Baud Patisserie Traiteur

The case at this Besançon maison runs from entremets and chocolates to glaces, confiseries and traiteur platters, all made by one family workshop.

Franche-Comté specialities and refined pastry

Baud works as a patisserie, chocolaterie, glacier and traiteur rather than a bread bakery, and the case is arranged that way: gâteaux, entremets, chocolates, ice creams and confections, with sweet and savoury trays alongside them. The line the house quotes from Brillat-Savarin, le plaisir de la table, suits a shop where a single stop can cover dessert, a box of chocolates and a platter for the evening.

The Nelly is the clearest signature, a gâteau de voyage in the pain de Gênes style perfumed with almond and orange blossom. Around it sit macarons, a caramel and tonka bean religieuse, choux work, a number cake with exotic fruit and raspberry, and the Tourbillon vanille-fraise. The regional piece is the galette bisontine au goumeau, a Franche-Comté emblem the workshop keeps in its repertoire.

A tea-room rather than a coffee bar

The Centre-Ville shop is the fuller version of the house, with a salon de thé attached to the pastry and traiteur counters, so a visit can be a seated tasting or a box carried out the door. The Lafayette shop is more compact, built around the case and small receptions.

The feel is closer to a French artisan house than to a modern espresso bar: pastry case, chocolate work, ice cream, confections and catered trays under one name. The detail sits on the pastry side, in the almond and orange blossom of the Nelly, the tonka in the caramel religieuse, and the goumeau filling of the galette.

How to approach a visit

Come at it through the métiers. For a pastry-led stop, start with the seasonal suggestions and the Nelly if it is out, then work across entremets, chocolates, glaces and confiseries. For something regional, the galette bisontine au goumeau frames the local role better than anything else in the case. For an evening at home, the traiteur side covers meal trays and sweet or savoury platters.

Baud also teaches. Its course programme runs through macarons, caramel and tonka religieuses, number cakes, pâte à choux and vanilla-strawberry work, which is a fair map of what the workshop does best. The house is a Relais Desserts member boutique, the pastry-world marker that puts a Besançon address in national company.