Paris 2011: Sadaharu Aoki

Pâtisserie Sadaharu Aoki

Boutique Port Royal

56 boulevard de Port Royal

Paris 75505

Ph: 01 45 35 36 80

How cute are the awnings with cartoons of macarons and chocolates?  Sadaharu Aoki looks so different from a traditional French pâtisserie; I wonder if they put the pictures on the awnings so people will know they can buy pastries there!

During my five-day stay in Paris, I visited Sadaharu Aoki twice for breakfast.  He has four boutiques in Paris, and I was lucky that the Port Royal branch was in walking distance of where I was staying!  As with Pierre Hermé, I'd been fortunate enough to try some fabulous Sadaharu Aoki macarons, cake and biscuits when my Dad brought them home from Japan with him, so I was very excited to visit one of his boutiques in person.

I love the clean, bright interior and uncluttered design.

They sold croissants, pain aux chocolat, macarons, chocolates, biscuits and many beautiful pastry creations - think things like matcha mille feuille, black sesame eclairs and more.  The pastries were incredibly gorgeous.  I love the Japanese interpretation of French pastries - so pretty and perfect!

This was also where I was the most useful on the trip: although my French has become woeful since finishing high school, my Japanese is, thankfully, still pretty decent!  On our first visit, the lady behind the counter didn't speak much French, so to save Clarice from doing the "big-hand-movements-and-talking-louder" thing that people do when communicating cross-culturally, I ordered in Japanese.  Yay for contributing!

So, for our first breakfast, Clarice and I each had a matcha croissant, and shared a tart and a pot of houjicha tea.

The breakfast!

Here is the matcha croissant:

And let's look inside!

I totally loved it!  The croissant was so moist and fluffy, with a clean matcha flavour.  It was wonderfully buttery without being greasy, and no jam or spreads were needed - it was perfect just as it was.

And here is the tart we split!

The base was chocolate sablée pastry, filled with adzuki beans, and topped with a matcha-flavoured creme chiboust with a crackly caramelized sugar topping - just stunning.

The tea also came with two complimentary orange-flavoured chocolate maquillage bonbons.

For our second Sadaharu breakfast, on the last day of my trip, we followed a similar strategy as the first visit, but with coffee instead of tea.  I had a Café Crème (Café Crème in French, Café au Lait in Japanese - it's just coffee with milk!)

Café Crème (AKA a Japanese café au lait)

In addition to our matcha croissants, we ordered the famed black sesame eclair.

Mmm... beautiful!

"I'm the king of the patisserie!"

As this was the last day of the trip, I also bought some goodies to bring home:

Chocolate-covered macarons: Cassis (front) and Framboise (back)

I was surprised by how good the chocolate-covered macarons were - the chocolate coating was extremely high quality, dark and intense.  It complemented the sweet interior well!  As a bonus, the chocolate kept the macarons fresh for ages.  I only ate them about two weeks after purchase, (kept refrigerated most of the time), and they were still good!

Maquillage bonbons: Blueberry, Bamboo, Wasabi, Lemon, Orange, Raspberry

Super cute, right?  I think the Maquillage range of chocolates look gorgeous: brightly coloured bonbons in different flavours like yuzu, orange, passionfruit and raspberry.  I also bought an individual passionfruit one to try - I wasn't a huge fan of it, if only because I ate it directly after eating a Mogador chocolate truffle from Pierre Hermé, and we all know that Pierre's Mogador (whether in macaron, truffle or chocolate bar form) is my ultimate sweet treat!

As I previously mentioned, there are four Sadaharu Aoki boutiques in Paris; the only other one we visited was the counter in the Galerie Lafayette department store.  I absolutely loved Lafayette Gourmet, not only because it is awesome, but also because it reminds me of Japan's equally amazing department store food halls!

Boutique Lafayette Gourmet

Galeries Lafayette Gourmet 

1er étage

40 Boulevard Haussmann 

Paris 75009

Pâtisserie Sadaharu Aoki

Boutique Port Royal

56 boulevard de Port Royal

Paris 75505

Ph: 01 45 35 36 80

How cute are the awnings with cartoons of macarons and chocolates?  Sadaharu Aoki looks so different from a traditional French pâtisserie; I wonder if they put the pictures on the awnings so people will know they can buy pastries there!

During my five-day stay in Paris, I visited Sadaharu Aoki twice for breakfast.  He has four boutiques in Paris, and I was lucky that the Port Royal branch was in walking distance of where I was staying!  As with Pierre Hermé, I'd been fortunate enough to try some fabulous Sadaharu Aoki macarons, cake and biscuits when my Dad brought them home from Japan with him, so I was very excited to visit one of his boutiques in person.

I love the clean, bright interior and uncluttered design.

They sold croissants, pain aux chocolat, macarons, chocolates, biscuits and many beautiful pastry creations - think things like matcha mille feuille, black sesame eclairs and more.  The pastries were incredibly gorgeous.  I love the Japanese interpretation of French pastries - so pretty and perfect!

This was also where I was the most useful on the trip: although my French has become woeful since finishing high school, my Japanese is, thankfully, still pretty decent!  On our first visit, the lady behind the counter didn't speak much French, so to save Clarice from doing the "big-hand-movements-and-talking-louder" thing that people do when communicating cross-culturally, I ordered in Japanese.  Yay for contributing!

So, for our first breakfast, Clarice and I each had a matcha croissant, and shared a tart and a pot of houjicha tea.

The breakfast!

Here is the matcha croissant:

And let's look inside!

I totally loved it!  The croissant was so moist and fluffy, with a clean matcha flavour.  It was wonderfully buttery without being greasy, and no jam or spreads were needed - it was perfect just as it was.

And here is the tart we split!

The base was chocolate sablée pastry, filled with adzuki beans, and topped with a matcha-flavoured creme chiboust with a crackly caramelized sugar topping - just stunning.

The tea also came with two complimentary orange-flavoured chocolate maquillage bonbons.

For our second Sadaharu breakfast, on the last day of my trip, we followed a similar strategy as the first visit, but with coffee instead of tea.  I had a Café Crème (Café Crème in French, Café au Lait in Japanese - it's just coffee with milk!)

Café Crème (AKA a Japanese café au lait)

In addition to our matcha croissants, we ordered the famed black sesame eclair.

Mmm... beautiful!

"I'm the king of the patisserie!"

As this was the last day of the trip, I also bought some goodies to bring home:

Chocolate-covered macarons: Cassis (front) and Framboise (back)

I was surprised by how good the chocolate-covered macarons were - the chocolate coating was extremely high quality, dark and intense.  It complemented the sweet interior well!  As a bonus, the chocolate kept the macarons fresh for ages.  I only ate them about two weeks after purchase, (kept refrigerated most of the time), and they were still good!

Maquillage bonbons: Blueberry, Bamboo, Wasabi, Lemon, Orange, Raspberry

Super cute, right?  I think the Maquillage range of chocolates look gorgeous: brightly coloured bonbons in different flavours like yuzu, orange, passionfruit and raspberry.  I also bought an individual passionfruit one to try - I wasn't a huge fan of it, if only because I ate it directly after eating a Mogador chocolate truffle from Pierre Hermé, and we all know that Pierre's Mogador (whether in macaron, truffle or chocolate bar form) is my ultimate sweet treat!

As I previously mentioned, there are four Sadaharu Aoki boutiques in Paris; the only other one we visited was the counter in the Galerie Lafayette department store.  I absolutely loved Lafayette Gourmet, not only because it is awesome, but also because it reminds me of Japan's equally amazing department store food halls!

Boutique Lafayette Gourmet

Galeries Lafayette Gourmet 

1er étage

40 Boulevard Haussmann 

Paris 75009