AU PETIT PRINCE - PLUVIGNER

Bonbons, macarons and Breton names

The chocolate case is where this boutique starts. Au Petit Prince’s Pluvigner shop carries the house’s bonbons, pralinés, dark, milk and white chocolate, dragées and confectionery, and the named pieces keep pulling back to Brittany: Bonbon Tempête, Huitres de la Ria, Les Pavés de St Goustan, L'Ilot de Saint-Cado and Oursons Guimauve. The brand began in Étel, in Morbihan, in 2009, and Pluvigner is one of several Breton addresses alongside Arradon, Auray, Baud, Belz, Carnac-Plage and Locoal-Mendon.

Seasonal chocolate is a large part of it. Easter, Christmas and Valentine’s each get their own pieces, and wedding chocolate and dragées cover the occasions that arrive on their own schedule.

Pastry, viennoiserie and the occasion cakes

Pastry sits beside the chocolate rather than behind it. Coffee and chocolate éclairs, millefeuilles, caramel, biscuits and marron glacé cover the classic French register, while croissants, brioche, chouquettes and cannelés handle the morning. Macarons come plain, chocolate and salted.

Bread is not really the point. The label covers boulangerie-pâtisserie, but the weight of the counter is chocolate and pastry, and the viennoiserie is there to round out a morning rather than to lead it.

The occasion side is the other half of the business: birthday cakes, bûche de Noël and galette des rois move the shop through the calendar. That is why the case looks different in December than it does in June, and why a planned visit and a passing one produce completely different orders.

How to use the counter

For a quick stop, take macarons or a handful of bonbons; both are made to be carried and both show the house style without committing to a whole cake. The Breton-named pieces are the ones worth choosing over a plain assortment. Chocolate also keeps better than pastry, which is worth remembering if the shop is a stop on the way somewhere rather than the last one of the day.

The house behind it is worth knowing. Maëlig Georgelin, the Breton pastry chef who created Au Petit Prince, led the team that won the professionals edition of Le Meilleur Pâtissier in 2019, and the brand supplies bakers, pâtissiers, caterers, restaurants and delicatessens as well as running its own shops. The stated ambition is to stay in Brittany and grow locally, which is why the network reads as a regional house rather than a chain.