More than the decorated avenues and elaborate window displays, it is the Bûche de Noël (yule log cakes that may or may not be shaped like logs) that takes the lead as the ultimate holiday essential during Christmas in Paris. While most cakes are prepared and sold for take-away, there are a few spots to linger over tea and an individual slice of the indulgent Christmas cake.
At the Four Seasons George V, the head pastry chef Michael Bartocetti has created a special seasonal tea-time, offered through January 10 in L’Orangerie, which includes a preview of this year’s bûche served as a plated dessert. It follows with a citrus-geranium vacherin inspired by the work of a ceramicist, a luscious Piedmont hazelnut chocolate tarte coated table-side with Alba white truffles, and a twist on the Stollen, served warm, among other confections. At La Halle aux Grains, the restaurant inside the Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection, Sébastien Bras’ talented pastry chef Jean-Julien Freydt will be serving slices of his hazelnut and buckwheat bûche during tea-time (between 3–6 p.m.), and at lunch and dinner for dessert. If so inclined, you can order a whole buckwheat bûche to take home (we’re sure your hotel won’t mind).
Lucas Carton, one of Paris’s oldest and most celebrated fine dining institutions located on the Place de la Madeleine, will offer a special Christmas tea-time menu on Wednesdays and Saturdays through December—a perfect (and more affordable) opportunity to spend some time in the restaurant’s iconic Art Nouveau dining rooms, complete with wood paneling by Louis Majorelle. And at Butterfly Pâtisserie, the Hôtel de Crillon’s boutique and tearoom, pastry chef Matthieu Carlin’s exquisite selection of seasonal pastries, including his graphic bûche de Noël, designed in collaboration with the interior product designer Victoria Wilmotte, can be enjoyed on-site with a cup of tea or a thick hot chocolate, or taken to-go.
