5 Best Restaurants in The Marais, Paris

A dazzling array of gourmet pastries here includes all the classics in imaginative and delicious flavor combinations. There are also impossibly moist individual cakes, Paris's best baba au rhum, sublime cookies, and the specialty guimauve, a flavored, melt-in-your-mouth marshmallow. Be sure to sample the gorgeous Rosy Rosa dome cake with almond, rose-infused almond milk, and creamy dark chocolate all on a black sesame biscuit topped with rose petals. Next door, savory gourmet breads, quiches, sandwiches, and other takeout foods make this the perfect refueling stop after a visit to the Centre Pompidou. There's also outdoor seating in warm weather.

To be enveloped in the aroma of freshly baked babka is almost as swoon-worthy as biting into a tender brioche babka filled with creamy pistachio-orange flower, chocolate-hazelnut, or buttery poppy seed at this unpretentious bakery a stone’s throw from the Place des Vosges. The pistachio-rose rugelach and the nougat-orange babka rolls are to die for, as are the deli sandwiches and savory breads.

If you want to know what the locals are craving, head over to this popular bakery a half-block from the Place des Vosges, where the bread, croissants, and gorgeous seasonal pastries like yuzu-black sesame tart, pear, and caramel sablé or pistachio mille-feuille are made on the premises. There’s also a choice of sinfully delicious gelatos.

Pastry chef Myriam Sabeta’s carved out a whole new niche in French sweets with her creations influenced by her childhood in Aleppo, Syria. Her signature “nids” are based on kadaïf, the buttery angel hair pastries of the Levant, which Sabet fills with cream and dried or candied fruit in original flavors such as Damascus rose, chocolate-sumac, or lemon-cardamom. Her ambrosial baklavas may be layered with Piedmont hazelnuts and lemon or Iranian pistachio and orange blossom.

You’ll find all of this brilliant young pastry chef’s latest and classic creations at this handsome pâtisserie and café, but good luck choosing between the tasty options. Known for his ambitious and subtle flavor pairings and over-the-top decadence, you'll be wowed by pastries like the Entremets Isatis, a pecan biscuit with pecan praline, creamy vanilla-bean ganache, and vanilla caramel; his exquisite lemon merengue tart topped with a tangy dollop of lemon crème; or the signature Mille Feuilles Madagascar.