La Maison Jouvaud

Candied fruit, marzipan and three generations

The case in Carpentras is built on the town's own speciality: fruits confits, the candied fruit made here for centuries and worked by this family house since 1948. Three generations on, the range still runs across patisserie, chocolate, confectionery, bread, viennoiserie and a salon de thé, with candied fruit threaded through most of it.

La Christine is the piece to know, a marzipan cake with almonds and candied fruit that reads as a summary of the whole house in one slice. Around it sit assorted fruits confits, dragées made with Provence almonds, chocolates and biscuits, with seasonal work such as a charlotte aux fraises glacée and the Sol e Luna. Bread is taken seriously rather than treated as a sideline, shaped by hand in the family workshops, and the croissants come out of the oven through the morning.

A shop with a salon de thé, not a restaurant

The format is a maison de charme in the old centre: walk the lanes, step into the boutique, and sit for a coffee and something sweet. It is retail first and seated second, so the counter carries pastry, chocolate, confectionery, biscuits, bread and viennoiserie, and the tea room gives you somewhere to eat one of them.

Do not come for a coffee programme. There is no roaster to discuss and no brew list; coffee is here because a Provençal salon de thé needs it, and the craft sits in the pastry, the candied fruit and the chocolate instead. The family also runs shops in Avignon and L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and has carried the name to Japan, in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kyoto, which is unusual reach for a Carpentras business.

What to take from the case

Start with La Christine if the visit is going to include one thing only. For something to carry, the assorted fruits confits are the local answer, and they keep better than anything else in the shop. Dragées, chocolates and biscuits fill the gift end of the case.

For a morning, the answer is simpler: a croissant straight from the oven and a coffee in the salon de thé, with candied fruit bought on the way out. Seasonal pieces such as the charlotte aux fraises glacée are worth asking about, since they change with the fruit coming into the workshop. Relais Desserts membership marks the house as part of the French pastry circle rather than only a regional confectioner.