Laduree

Laduree opened up their first US shop a little over a month ago on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. I am very fond of their macarons and must purchase them every time I go to Paris. My friend, Ariel, was nice enough to buy me dozens of macarons from all over Paris the last time he visited; I froze them and ate them straight out of the freezer because they were so delicious! I waited a little bit before heading uptown for the new Laduree store because I read that the lines were always long and service was slow. Finally, Kristen, Stephane, and I headed up there after work a couple weeks ago (thank goodness!) Surprisingly, the store was completely empty when we arrived on a Tuesday evening:

The store is every little girl’s dream – beautiful decorations, pleasant colors and lots and lots of delicious macarons:

The macarons aren’t made in the US; they are shipped from Paris every couple of days! There are only 13 flavors right now, however, they do have seasonal flavors that I am looking forward to trying:

I ended up purchasing a special box to hold my eight macarons (a little keepsake I will hold my hairpins in):

My favorite flavor is actually not in this batch (I went back with Ken’s family when they came to visit) – orange blossom has a delicate floral flavor that blew me away. Ken’s starting to like them a lot as well (before they were known to him as the little hamburger sandwiches); his favorite flavor is salted caramel but he likes all of them as well.

The second time I visited, the wait was extremely long and I grew very impatient once I entered the store (we started outside the store and when we got inside, we saw the line snake three times before getting to the register where you order the macarons!) Ken’s parents liked the pistachio macaron and Laura and David liked the cassis and raspberry macarons. I’m so glad Laduree is so close to me now; I probably won’t go there too often, but it’s much closer than flying to Paris!