It’s rare that I find a boulangerie that also does great pâtisserie, but the Italian brothers behind Brigat’ in the Marais manage to excel in all three French baking categories – bread, viennoiserie, and pastry – with a keen, particulalry astute understanding of when to innovate and when to leave well enough alone.
You see this in the bread category, where the traditional baguette is exactly as it should be, but other flavors creep into the sourdoughs, like a polenta-herb number or a slightly sweet version with carrot and sunflower seeds.
On the viennoiserie side of things, I love their brioche feuilletée (2.60), a buttery, slightly laminated creation kind of halfway between a brioche and a croissant. It’s lighter than the latter but still has a lovely buttery flavor. I also quite liked this not-too-sweet hazelnut and mandarine brioche (3.60), with its pleasantly tart filling balanced by a thin layer of hazelnut praline and a touch of brown sugar crumble. The dough was lactic and airy, almost the texture of a pain au lait, with a flavor that reminded me of the danishes I grew up with, albeit with a quality-driven glow-up.
But the things I find most tantalizing here are definitely the pastries, which include a small range of stalwarts and a wider selection of seasonal choices. You pay a small supplement to eat on-site, and it’s totally worth it to give these beautiful pastries the respect they deserve.
On a visit this winter, I was enchanted by the yuzu, sudachi, and black sesame tartlet (7.80) with an ultra-buttery black sesame shortbread base filled with a bright yuzu crémeux with a slight yet pleasant bitter edge, a puckery sudachi gel with nearly green apple vibes, and an incredibly oozy, savory, richly textured black sesame praline.
A spring revisit saw this creation replaced with an even lighter, brighter version filled with a lemon crémeux and topped with lemongrass and lemon-thyme infused gel (7.20).
The shortcrust base was lined with a thin layer of lemon-almond cream, almost like a frangipane, which added a bit of sweetness to balance the acidity. This one may be just this side of too acidic for some, but as someone who likes my citrus desserts profoundly puckery, I gobbled it right up.
One form the brothers revisit time and again is the “crumble,” which here refers to a crushed biscuit and nut base not dissimilar to a cheesecake crust filled, perhaps, with almond cream, fresh pears, and pear-cardamom compote (6.50) or chocolate-almond cream, pecan flan, and dark chocolate ganache (6.80). This spring, a raspberry version saw the humble French home bake known as a yogurt cake (6.50) studded with raspberries and baked in a hazelnut crumble base, all bedecked with a yogurt crème légère and a bright raspberry gelée. The cake itself was homey and humble, and the yogurt topping added a nice bit of balance. But while I liked this version, it paled in comparison to a more omnipresent version…
…this pistachio and berry number (6.50). A pistachio crumble crust was filled with almond cream, a tart berry compote heavy on the sour cherry, and a pistachio praline so delicious I would happily eat it with a spoon. To date, it’s my favorite thing I’ve tried here… and that’s saying something.
There are a few stalwarts of the case, none of which I’ve had the chance to try, distracted as I always am by the seasonal offerings. Still, the pistachio millefeuille (7.50) looks divine, as does the play on a tiramisu (7) with coffee-infused sponge, coffee crémeux, mascarpone whipped cream, and coffee gel piled into a thin dark chocolate case.
And if this weren’t enough, at their gelateria right next door, they have mastered everything I love about this soft, creamy Italian ice cream. The flavors change often, but I’ve got a particular soft spot for the hazelnut.
Between that and the ever-changing array of pastries, there are more than enough reasons to return again… and again… and again.
Brigat’ – 6 Rue du Pas de la Mule, 75003