The Most Beautiful Christmas Desserts in Paris This Year

Now that Christmas is getting even closer, another one of the marvelous elements of Paris at the holiday season is the arrival of the most beautiful Christmas desserts. Every year, the best bakers dazzle us anew with their holiday creations: show-stopping Christmas cakes, bûches de Nöel and more appear across Paris. If you’re in the City of Light and in search of a stunning pastry – whether you’re presenting it as a host or hostess gift or making it the centerpiece of your holiday party – here’s where to go for the most beautiful Christmas 2019 desserts and bûches de Noël in Paris.

where are the best Christmas desserts in Paris in 2019?

In a city filled with pâtisseries, each one has their own fanciful take on the classic Christmas Bûche de Noël.

There are also wonderful cakes in other shapes and sizes. And sweets that are limited editions, just for the holidays. Each notable pastry chef in Paris has a show-stopping Christmas treat designed to delight the eye as well as the palate.

It’s impossible to choose a favorite. So here are our top picks for the best, most beautiful Christmas desserts in Paris this year. The order is random, and we’d be very happy to sample them all!

1. Le Royal Monceau

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its collaboration with Pierre Hermé, the 2019 buche de Noel at Le Royal Monceau Hotel is a fanciful Ferris wheel with notes of gingerbread, tart dried fruit and lemon mousseline cream.

2. Le Bristol Paris

Café Antonia at Le Bristol Hotel is where you’ll find this lovely Christmas dessert.

3. Fouquet

Nicolas Paciello, the new pastry chef at Fouquet, debuts a bûche de Noël that is comprised of a Malmaison cookie with almonds, citrus zest, madame cream and a bergamot insert. It takes pride of place on a chocolate pedestal.

4. Hotel Lutetia

Available from December 14-31, 2019, pastry chef Nicolas Guercio of the chic Lutetia hotel on the Left Bank is offering a gorgeous interpretation of a bûche de Noël. 

It contains pink champagne foam, grapefruit cream, raspberry confit, a grapefruit cookie, crispy puffed rice, raspberries and grapefruit zest. It sounds like the perfect finish to an afternoon shopping at Le Bon Marche, which is just steps away.

5. Carl Marletti

At the wildly popular vest-pocket Latin Quarter boutique helmed by pastry chef Carl Marletti, this year you’ll find the Bûche Gaston, Bûche Renato, Bûche Lucien, and Bûche Jules.

There’s also a stunning and fresh Christmas cake, Le Paradise, with mango and other tropical flavors. It’s hard to have a favorite Parisian pâtisserie, but we really love this one – and every time we’re there, the lines are long and filled with loyal regulars.

6. Pierre Herme

At Pierre Hermé, the 2019 Félicia log is a bright citrus concoction with lemon, hazelnut and praline

7. Ladurée 

For 2019, Ladurée invited its pastry chef Patrice Demers to develop a creative bûche de Noël that celebrates his Canadian homeland.  

The signature Atoca log is composed of “products typical of the Canadian soil,” including maple syrup, cranberries and buckwheat flour.

8. Cyril Lignac

The Passion Fruit Coconut Log at Cyril Lignac is a tropical take on the holiday: an almond financier with a crunchy layer of milk chocolate, a layer of a passion fruit mango compote, finished with creamy stracciatella and coconut mousse.

It’s available from December 18-31, 2019.

9. Yann Couvreur

This year’s “Chillin’ Christmas log” displays the iconic fox, the emblem of Yann Couvreur, in full-on holiday mode. The log is made with chestnut mousse, candied chestnut chips, and a chestnut-honey cookie. 

10. Four Seasons Hotel George V

The new Head pâtissier at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, Michael Bartocetti, has made his first Christmas dessert a homage to the orchid.  The hotel is famous for its spectacular floral arrangements, so this seems to be a perfect fit.

This lovely dessert, almost too elegant to eat, is made of sweet clover, almond praline with vanilla, crispy hazelnut, and a biscuit with almonds, 75% chocolate mousse, and Meyer lemon.

11. Lenôtre

Guy Krenzer Creative director, Lenôtre, and his team have crafted a journey through a pine forest for this year’s special holiday dessert.

The trompe-l’oeil confection is made of a rolled-up chocolate cookie, praline with pine nuts and hazelnut, and a crunchy chocolate bark.

12. Christophe Michalak

This year, the signature bûche de Noël is “Violon;” Christophe Michalak is paying tribute to French-American artist Arm an, who is known for deconstructing violins and putting them back together in interesting ways. The pastry is comprised of a praline coulant with pecan nuts and dark chocolate mousse. And it’s gluten-free.

There are also three more traditionally-shaped bûches de Noël this year – but their flavors and colors are anything but traditional. There’s a green Oriental pistachio yule log; a Mango yulelog; and a Milk chocolate-caramel yule log.

13. The Ritz Paris

Pastry Chef François Perret’s 2019 bûche de Noël for the Ritz Paris is an elegant confection: a soft cookie with roasted hazelnuts, gianduja and 70% dark chocolate. It’s finished with muscovado cream and a spiral of chocolate, dusted with gold.

For the first time this year, from December 7, 2019 to January 5, 2020, the Ritz has installed a marvelous white wood Christmas chalet in the Place Vendôme. Visitors are invited to treat themselves to Perret’s creations every day from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

14. The Westin Paris-Vendôme 

At the Westin Paris-Vendôme, pastry chef Florence Lesage has created a 2019 bûche de Noël called “Le Noël de Marie-Antoinette”  – a Marie Antoinette Christmas.

One bite reveals that it’s made of an almond cookie, orange and vanilla cream, crunchy hazelnuts, vanilla and fleur de sel.

15. Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) Laurent Duchêne

For 2019, the house has created a gorgeous tribute to the classic Black Forest cake. It’s made of five individual trees linked to each other by a chocolate saw.

There’s also a chocolate box called “Carré Vincennes,” as a nod to the pastry chef’s new store in Vincennes.

16. Mariage Frères

This Parisian tea shop is offering a highly inventive take on bûches de Noël this year: they’re shaped like candles. You can even light the wicks and they’ll burn for a few moments before your guests take their first bites. Sadly, they’re only available at the brand’s boutiques in Paris. Just one more reason to go to the City of Light this season!

The Christmas Party collection includes two different bûches de Noël. The red one is made of Christmas tea and dark chocolate mousse, citrus fruit and bergamot confit and hazelnut. The white one is made of candied chestnut Bavarian cream with Christmas Thé bleu, intense acai and candied chestnut heart.

The Mariage-Frere 2019 bûche de Noël is a deep crimson stunner. Available in Western Europe, it’s made of gourmet black tea infused with strawberry confit, wrapped in an almond sponge cake and topped with Matcha green tea cream from Japan.

17. The Peninsula Paris

Pastry chef Dominique Costa has created a “Vigne Enchantée” (Enchanted Vine) bûche de Noël for 2019, featuring Pinot Noir, spices and pear.

The base of the bûche de Noël, which appears to be a wooden champagne box, is actually Dulcey chocolate.

18. Fauchon

Fauchon has a number of variations on the classic bûche de Noël. The Brown Pear Log (€70) is made of chestnut biscuit topped with a pear-ginger confit, a brunoise of pear poached in vanilla-ginger syrup, a light mousse with chestnuts from Ardèche and a pear bavaroise. Its heart contains a pecan praline.

The Hazelnut Log (€70) features A brownie reveals a creamy hazelnut sublimated by a chocolate ganache 66%. The whole is topped with a 46% milk chocolate mousse. The Vanilla Red Fruit buche de noel (€70) is soft almond biscuit topped with a raspberry confit, a fruit of the forest crémeux and a light mousse with vanilla from Madagascar.

You would have to have a heart of stone not to crave one of Fauchon’s Funky Boy individual pastries. The vanilla-red fruit version wins our vote. The chocolate praline is a very close second. crunchy hazelnut chocolate, a creamy dark chocolate and a ganache mounted tonka bean, arranged on an almond-hazel biscuit. Although the Coco Exotique, with coconut cream and marmalade, is equally adorable.

The show-stopper, though, is Fauchon’s Incandescence Christmas Cake (€130): round puffed sugar sphere, flambéed banana compote, gianduja ganache and amber rum mousse. The base is a fluffy banana biscuit with puffed rice and almonds. Right before serving it, just light it up, and then soak up the applause from your dinner guests.

19. Dalloyau

The 2019 Dalloyau buche de Noel is called “Oh Summit.”  It’s made of a milk chocolate shell, caramelized dried fruit with honey and fleur de sel, hazelnut and vanilla gianduja, milk chocolate mousse and spiced shortbread.

You’ll also find three frozen Yule logs, as well as an additional three traditional bûches de Noël.

20. The Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme

For 2019, at the Parc Hyatt Paris-Vendôme you’ll find an inventive tropical take on the traditional bûche de Noël.

There’s a lot going on here: sudashi (a Japanese citrus fruit); pear and lemon confit; lemon cookie; pear syrup; Dulcey chocolate; creamy speculoos and gingerbread.

21. Cafe de la Paix

The charming pink Christmas Pearls Log at Cafe de la Paix is the perfect match for its lovely, romantic surroundings. The pastry chef employs a little-used berry called “dog rose.” It’s surrounded by vanilla mousse and a sponge cake with vanilla syrup. The base is chocolate shortbread and goji berry.

22. Le Burgundy

At the Hotel Le Burgundy  pastry chef Pascal Hainigue has created a stylish stack of Christmas logs. Hazelnut cookies, buckwheat pancakes, chocolate mousse and a crunchy chocolate bark are all in the mix.

23. La Reserve

At La Reserve, a chic boutique hotel on Avenue Gabriel, the stunning Christmas dessert is a trompe l’oeil stack of vintage books. There are three volumes: the bottom two have notes of citrus, chocolate and black tea. The top volume, which even has realistic handwriting on its first page, contains chocolates with tea and citrus.

The volumes are a nod to the literary offerings at this special property – they include poetry readings on Saturday mornings and Thursday evenings in the hotel’s library.

24. Olivier Stehly

The fanciful idea behind Olivier Stehly’s 2019 bûche de Noël is “compose your own combination of flavors” from the various books before you. The options include hazelnut; strawberry; pistachio; and passion fruit.

The young pastry chef now runs an independent shop, and this is a very clever approach to a holiday tradition.

25. Le Meurice

The 2019 bûche de Noël at the Hotel Le Meurice is deceptively simple. Underneath its elegant exterior, pastry chef Cédric Grolet has hidden a citrus paradise. 

There’s a lemon cookie, lemon zest, lemon juice and fresh lemon slices. Complemented with an herbaceous mix of pesto, basil, tarragon, mint and tagète. A crispy cereal of quinoa, sesame seeds, sunflower, squash, kasha, white and brown flax. And white cream cheese mousse. Wow.

26. Le Cafe Pouchkine

For his first holiday creation at Café Pouchkine, pastry chef Patrick Pailler has designed a pretty pastel  bûche de Noël, decorated with roses. It’s meant to be “an ode to sweetness and romance.”

Speculoos praline, caramel and vanilla crème brûlée, a caramel cookie, and jasmine tea mousse await inside.

27. La Grande Epicerie de Paris

One of the pretty desserts on offer at La Grande Epicerie de Paris is this Chocolate-Caramel Kings of Forests Cake. Inside is a “brookie” (brownie + cookie), crunchy almond, hazelnuts and chocolate, caramel and dark chocolate, with cocoa shortbread and dark chocolate trees.

28. L’Auberge du Jeu de Paume

Designed as a tribute to the gardens of the Château de Chantilly, this log from the lovely small hotel L’Auberge du Jeu de Paume combines marjoram mousse, seared pears, creamy caramel and chocolate, and a crunchy cookie. 

29. La Maison du Chocolat

30. The Mandarin Oriental

Pastry chef Adrien Bozzolo at the Mandarin Oriental Paris has created a playful ode to childhood. His buche de Noel is a toy train emerging from a chocolate hut. The train has flavors of hazelnut, passion fruit pulp, mango and dark chocolate. Adorable tiny chocolate toys dipped in gold complete the story.

31. Hugo and Victor

This beautiful Maison Hugo & Victor Yule log is called “the Yuzu mystery log.” Under the white chocolate lace shell hides a cookie with yuzu juice, lemon juice, cream cheese, meringue and lemon confit.

32. Nicolas Bernarde

A floral journey to the heart of the winter woods. That’s how pastry chef Nicolas Bernardé describes the whimsical and lovely 2019 bûches de Nöel at his shop.

Each one “tells of a plant, a magical place where nature flourishes for our greatest happiness.” Choose from a bouquet that includes a Japanese ginko balboa Yule Log with chocolate, pear, vanilla and caramel. A Japanese Camellia Yule Log with vanilla and raspberry, designed to evoke the island landscapes and the tradition of the majestic bouquets of Hokkaidō. And the White Bird of Paradise Yule Log with lemon and hazelnut, representing the plant native to the Côte d’Azur and South Africa.

Best Christmas desserts in Paris this year

That’s it! Our picks for the most beautiful Christmas 2019 desserts and bûche de Noël in Paris. What’s your favorite?  Joyeux Noël!

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