La Boulangerie
By Erin Deborah Waks
When I lived in Paris, barely a day went by that I didn’t stop in - or at least pass - a boulangerie.
In Paris, and France in general, a bakery is an institution. The French - stereotype I know but, alas, it’s true - take pride in their baked goods. One knows where to buy their bread, exactly how well baked they want it, what type of flour is their favourite and precisely which croissants their family genuinely love. It’s an art. One I was more than happy to learn.
Despite protestations that it's ‘not healthy’ to eat a patisserie or viennoiserie every day, I didn’t pay any attention to this and gladly sampled the best the city had to offer. Given I moved to the French capital the year of the pandemic, I had plenty of time on my hands to do my allotted daily walk within a short radius of my flat and, this being Paris, the bakery options in this small section of the city were, frankly, numerous - and plentiful.
And in this daily ritual, I watched men, women and children pay utter respect to the institution. Too-cool-for-school teenage boys would order a ‘well-done Traditional baguette’ to carry home, older, effortlessly classy French ladies would demand fresh-from-the-oven Pains Suisses alongside their daily loaf.
It was, I observed, just that: a ritual. In making something as ordinary as buying bread an Event, these clever souls deduced something that my stay in the romantic city showed me: that eating should be romantic too.
Gone were the days of a hurried cheese sandwich at my desk; rather, I’d buy a proper baguette and eat it, doing nothing else, in a park. Mornings, instead of a hurried protein shake of yoghurt pot, consisted of munching on a croissant and slowly drinking my strong black coffee. Moments of peace to punctuate my day.
We haven’t quite got it figured out this side of the pond, but I’m certainly trying. Slicing a loaf of proper sourdough and slathering it in peanut butter does wonders for the soul.
La boulangerie is, undoubtedly, a ritual based in the ordinary. But one that perhaps will make that ordinary just a little bit better.
Oh, and, if you want some recommendations for London boulangeries, I’ve got you. Don’t Tell Dad, a new haunt in Queen’s Park, is my current hyperfixation, and you can’t beat Kilburn’s Hart & Lova for a perfect French baguette. Arome, which has branches in Bond Street and Covent Garden, has some magnificent pastries and Entree in Kensington, a Georgian bakery on one of the prettiest streets in London, can’t be missed. Fortitude Bakehouse and Toad Bakery deserve a mention, too.
