ladurée nyc

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The story of the Ladurée macaron starts in the middle of the 20th century with Pierre Desfontaines, who first thought of taking two macaron shells and joining them with a delicious ganache filling. Since this time, the recipe did not change.

You had me at first bite, Sir Desfontaines. Less than a month ago I found out that I would be spending a week and a half in Long Island for work. As someone who has never been to New York and knowing that I had a free weekend in the city, I began planning right away. In less than an hour I had made reservations for every meal, sightseeing and a Broadway musical. My very first stop, and hands down the one that I was most excited about was a stop at Ladurée on Madison Avenue to finally get my hands on their infamous French macarons.

The walls of the pastel colored shop are lined with gift boxes of every shape and size ready to be filled with delicate macarons and exquisite small desserts. An alcove off to the side displayed a small assortment of home fragrance items and small gifts such as their adorable tote bags. Their summer decor was the sweetest black cat surrounded by beach balls, shopping bags and parasols. You better believe a black cat limited edition tote came home with me. I passed on the chocolates and small desserts, but did carefully select an assortment of twelve macarons to enjoy throughout my weekend.

I use salted caramel macarons as my standard of comparison. Seasonal flavors come and go and every patisserie has their own special flavors, but you can almost always find salted caramel on the menu. And since it is my absolute favorite flavor, I always get two. One for scrutinizing and one for savoring. Ladurée’s salted caramel macaron soared to the top of my favorites list, just above Tout Sweet’s which sandwiches both caramel buttercream and salted caramel between its meringues. As with all of the shells I tried, a desirable crunch was followed by the most delicate chew.

Most impressive was the large assortment of distinct flavors. Some favorites included Strawberry Candy which had the crunch of sugar crystals baked on top of the shells and a playful strawberry marshmallow filling; Pure Origin Chocolate from Peru boasting chocolate shells studded with cocoa nibs and filled with Peruvian 63% dark chocolate ganache; and of course, Salted Caramel. I didn’t meet a macaron that I didn’t love out of my entire assortment and can guarantee that I’ll be back the next time I find myself in Manhattan.

If you noticed that it has been a bit quiet around here, my week and a half snowballed into at least five weeks of Sunday red-eye flights, long weeks in Long Island and making the most of the 48 hours I have home with the monsters each weekend. As I wrap up the next few weeks of travel, I have a few recipes planned as well as some more posts highlighting my adventures in the Big Apple. In the meantime, stay up to date by following us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for daily highlights of #blgtravels.