Stohrer is the oldest pâtisserie in Paris.
It is also the most magical.
The key is to go after hours—once the FERMÉ sign is turned and the overhead awning droops like a heavy lid. Pay no mind to these things, for as soon as you place your hand on the bakery door, you’ll smell its invitation: Butter as rich as an evening sun. Folds of chocolate and caramel. This alone is enough to make you step inside, but then! You see that the glass chandelier drips with melt-in-your-mouth snowflakes. Pastries shaped like hot-air balloons float by—their tops made of spun sugar bubbles. Swallows with marzipan wings dive past towers of chocolate truffles.
“Can I help you?” asks a gentleman behind the counter.
The cases displaying his cakes need no light—you can see the macarons well enough when he bends down to show you their flavors. His masque glows over the labels: Carols on a Snowy Evening. A First Kiss. A Second Kiss. An April Picnic by the River. You choose Bastille Day Fireworks and an éclair filled with cloud crème.
“Make sure there’s a ceiling over your head when you eat this,” the baker says, as he hands you the paper bag.
Your mouth is already watering. “What do I owe you?”
What. Not how much. It’s a question you’ve learned to ask, in such establishments. Magic is always give-and-take, but no Sanct is the same. This one seems sweeter than others—perhaps a side effect of working with so much sugar. His masque flashes when he smiles. “For my pastries? All you have to do is enjoy them.”
It is not such a terrible price to pay, you think, as you hold the door open for a girl wearing a pair of butterfly wings. She’s followed by a strange parade: a woman in armor, a man wearing an uneasy shadow, a woman with hair the color of starlight. As if she is always and forever dreaming.