Christophe Roussel

A boutique for pâtisserie and chocolate

What sits in the window at Pornichet is finished work: seasonal entremets and tartes, fine chocolates, boxed macarons and regional specialities, all made in the La Baule workshop and brought here to be chosen. Christophe Roussel opened the first shop in La Baule in 2004 and built the laboratory that still supplies the group, which now runs alongside Guérande and Paris Montmartre. The house was structured as a company in 2008, which is roughly when the artisan identity hardened into something more deliberate than a sweet counter. The style is French classics revisited with restrained sweetness, clear aromatics and a great deal of colour.

Selecting rather than lingering

Pornichet is a shop, not a café. There are no tables to settle into and no coffee service to build a morning around; the visit is a matter of working along the case and deciding what leaves with you. Production happens in La Baule, so the theatre here is presentation rather than making, and that presentation is a large part of the appeal. Pastries and chocolates are shaped into coastal motifs including sardines, crabs and ships, finished brightly enough to work as gifts before anything is wrapped. Bread is not part of the range. The core is entremets, tartes, chocolate pieces, boxed macarons and whatever the season has put on the shelf.

Macarons, then chocolate

Macarons are the signature, sold as single pieces and in coffrets of 8, 12, 16, 25 and 35, with the Macaron Tulameen the one to ask for if you want the newest addition rather than the classics. Chocolate is the other reason to come, and it carries the heavier reputation: the house has been listed among France’s twelve best chocolatiers since 2012, and it took the Tablette d’Or in 2024 from the Club des Croqueurs de Chocolat. That combination sets expectations correctly for a first visit. Come for a composed pastry purchase, a box of macarons or a chocolate gift, and treat Pornichet as the refined retail end of the Roussel universe: made in La Baule, chosen here, carried away.