While visiting Paris for the Salon du Chocolat, I was lucky enough to join a small group of chocolate makers on a personalised tour of Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse. Here, Ducasse’s team roast, grind, conche, temper, and transform cacao into a range of bars and bonbons. Large glass walls surrounding the shop allow visitors to watch much of the process unfold in real time. It is a stunning store and I highly recommend you plan a visit if you are in Paris. Every time I have visited, staff have come around and offered samples, if you need even more reasons to visit.
You can’t sit down for a hot chocolate at the chocolate manufacture itself, but a block away on Rue Saint-Sabin is Le Café Alain Ducasse, his coffee-focused café. Ducasse approaches coffee with the same philosophy he brings to chocolate: single-origin beans sourced from around the world and roasted on site. Unlike the chocolate shop, the café has a small seating area where visitors can properly settle in and experience the coffees on offer.
There is also a hot chocolate on the menu, made using Ducasse’s chocolate. It was surprisingly light in flavour, though still very enjoyable. I couldn’t help thinking it would have been wonderful to see a few more options highlighting the different chocolate origins, much like the way the café showcases its coffee beans, especially with the chocolate manufacture just nearby.
The hot chocolate arrived with the best madeleine I have ever tasted. Now I wish every hot chocolate camewith a madeleine.
And if you still need more Ducasse, there is also an ice cream shop and a cookie shop right next door. The smells drifting through that street in the morning must be unbelievable. If I lived upstairs, I’d never leave.
Le Café Alain Ducasse, Rue Saint-Sebin, 75011, Paris. Open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 7pm, and Sunday from 11am to 6pm.
