I’ve got a major bone to pick with most contemporary Parisian pâtisseries: the absence of pâte. The very word for pastry chef is linked to the word for “dough,” of which France has many, from flaky pâte feuilletée (puff pastry) to buttery pâte sablée (shortcrust) to eggy pâte à choux (choux pastry) – and that’s not even including any of the yeasted doughs like brioche and pâte à croissant. With such a rich pastry tradition, you’d think that those choosing to specialize in this art would take full advantage of the wealth, but these days, most of what you’ll find on the contemporary pastry scene is made up of mousses, gels, and inserts. There’s a lot of soft-on-soft, is what I’m saying, and as someone who likes to chew my food (which is why I typically also eschew French soups), it’s… not my favorite.
But there are, of course exceptions, and Jeffrey Cagnes is one of them. The former executive pastry chef of Paris’ oldest pastry shop has taken a handful of old-school techniques and added just enough modern twists to bring them decidedly into the 21st century.
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Cagnes has a few shops in Paris, but my favorite one is on rue Montorgueil, just steps from Stohrer, where he once continued in a three-century-long tradition of mastering éclairs, babas au rhum, and more. While he’s since left Stohrer to found his eponymous line of shops, he has taken a few of the shop’s traditional cakes with him. The rum-scented baba, ostensibly invented by Nicolas Stohrer himself, is a mainstay of Cagnes’ pâtisseries, though here, the plastic barquettes of his former employer are replaced by a beautiful copper cauldron, from whence the rum-soaked cakes are extracted with a slotted spoon.
Cagnes also sells some viennoiseries, from classics like jumbo croissants, pains au chocolat, and now-ubiquitous pains suisses to slightly more innovative babkas (another inheritance from Stohrer) or special seasonal pastries like an Easter “nest” made with chocolate-scented croissant dough filled with gianduja and flaky sea salt. And while many have extolled the virtues of his brownie, I personally head here for his modern takes on classic French pastries.
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His vanilla flan (4.80) is justifiably famous, with a just-set vanilla-specked custard set in a crunchy cane sugar-covered pâte sablée. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve tried here so far.
I also really liked his lemon cake, which is tender and moist with a thin layer of bright, crisp glaze.
I was admittedly slightly less enthused by his play on a classic lemon tart (7.20), which toys with the fact that the word for lemon and lime are the same, in French.
Here, a deliciously tangy lime curd stands in for lemon, and it’s paired with a layer of basil-infused lime and olive oil confit. The classic meringue is replaced with a ganache montée, which is everywhere right now and is admittedly not my favorite cream; I find it a bit mouth-coating and filmy. But ultimately, what most disappointed me here was the very thing Cagnes usually does so well: the pastry. It’s ostensibly the same shortcrust as for the flan, but without the coating of cane sugar, it was just a bit bland and boring.
He more than redeemed himself, however, with his Saint-Honoré (8.50), an appropriately-named ode to the patron saint of pastry chefs with two different kinds of pastry, a feuilleté and a chou, garnished with two different kinds of creams, a crémeux and a chantilly.
The creams themselves are fairly sweet and generously flavored with Madagascar vanilla. They’re definitely set with gelatin, which makes sense given how long these wait en vitrine to be purchased. But despite their slightly solid texture and sweetness, they never become cloying thanks to the mastery in the pastry department. The feuilletage is buttery and deeply bronzed, and the perfect choux buns are coated in a burnished, crunchy caramel, both of which have a slight bitter note that lend the perfect balance to this pastry.
He’s lent a similar innovative touch to other classics like éclairs, Paris-Brest, Black Forest gâteau, and chocolate tart (which he marries with tonka bean). All are visually inviting and deviate slightly from the norm, all the while remaining true enough to tradition to be recognizable as what they are. The results are very, very good, especially for the price, and since there are multiple outposts throughout Paris, many of which boast on-site seating, Cagnes’ name is definitely one to know for pastry fans visiting Paris.
Jeffrey Cagnes – 73, rue Montorgueil, 75002