Cafes of Paris

Here are some of our favorite patisseries:
Stohrer, 51 rue Montorgueil, 2e (tel. 01-42-33-38-20; Métro: Sentier or Les Halles), has been going strong ever since it was opened by Louis XV's pastry chef in 1730. A pastry always associated with this place is puits d'amour (well of love), which consists of caramelized puff pastry filled with vanilla ice cream. Available at any time is one of the most luscious desserts in Paris, baba au rhum, or its even richer cousin, un Ali Baba, which also incorporates cream-based rum-and-raisin filling. Stohrer boasts an interior decor classified as a national historic treasure, with frescoes of damsels in 18th-century costume bearing flowers and (what else?) pastries.

Opened in 1862, a few steps from La Madeleine, Ladurée Royale, 16 rue Royale, 8e (tel. 01-42-60-21-79; Métro: Concorde or Madeleine), is Paris's dowager tearoom. Its pastry chefs are known for the macaron, a pastry for which this place is celebrated. Karl Lagerfeld comes here and raves about them, as did the late ambassador Pamela Harriman. This isn't the sticky coconut-version macaroon known to many, but two almond meringue cookies, flavored with chocolate, vanilla, pistachio, coffee, or other flavor, stuck together with butter cream. You may also want to try Le Faubourg, a lusciously dense chocolate cake with layers of caramel and apricots.

In business since Napoleon was in power, Dalloyau, 101 rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, 8e (tel. 01-42-99-90-00; Métro: St-Philippe du Roule), has a name instantly recognizable throughout Paris; it supplies pastries to the Elysée Palace (the French White House) and many Rothschild mansions nearby. Its specialties are Le Dalloyau, praline cake filled with almond meringue that's marvelously light-textured; and un Opéra, composed of an almond-flavored biscuit layered with butter cream, chocolate, coffee, and cashews. Unlike Stohrer, Dalloyau has a tearoom (open daily 8am-7:30pm) one floor above street level, where ladies who lunch can drop in for a slice of pastry that Dalloyau warns is "too fragile to transport, or to mail, over long distances."