Pierre Hermé

Pierre Hermé along with Ladurée, are the best shops to buy the 'famous' macarons.

Macarons are a kind of two round biscuits with a cream inside. There are many flavours and they are quite striking colours.

Although I lived in Strasbourg for around 8 months, I didn't buy any macarons there as I wanted the first one I tried to be the best. When I went to Paris last Christmas a friend from Paris took us to this shop. According to him, it's better than Ladurée and he told me that Pierre Hermé is a French chef who was born in Alsace and originally worked for Ladurée before opening up his own shops.

My friend took us to the shop near the Ópera de París and the Place Vendome. The shop's exterior impressed me as soon as we got there. It's very modern with an air of luxury at the same time. It only had some yellow rods in the shape of a Christmas tree in the window as it was entirely a sliding glass door allowing you to see the shop interior from the outside. There was a queue but this allowed me to choose my macarons properly since there are many flavours and some quite strange ones (like olive oil and vanilla or foie gras with chocolate). Luckily my friend helped us because the one that struck my attention the most because of its name, was the one I liked the least and the ones he recommended us were very good.

The service is quite good. You can take your time and they help you. One spoke Spanish so that helped me a lot. I finally took a box of 7 macarons for my family and it cost me nearly €29. I also bought a bag with four macarons for a friend. It's quite expensive in my opinion but I already knew where I was going. I remember I bought vanilla, chocolate, chocolate and foie gras, creme brulée, passion fruit, rose, chocolate and caramel flavour macarons. I liked the passion fruit one the most.

Leaving the shop, I tried the one that caught my eye the most because a friend bought it. It was white truffle and hazelnut and I didn't like it at all. He couldn't put it with the rest of the macarons either because it had a very strong smell. Luckily, I didn't choose it in my box for this reason.

They told us the macarons only keep for a few days and that you had to put them in the fridge.

My opinion regarding the macarons is that you have to try them because it's a symbol of French patisserie but I wouldn't pay for them again as I didn't love them or anything. It's just another sweet. However, I remember the experience as a good one because of the shop, the little box, the service, etc.

There are Pierre Hermé shops in Paris, London and Tokyo, as well as an online store.

In order to get to the Pierre Hermé shop, we walked through the Avenue de l’Opéra as we were in Tullerias. This avenue is quite long and goes from the Palas Royal del Louvre towards the Opera (the shop is closer than the Opera). The closest metro stops are 'Pyramides' (lines 7 and 14), 'Opera' (lines 3, 7 and 8) and 'Quatre Septembre' (line 3).

The other Pierre Hermé shops in Paris are on the Rue de Vaugirard 185 and on the Rue Bonaparte 72 (this shop is close to the Catedral de Notre Dame).