Maison Arnaud Larher Caulaincourt

A pastry and chocolate case at the foot of Montmartre

Everything here arrives through the case: entremets on one side, chocolate on the other, and no table service to slow it down. Maison Arnaud Larher Caulaincourt has held its corner at the foot of the Butte Montmartre since 2000, a compact neighbourhood shop attached to a larger maison that also keeps boutiques on Damrémont, on Seine and in Asnières-sur-Seine. Arnaud Larher works as pâtissier chocolatier and Meilleur Ouvrier de France, and trained at Fauchon and Dalloyau before opening under his own name; the house belongs to Relais Desserts. The programme is craft pastry and chocolate rather than café food: tartes, entremets, macarons, chocolates, confiseries, jams and spreads, fours secs, small babas and glaces.

The house style, read through the named pieces

The named pieces carry the style. Flan Larher Vanille is the classic form treated as a texture problem, crisp pastry around a soft, vanilla-heavy centre. Tong Bonbon is the contemporary side, a fruit dessert built on strawberry, raspberry, vanilla and orange blossom. Le Fraisier and the tarte aux fraises keep strawberries in the middle of the range, while Miss Clara moves away from red fruit altogether. Ivoire is the most composed of them, a fine coconut biscuit under light ivory chocolate cream with poached mango and passion fruit coulis, and Paris Tokyo sits alongside it as another showcase cake.

Around the entremets, the maison keeps a programme shaped for carrying out: boxes of macarons, chocolate boxes and tablets, cakes for goûter, frozen desserts, small babas and pantry jars of jam and spreads. Limited runs come through in waves, among them a Laphroaig collection of whisky-led pastry and chocolate and a cocoa palace coffret.

Start with the flan, then add Tong Bonbon

Order Flan Larher Vanille first. It is the quickest read on the kitchen, because a flan hides nothing: the pastry has to stay crisp under a set custard that should taste of vanilla rather than sugar. Add Tong Bonbon second for the other half of the style, where fruit and orange blossom do the work instead of cream.

After that, choose by direction rather than by list. Le Fraisier and the tarte aux fraises stay with seasonal fruit and familiar pastry forms. Ivoire goes tropical, coconut and mango against ivory chocolate. Macarons and a few chocolates make more sense than an entremet if the order is going into a bag for later, and the confiseries, fours secs and glaces sit in the same gifting register. Treat the visit as a boutique purchase: choose at the case, have it wrapped, and eat it somewhere else.