!). In a touching moment, his brigade took center stage, stepping out into the street to enjoy the crowds, while they remained in the shadows.

Want more? Here's an exclusive interview with Cédric Grolet:

Please note that it's been over 4 years since our last visit, so the place and experience may have changed.