Sweet treats at the Pâtisserie Ladurée, Champs-Élysées, Paris.
Ladurée is a French luxury bakery and sweets maker house created in 1862. It is one of the world’s best-known premier sellers of the double-decker macaron, fifteen thousand of which are sold every day.
Louis-Ernest Ladurée, a miller, founded the bakery on the Rue Royale, Paris in 1862.
Ladurée’s rise to fame came in 1930 when his grandson, Pierre Desfontaines, had the original idea of the double-decker, sticking two macaron shells together with a creamy ganache as filling.
Desfontaines also opened a tearoom at the pastry shop. In those days ladies were not admitted to cafés, which were the exclusive domain of men. This was a big success with ladies, who enjoyed meeting in the freedom of the tearoom rather than their homes.
In 1993, the Holder Group took over the firm expanding Ladurée from the single rue Royale bakery into an international chain.