I may have been embracing my imperfections, but the Parisian men weren’t. I mean, forget Robert Doisneau café cuddles, moonlight strolls along the Seine, and dancers twirling beneath streetlamps glowing rose. My dating life so far exhibited none of the romantic trappings that the black-and-white posters on my college dorm walls had promised me sixteen years ago. The sad fact was, it reminded me more of my college boyfriend’s dorm room poster of Larry, Moe, and Curly: funny, ridiculous, and in a set of three.

My first date came about, unsurprisingly, after a night out with Michael. As my quintessential bachelor friend, we had an implicit agreement to be each other’s wingmen when we met for happy hours and nightcaps.

“Sooo? Did you get his number?” he trilled toward the end of a night at Experimental, one of the city’s chicest—nay, one of the city’s only—cocktail bars, which had been started a year and a half earlier by three natty friends. It was more East Village speakeasy than common comptoir or ubiquitous café, giving a mostly international crowd a sophisticated place to drink and dance. Not even two blocks away from my tree house, I was lucky to claim this little taste of home as “my” neighborhood bar.

“Oui, oui, and I gave him mine,” I yawned, always staying out later than I should with Michael. Even though I wasn’t particularly charmed by the tall, skinny, Swedish trust fund baby I had chatted with for forty minutes, I was determined to live by my new Paris motto: Be open. Say yes. So I agreed to meet the beanpole for a drink the following week. Michael and I high-fived.

The night hardly started auspiciously. Alec, the Swedish beanpole, suggested we meet outside a pub on rue Saint-Denis. Now, unless you’re walking around with a penis, rue Saint-Denis is not the most desirable place—an infamous stretch of dingy sex shops, seedy massage parlors, and fifty-year-old hookers with vinyl boots and basketball-sized implants loitering in doorways. I tried to keep my chin up after fifteen minutes of waiting for Alec, lecherous men muttering and blowing kisses in my face the whole time. It was one of the few times I was relieved, not amiss, that I couldn’t understand what was being said to me. I was about to text and cancel when the beanpole jogged up, shoulder-length brown hair flapping in the wind. What was I thinking, agreeing to this? But as suddenly as the thought entered my mind, I squashed it, trying to embrace the night with my new optimism. (Be open! Say yes!)

Once we were settled inside a nearby bar with gin and tonics—his eighth by the smell of it—Alec rapidly progressed from small talking to flirting to seducing. Within minutes, he leaned over and just started making out with me. No attempt at warming things up. No soft “hello, you” kiss. Just a full on make-out attack. And he wasn’t a good kisser. That said, I must admit I was a little flattered. This kid was probably twelve years younger than me, and I hadn’t even been sure if our drink, when arranged the week before, was intended to be platonic or romantic. After my months of lonely moments, I was finally on a date. So I went with it, still being open! Saying yes!

“So,” he sat back, all smug and smiley, his concave brown chest peeking out from the crisp shirt that was unbuttoned one more button than it should have been. “Should we go home now or meet my friends at a club?”

It had been a long time since someone rendered me speechless, and I laughed in his face. “Um, right,” I said, wiping my lips dry. “Why don’t we join your friends.”

My bullshit sensor on high alert, we left to ostensibly go to this club, but along the way, he dragged us into a brightly lit, sadly empty bar with thumping music. It was then I realized how horrendous French music is. Sure, they had Serge in the sixties, Air in the nineties, and add me to the list of Phoenix fans. But otherwise, the outdated house music and cheesy crooners that permeate are embarrassingly unhip.

Alec marched up to the bartender like he owned the joint and ordered himself, only himself, a drink, and though he was generous enough to let me take sips of his vodka and mint liquor, I declined after the first sip, having gagged at what tasted like tainted mouthwash. I found myself in that mute role again, not so much because I couldn’t understand the language—I just didn’t get this guy’s behavior. I was simultaneously fascinated and horrified as he kept leaning over and mauling me. What can I say? It was one of those things where I was so aware of the absurdity of the situation, but I didn’t care. (Be open! Say yes!)

But then things just started getting dumb. “Don’t you want to go home with an arrogant bastard?” he asked, grinding against the bar and flipping his hair behind his ear. “Don’t you want to be able to tell your friends you slept with a hot Parisian?” Incapable of a kind or clever response, I just smiled and shook my head. He switched tactics. “Okay, time for a shot!”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, Alec.” Finally, my senses were coming back to me. The comedy routine had gone on long enough. “It’s time for me to call it a night.”

“What?” He was incredulous. And I was incredulous that he was incredulous. “C’mon. Let’s do a shot. What do you want? Whiskey? Tequila?”

“No, seriously, I’m going to go now.”

“No, wait. Just walk me to this club where my friends are,” he said, apparently no longer interested in who I was but only in what I could do for him. He was furiously texting on his mobile. “They’ll charge me if I’m alone, but not if you’re with me. So come with me, it’s really close, and then you can go home.”

It was 1:15 on a Wednesday night. I had to meet Josephine for my French lesson at 8:30 the following morning. I was done. “Hmm, that’s tempting. But still, I’m going home.” I was making my way to the door, over his protestations. “Thanks, um, for an, um…see ya!” Having reached the door, I bolted midsentence and started running through the cobblestoned streets without so much as a glance over my shoulder. When I was safely back in my tree house, I noticed my phone ringing. Alec wanted to come over. In disbelief—at his audacity and because I couldn’t figure out how to turn my phone off (French wasn’t my only challenge; I was an iPhone girl back in New York, and I couldn’t quite figure out the BlackBerry the Paris office gave me)—I hung up without any pretenses of politesse, dislodged the phone’s battery, and crawled into bed.

The next morning, I had twelve missed calls. And when I hopped off my Vélib’ outside Ladurée, ready for my French lesson, the phone rang again. It was the Swedish beanpole, oblivious, still wanting to know if he should come over.

My first date in Paris: strike one.

About a month later, I connected with a Frenchman—a sane Frenchman. I went to a Pretenders concert, giddy about seeing one of my favorite all-time bands in my favorite all-time city. I had been to two great shows since arriving in Paris, both at incredibly intimate venues that would have sold out in, well, a New York minute, back home. My music karma was good, and I had big expectations for the night. It was an unusually steamy night, and beads of sweat were already tickling my back before I entered Élysée Montmartre, a two-hundred-year-old music venue that had hosted everyone from David Bowie to Robbie Williams. The French are infamous for not investing in air-conditioning—but I thought a major music venue where twelve hundred people cram into one room might be different. It wasn’t; it was going to be a hot night. Weaving through the crowd, I found an open pocket and noticed a very cute guy in a simple white button-down, perfectly worn Levi’s, and closely cropped salt-and-pepperish hair nearby. He was also alone.

More and more people started filing in around us, the air getting stickier with every one of them. I was as acutely aware that I was standing next to a single, attractive guy as I was that my naturally curly hair was undoubtedly getting bigger and frizzier by the minute. Chrissie Hynde and the rest of the band had taken the stage, starting with “Break Up the Concrete.” I needed to seize the opportunity before I had an afro.

Striking up conversation with strangers has never been my forte. In New York, AJ was always there to loosen things up and give me a jolt of confidence, telling me how funny I was or that I was having a good hair night. She encouraged me to make eye contact, not put pressure on myself, and to just enjoy meeting people, with no expectation for the outcome. So I kept thinking: What would AJ do? As I was channeling my best friend in New York, Chrissie was snarling on stage: “Il fait chaud! Merde!” I cracked up with the rest of the roaring crowd at her ability to say it was bloody hot in there like a badass Frenchie. Then I made my move.

“Elle est la mieux,” I shouted to Salt-and-Pepper, letting him know I thought she was the coolest chick going.

“Oui, oui,” he smiled back at me. Okay, so maybe he had been looking at me out of the corner of his eye, too. “Oui…”

“As-tu déjà vu?” My French was laughable, but I wasn’t backing down now that I had successfully made contact.

“Oui, trois fois,” he smiled at me again. What a great smile. “Toi?” We exchanged adoration for our mutual idol the rest of the show, in between jumping around to “Message of Love” and singing “Brass in Pocket” at the top of our lungs. As we were getting herded out of the sweaty venue ninety minutes later, he asked me if I wanted to get a drink. I did. So we did!

We climbed the hill to rue des Abbesses, a street in Montmartre jammed with classic cafés—the kind Robert Doisneau would have photographed—my stomach aflutter for the first time since coming to Paris. We sat down and the hours ticked by as we talked about music, traveling, France, and politics. While he did most of the talking, I was still proud I was keeping up and following, oh, about 40 percent of what he was saying. Although, toward the end, he did get very French on me—talking superfast with beaucoup gesticulations to emphasize his points. That’s when I began to check out, again faced with the reality that French people really like to hear themselves pontificate. After shutting down the café, we exchanged numbers—and names, which we hadn’t until that point. Frank. What a nice name. What a nice night.

The following evening, when I hadn’t heard from him, I told myself I could text him. Pourquoi pas? AJ would. But things had started on a French foot. It seemed too ugly-American to do that. So I waited. For nothing, as it turned out. Josephine was certain the reason I hadn’t heard from him was because he was married. She pointed out that he lived in les banlieues and had a daughter and had probably just come in for the night to see the concert. So confident was my plump, schoolmarmish tutor whose every word of French I clung to that a week later, I had to concede. Strike two.

Meanwhile, after a lifetime of wondering who “the one” would be, AJ finally knew. My best friend was getting married.

“Hi, Aim. Call me when you can,” her voice mail said. “I want to tell you something.” It was a short and simple message, but I knew. I could hear the restrained giddiness in her voice. Since meeting Mitchell the previous month, I knew he was different from the other New York clowns. I called her immediately.

“So, tell me,” I baited. “What’s up?” I felt compelled to let her know that I knew exactly what she was about to share. She started giggling the way she did when we lip-synced Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys” back in 1984. Oh my, she had it bad. “You’re engaged, aren’t you?”

“Yessss!” she melted into the phone. For the next ten minutes, she recounted every detail of her night in the Meatpacking District, which started with Mitchell buying her a new dress at Diane von Furstenburg, then proceeded to a lovely dinner at Bagatelle, a moonlight walk on the High Line, bended knee proposal, a suite at the new Standard Hotel, champagne…

I stared out my window, looking across the zinc rooftops to Sacré-Coeur, glowing big and white up on Montmartre. I felt strangely detached. Mostly it was because I was hearing AJ’s happiness through a crummy little BlackBerry, in a rented apartment, in the middle of a foreign city. How did I wind up here? AJ and I had been attached at the hip for twenty-five years. And now for one of the biggest milestones in life, she was back home, and I was thirty-six hundred miles away from the excitement.

But it was also something else. As happy as I was for her, her engagement made my single status more conspicuous. It hadn’t been that long since I arrived in Paris, all starry-eyed and buoyed by the confidence of being “a catch.” Colleagues and acquaintances had told me being a foreigner was an asset in Paris. That my accent was “cute” and my expat status “exotic.” But after months of hearing this and nothing but two dubious dates to back it up, I was beginning to wonder: was I going to strike out in the world’s most lover-ly city? I wouldn’t have admitted it to just anyone, but I had secretly dreamed of meeting a cute pastry chef and eating tarte tatin for the rest of my life. But the closest I was getting to romance was an old amputee in a wheelchair telling me I had jolies jambes. I may have pretty legs, but they weren’t getting me anywhere. Out of the five of us best friends from high school, I was the last one standing—the only unattached one.

Getting engaged hadn’t exactly been at the top of my to-do list. Ever since graduating from college, I had let my career dictate my path in life. With a New York agent and budding editorial career, the prospect of a fat book advance had prompted me to leave San Francisco—and Max—for Manhattan at the prime marrying age of twenty-nine. And now my advertising career had brought me to Paris at an age where the news programs and my outspoken aunts were telling me I’d better heed my biological clock, or else. Certainly, I had thought about love and marriage and babies over the years. It’s just that how to get a byline in Elle magazine had always been a bigger deal than how to get a guy.

So a year ago, my single status wouldn’t have bothered me one bit. It had become central to my identity and was normally such a source of pride. I protected my independence, enjoyed my freedom, and had done enough dating over the years that I didn’t feel like a hopeless leper.

But something was triggered by AJ’s engagement. She had been my steady companion through two and a half decades, across country borders, and despite our respective relationships. Now, she was going to be committing to someone else. I felt more alone than ever.

“Uh, hel-lo? Being single in Paris is like having a social disease,” Michael explained, dumbfounded he had to point out this very evident truth. “I mean, if you’re not in a relationship, you might as well be dead.” He paused, watching a guy in a manual wheelchair maneuver the crosswalk outside the window of Gaya Rive Gauche, Pierre Gagnaire’s pricey seafood restaurant. “Or a paraplegic.”

We were indulging in one of our regular lunch splurges, and I was whining, as I had been with increasing frequency, about my lack of dating opportunities. At least the restaurant was proving to be a winner, even if I wasn’t. While perusing the menu, we indulged in crusty bread, served with both butter and olive oil—it’s a rarity to get one or the other, much less both in Paris. We were also enjoying a beautiful amuse-bouche of octopus salad, which we speared with toothpicks, and a carafe of chilled Valflaunès Blanc. And the subsequent courses, right down to the chocolate praline cake served with rhubarb compote and salted caramel ice cream, were fantastique. But still, it had nothing on our previous lunch at Le Grand Vefour.

The history of Le Grand Vefour, tucked inside the gardens of the Palais-Royal in the first arrondissement, goes back to King Louis XV’s reign. It’s legendary. Napoleon wooed Josephine there. Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, and Colette all dined there. It has three Michelin stars and a masterpiece of an eighteenth-century interior, complete with lush red velvet banquets, gilt trim, painted frescoes, crisp white linens, and silver vases skyrocketing with fresh flowers. It’s an unforgettable experience before you even sit down to eat. But eat you do.

Michael and I had one o’clock reservations, and I ducked out of work inconspicuously enough. When I arrived at the restaurant, I joined my hungry friend at our table that afforded us a prime view of all the dining room’s spectacles: the elaborate decanting of fine French wines, the delivery of the painstakingly constructed plates, and the meticulous choreography of the wait staff. There was a team of at least eight waiters, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty, each of whom clearly had his role (yes, his; there are only male waiters at Le Grand Vefour, and you can tell they’re all proud to have worked there all their lives). More than once, one of the older gentlemen, in his dapper black suit, would catch me lustfully eyeing someone else’s dessert and he’d joke, “Not yet,” making me laugh.

We went for the three-course, 125 menu—obviously a splurge, and yet I barely batted an eye, seduced as I was by the restaurant’s opulent setting. But the prix-fixe menu was also quite a value, considering it was really four courses once you factored in the biggest, most ridiculously decadent cheese course that came with it…or six courses, when you counted the two amuses-bouches that began the meal…or eight courses with the two side dishes served alongside our entrées…or fourteen courses with the dishes of complimentary gelées, caramels, chocolates, lemon cakes, and petits fours that came in addition to our dessert course. The meal was absolute madness. Absolute decadence. Absolute bliss. Each time someone from the cast of waiters approached our table to deliver a new plate, pour more wine, or just smile at us and make us feel like royalty—I wanted to give them another 10 in sheer gratitude. It was one of the richest dining experiences of my life.

Three and a half hours later, I was stuffed on French food and walking on air, though admittedly feeling a tinge of guilt for having been gone so long. As I approached the office, one of my colleagues who was on a smoke break looked at me knowingly. “Was it a good baisenville?” she asked. A baisenville, she had taught me only the week before, is slang for a “fuck in town.” In other words, she had noticed how long I had been gone and naturally assumed I was enjoying some afternoon delight with my imaginary French lover. The way I had been struggling with cultural norms lately, it seemed like a midday romp would have been more acceptable than spending over three hours at lunch. So I did my best impersonation of a fabulous French woman, gave her a conspiratorial smile, and didn’t say a word as I slipped back into the office.

Back at Gaya Rive Gauche, Michael was still schooling me about dating in Paris. “Haven’t you ever noticed that there’s no Sex and the City equivalent here? It’s not cool to be a single girl!” He sputtered on, “You’ve never noticed that everyone’s a couple here? Whether they’re happy or not? Faithful or not? It’s all about image. The French are the biggest conformists in the world. They have to have their Sunday dinners with the family, someone to go on les vacances with, someone to split their baguettes with. Couples, man, couples! God forbid you make a dinner party awkward by forcing it to be an odd number.” He couldn’t stop himself now. “They’re like monkeys,” he continued. “They don’t swing from their vines unless there’s another one to jump onto. And since they’ve been palling around with their childhood friends forever, that’s their pool of potential mates. They’re not going to let you break in. The women would never have it, and the guys are too pussy.” As he ranted on, everything started making sense.

Of course. How could I not have noticed these unspoken rules before? Everything in Paris, from the side-by-side café seats to the ping-pong tables in the parks, was arranged in pairs. I remembered being reduced to tears of humiliation at the Jardin des Tuileries carnival—not because I was a thirty-six-year-old at a carnival by myself, but because the operator of the Grand Roue made me stand in the sidelines for fifteen minutes like a naughty schoolgirl until another solo rider came along. I couldn’t ride alone. Alone, alone.

I thought of the devout attentions of men at parties—until their girlfriends entered the room and led them away by the arm without so much as bonsoir to me. And the way my female colleagues took pride in going home every evening to make dinner for their boyfriends or husbands. At first, I thought it was sort of charming in a retro way. No one back home would have ever admitted to such a traditional role. But now I saw that being in a relationship offered validation in Paris the same way having a successful career did in New York. Being half of a couple was the ticket to total self-worth.

“I mean, even the difference in the languages makes it clear,” Michael was winding up, our bottle of wine empty, the dishes of caramel ice cream long since licked clean. “In English, ‘single’ sounds like you’re ready to party. But célibataire? It sounds like you’re entering a monastery.”

Indeed. Once again, Michael had a point, and I was reminded that I wasn’t finding my place in Paris. I was ready for a nap.

In my short time in the City of Light, there was at least one man with whom I had become intimately acquainted: Pierre Hermé.

Variously coined “The Picasso of Pastry,” “The King of Modern Pâtisserie,” “The Pastry Provocateur,” and “The Magician with Tastes,” he’s the rock star of the French pastry world. In a country that takes desserts as seriously as Americans take Hollywood relationships (that is to say, very), he has the respect and admiration of Paul Newman.

At the age of fourteen, in fact, Gaston Lenôtre of the famed Lenôtre Pâtisserie asked Pierre’s father if he could apprentice Pierre. So at about the same age that I started whipping up Oreo blizzards for my illustrious career at Dairy Queen, Pierre began his in the French pastry world.

After five years at Lenôtre, at the spry age of nineteen, he became the head pastry chef. If you’ve ever seen the billowy white gâteaux or structurally perfect strawberry tarts from this Parisian landmark, you know how impressive this is. Later, he moved on to Fauchon, another top marque in the French pastry world, where he caught the world’s attention with his Cherry on the Cake, a towering creation of hazelnut dacquoise, milk chocolate ganache, milk chocolate Chantilly cream, milk chocolate shavings, crushed wafers, and a bright red candied cherry—phew! complete with stem—on top. This was an important revelation for two reasons: its artistry and the unexpected flavors.

Unveiling this cake is a ritual, and if there’s one thing I’d learned, it’s that the French like their rituals. The more dramatic, the better. Untying the satin bow at the top of the cake’s tall, triangular box allows the sides to fall away, revealing the gleaming cherry and six gold-leaf markings down the side, which indicate where to slice to serve the six perfect portions. With this cake, Pierre proved he was wildly creative, yet precise and thoughtful; a hedonist, but a hedonist with a little restraint and a lot of skill.

Just as with its design, the flavor of the Cherry on the Cake left the French gasping. While they’re typically dark and bittersweet chocolate devotees, this cake is all milk chocolate. Pierre took a risk that his budding fan base would fall for the milk chocolate and not think him sacrilegious for eschewing the dark. Same thing with flavors like lychee, rose, and salted caramel, which are common these days, but were out there when Pierre introduced them to his macarons and cakes in the early days. People started noticing this young pastry chef and what he was doing with flavors and textures. And because his creations were so delicious, they started wanting more.

Pierre Hermé then launched Ladurée’s Champs-Élysées location—essentially rounding out his CV with the most important names in the French pastry world—and finally journeyed to Japan to open his first eponymous pâtisserie in 1998. It wasn’t for another three years that Parisians were treated to their own Pierre Hermé boutique. Now there are half a dozen locations in Paris, two in London, and seven in Japan, plus a dozen cookbooks and a line of tea, jams, and scented candles. Oh, Pierre…

As all the other women rushed home to make dinner for two, I would be lusting after Pierre Hermé’s gorgeous cakes, which seemed to be the one thing in the city that came in individuel sizes. They were impressive examples of both style and substance that reminded me of the fanciness of Lady M in New York. Back home, Lady M’s signature Mille Crepes cake—twenty silky crepe layers that sandwiched vanilla custard and caramelized sugar—seduced me every time. But that seduction was like child’s play in comparison.

At first, it was thrilling to scramble out of work so as not to miss the opportunity of having my love before the pâtisserie doors snapped shut for the night. Then, admittedly, it became a problem. Never mind how tight my agnès b. jeans had gotten; I realized the cakes and other sweets I was inhaling on a nearly daily basis were a substitute for the strong human embrace I really desired.

I knew from experience I’d have to wait in line at Pierre Hermé’s sleek rue Bonaparte boutique, his original location, even in the evening. Indeed, there was a long queue on the sidewalk, and I suspiciously eyed the gray sky for raindrops as I joined it. Every few minutes, the snapping automatic doors would open and someone would exit. I would be a step closer to the rows of pristine cakes adorned with fresh berries, coffee beans, and dark chocolate shavings that waited inside—a step closer to cake heaven.

I breeched the entrance and inhaled deeply. The rich, intense scent of chocolate enveloped and comforted me. But the feeling of peace was short-lived. Dear God, I thought, scanning the amazing array of cakes before me, somehow I have to decide what I’m going to order. I eyed my options: the Saint-Honoré Ispahan, which looked like an elaborate Indian temple and was made with the same flavors that had previously made my knees tremble: rose macaron, rose Chantilly cream, lychee gelée, and topped with a fresh raspberry. Or maybe the Tarte Mogador, a spicy and smooth combination of short-crust pastry, milk chocolate and passion fruit ganache, concentrated pineapple, and a flourless chocolate biscuit. Dozens of options—and, by now, dozens of impossibly thin French women and lip-licking Japanese tourists behind me in line. My palms started sweating from the pressure. Then the elegant man on the other side of the counter looked squarely at me. “Mademoiselle?”

I was thrilled to be acknowledged as a girl instead of the “Madame” I had gotten used to, and my nerves calmed. I looked back down at the rows of resplendent cakes and it became plain as day. “Le Plenitude Individuel, s’il vous plaît.”

Pierre debuted his Plenitude line in 2003. “Is it chocolate with caramel, or caramel with chocolate?” he teases, pointing out the contrasting, yet perfectly balanced chocolate and caramel pairing he uses in this line of macarons and cakes. Dark chocolate and salted caramel are flavors I know intimately. They never fail to make me happy.

I paid the hefty fee and took my petite dome-shaped cake filled with chocolate mousse, caramel, and fleur de sel to the Square des Missions Étrangères, a ten-minute walk toward the hoity-toity rue du Bac quartier. It’s one of the few parks that has retained its quiet beauty instead of being built up with bright plastic playgrounds and screaming enfants. The perfect spot to sit on a quiet bench with my treasure.

I was loath to disrupt the many perfect squares of chocolate—all dark and glistening save for the one single white chocolate slab—that adorned the chocolate fondant. Staring at it, I realized another reason why I loved Pierre Hermé. It’s not just that he made the most exquisite cakes in Paris or that he came up with the most mind-blowing flavor combinations. I was also instinctively drawn to him because he did things a little bit differently. He was a man not beholden to tradition and who blazed his own trail. In my own small way, I was doing the same thing. No matter how dreamy my life in Paris sounded, I had taken a risk moving there as a thirty-six-year-old. Falling in love with Paris had been easy. Living there was getting harder and harder.

I had told myself I would show a little restraint and not eat the entire cake. But there I was, staring at my last bite. Oh well, I rationalized, at least it was only an individuel size.

I was terrified my third date in Paris was going to be another freak show; strike three and I would be out of the dating game altogether. Only two things gave me reason to hope otherwise. The first, my dear Melissa was setting me up. And second, she was setting me up with an American. At least there would be some sort of comfort and familiarity.

Indeed, the date was pretty good. It ended with a heavy make-out session (ten times better than with the Swedish beanpole, which isn’t saying much, but still…) and an exchange of numbers (unlike with Salt-and-Pepper, put to use that night with a fleet of texts). It even led to a second date in which a homemade chocolate praline cake figured prominently. Maybe he wasn’t my tarte-tatin-making pastry chef. He definitely wasn’t Pierre Hermé. But at least it wasn’t a strikeout. There was hope for me yet.

More Sweet Spots on the Map

C’est vrai. Pierre Hermé is a rock star. A god. Every sweet freak should genuflect at his altar. But that’s not to say there aren’t a gazillion other amazing pâtissiers in Paris. If it’s gorgeous gâteaux you’re after, prepare to become une leche-vitrine (“window licker”) at any of these places: La Pâtisserie des Rêves (in the 7e and 16e), Gérard Mulot (3e and 6e), Stohrer (2e), and Hugo et Victor (7e and 1er).

Cake in New York tends to be more “cute” than drop-dead gorgeous. But that’s okay; cute still tastes delicious in the hands of the right bakers. See for yourself at Amy’s Bread (in Hell’s Kitchen, the Chelsea Market, and West Village), Baked (Red Hook, Brooklyn), and Black Hound Bakery (East Village).