Pâtisserie Chocolaterie Sève - Saint-Antoine

Chocolate first, macarons close behind

Order from the categories that define Maison Sève: chocolate tablets, macarons, confections, pastries, and travel cakes. The tablet range covers single-origin and flavoured bars and goes as far as a 100% cacao tablet for anyone who wants the raw end of it. Macarons are the other major draw and come in savoury as well as sweet versions, which is why they work as a gift as readily as an immediate treat. Everything is produced in Lyon or the surrounding region, and the house sums up its ambition in a single line, Meilleur Artisan Chocolatier Lyon, with Relais Desserts membership behind it.

A 56 square metre boutique on the Presqu’île

Saint-Antoine is Maison Sève’s third Lyon shop, distinct from the house’s counters at the Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, in Croix-Rousse, and out at Limonest, Champagne-au-Mont-d’Or, Craponne, and Point du Jour. It is small, 56 square metres, and it faces the Saône with Vieux-Lyon on the far bank, sitting inside the Presqu’île’s retail and cultural flow near Place des Jacobins and the Théâtre des Célestins. Richard and Gaëlle Sève run the family business, and their stated aim is the preservation of traditional savoir-faire, which in practice means recipes and techniques kept rather than reinvented each season. The house now reaches more than 20,000 clients in France and abroad, which is a large number for a shop this size and explains why the boutique is arranged for volume as much as for browsing.

A boutique for choosing and gifting

This is a counter for selecting rather than sitting: browse the cases, choose from the shelves, and leave with boxed macarons, tablets, confections, or a travel cake. Presentation is part of the product, and macarons can be arranged in custom boxes, including the house’s red écrin, with larger assortments made up for events and presents. Travel cakes are built to carry well, which makes them the practical choice when the box has to survive a train. Sweet and savoury macarons can go into the same assortment, which is the version worth taking to someone else’s table. Come without expecting a café menu. There is no espresso list, no matcha, and no tea service, and the visit is better for that narrowness: a tablet, a macaron box, some confections, and whatever the counter suggests for the journey home.