Paulette: A Sweet Final Week

(From top left: coconut, jasmine tea, caramel, pistachio, vanilla)

Like many other bakers, I jumped on the French macaron bandwagon a few years back and it has become di rigueur for me to order these tiny meringue sandwiches whenever saw them sold. In terms of LA, I’ve managed to hit up most of the macaron places – from Jin’s to the Little Next Door. But weeks away from my last day in LA and I still hadn’t visited the no-longer-so-new macaron “boutique” – Paulette – in Beverly Hills.

Well, thank God I have great friends who know me :D The beautiful Sunny called me down from the apartment and surprised me with a small baggie of Paulette’s macaroons. I LURVE her. And of course, she knew my flavor preferences so the bag included my staple macaron trio of (Madagascar) vanilla, (Sicilian) pistachio and caramel. On top of that, the Sun got me the coconut (my favorite favorite dessert flavor) and jasmine tea.

(Innards of the pistachio)

The Paulette macarons were almost too pretty to eat. I took a million photos of those babies from every angle imaginable. I probably have more photos of the macarons than I will of my future children. When I finally got over their prettiness, I took my first Paulette bite. Mmmm…sweeeeet sweet goodness. Unlike the dry, crunchy “biscuit” I had at Little Next Door, the meringue shells at Paulette were chewy and light, though not as well made as Jin’s or Bouchon’s. Paulette did really well, however, with bringing out the flavors of the macarons. The jasmine tea was mild but fragrant and smelled like flowers. They used actual caramel instead of caramel ganache in the caramel macaron which gave it an interesting flavor. It doubled the chewiness of the sandwich and personally, I quite liked that. The pistachio had a very strong nutty flavor. Awesome. But my absolute favorite was the coconut macaron. It was sooooo effin’ good. It was a bite of pure, satisfying coconut-ness. If I could, I would go back and order a box only in that flavor.


FOOD: 4/5
SERVICE: n/a (didn’t go myself but Sunny said the service wasn’t pleasant and the macaron samples were dry)
ATMOSPHERE: n/a (but I’ve seen photos and it looks tres cute <3!)

PAULETTE ($/$$)
9466 Charleville Blvd at Beverly Drive.
Los Angeles, CA 90210
(310) 275-0023
http://www.paulettemacarons.com