Jean-Paul Hévin

Chocolate first, pâtisserie alongside

The case at the Vendôme boutique is built around chocolate: tablets, truffles, caramels and filled bonbons, with macarons and cakes ranged beside them. Jean-Paul Hévin founded the house in 1983 and carries the Meilleur Ouvrier de France title in chocolate work, and this address runs the full programme in the 1st arrondissement, set back in a courtyard rather than opening onto the pavement. It is one of several Paris boutiques, alongside the Marais, Jardins du Luxembourg, Les Invalides, Louvre, Saint-Germain, Monceau and Panthéon rooms.

Bread and viennoiserie are not part of the house. There is no loaf shelf and no croissant tray; the work runs to chocolate and composed pâtisserie, arranged for gifts, for a dessert table, or for buying chocolate seriously by the piece.

What the counter holds

Chocolate comes as bars, truffles and caramels, sold singly or boxed. Macarons are sold in assortments. The frozen range is the part that surprises people: a frozen Pavlova, frozen Belles-Feuilles and a frozen Vacherin cacao, each built as a finished dessert to carry home. Seasonal work turns the case over through the year, from a Galette des Rois made with almonds and chocolate in January to an Easter chocolate collection in spring and lighter flavours through the summer.

The ground-floor room is retail rather than a salon. Chocolates, pastries, cakes, macarons and caramels are chosen at the counter and wrapped to take away, so the visit is short and the choosing is the point. Gift boxes and macaron assortments are put together at the counter, and handling that well is most of what the room is set up to do.

Buying well here

If one thing is leaving with you, make it chocolate: a tablet or a small box of truffles shows the house at its most characteristic. A macaron assortment is the better call for a table of people. The frozen Vacherin cacao rewards anyone heading straight home, since it is a full dessert rather than a snack, and the seasonal galette is worth timing a January visit around.

The signals to trust are the founder's Meilleur Ouvrier de France title, the independence of the house since 1983, and its standing among the Relais Desserts pâtissiers. Treat Vendôme as a discreet courtyard chocolate boutique: tablets, truffles, caramels, macarons, frozen desserts and seasonal pâtisserie, chosen and carried out.