I’ve been going to Angelina on rue de Rivoli for the past 12 years…and my love for it hasn’t budged an inch. This salon de thé (sah-lohn deh tey), or tea room, is still one of my absolute favorites and on the TOP of the to do list when visiting friends are in Paris.
Some say that Angelina is nothin’ but an old-fashioned tourist trap and that no Parisian would be caught dead in a place like this. Ummm EXQUEEZE ME? I beg to differ! Even though foreign tourists are dominant, Frenchies are present as well. I’ve seen Parisian mother-daughter duos there as well as posh older ladies enjoying afternoon tea alone. Angelina also has a to go counter where Parisians who work in the area get their sugar fix after lunch.
I only fall back on Ladurée in rue Royale when the line is waaaaay too long at Angelina’s and I still want to show friends a Parisian salon de thé with a historic touch.
First Impressions
The place is simply magnificent. Built in 1903, the first and original tea room on rue de Rivoli hasn’t changed much. Its design will transport you back in time to the prosperous Belle Epoque, or the “Golden Age”, when life in Paris was carefree and filled with lavish dinner parties, dancing, cabarets…
At that time, the tea room’s name wasn’t Angelina, but Ancienne Maison Rumpelmayer, after its founder Anton Rumpelmayer, an Austrian confectioner. It was later changed to Angelina, in honor of his daughter-in-law.
An old postcard of Ancienne Maison Rumpelmayer, today known as Angelina.
It was definitely the place to be and enticed the city’s crème de la crème like writer Marcel Proust and Coco Chanel. Apparently Coco had a weakness for Angelina’s hot chocolate 🙂
The tea room has two sections, a boutique area in the front where candies, cakes, pastries and other goods are sold to go…
…and the salon de thé in the back and above on a mezzanine level.
I really HATE the mezzanine cuz I feel like I’m eating in someone’s attic…someone rich albeit, but still in their attic. The service is also slower up there. The grand salon is much better!
It’s a crowded place, but the high skylight-type ceiling and grand mirrors bring a lot of light, giving the impression of a much larger space.
The service is hurried and waiters and waitresses are all speed-walking around the salon – BUT – they smile and are courteous. Just remember, it’s a busy place. So unless you take your SWEET ASS time as they wait for you to decide, or you ask to change the menu in every way possible, you won’t have any bad experiences.
vs. Ladurée rue Royale
Ladurée began in 1862 as an ordinary bakery at 16 rue Royale. In 1930, a salon de thé was added to the boutique. Today, the salon de thé sits at 18 rue Royale while the boutique remains at 16.
The salon de thé that everyone talks about on avenue Champs-Elysées wasn’t built until 1997, so I’m using the historic salon de thé on rue Royale for my comparison here.
The first and original Ladurée on rue Royale
While waiting in line at their boutique, something struck me….
Who the HECK is this? A royal officer of the Macaron League? And why is he so unauthentically missing body parts? I bet my bottom dollar it wasn’t done during the French Revolution.
There were actually two of these lil’ guys, like clones, exhibited as fine art…next to the scented candles and macaron key chains, and opposite the pastry counter. Can we say kitsch with a capital K?
Ladurée’s pastry counter opposite Officer Macaron
Now, when you go to the tea room, you’ll notice seating areas on the ground floor and the 2nd floor, both small. Small + crowd = me feeling seriously cramped.
The two sides of the ground floor seating area.
Sometimes, depending where you sit, you have to push your table in order to get out…which is kinda annoying in a classy place like this because you’re scared to butt-knock something over at the next table. OOOPS.
The service is fine, but this tea room gives me a factory vibe that I don’t get at Angelina’s. I can actually sense the STRESS in there as waiters whiz around. They have this pressure-cooker look about them….which ends up stressing me out too!
The Food
For those of you who don’t know what a Mont Blanc is, it’s ONLY one of my favorite pastries in the whole WORLD! 🙂 From French and Italian origins, it combines crisp meringue with airy whipped cream and chestnut vermicelli. Angelina’s vermicelli has a strong and distinct chestnutty taste. The meringue and whipped cream are light and not too sweet, nicely balancing out the sweeter, thicker vermicelli.
This is my drug.
I love eating precisely this pastry at precisely this salon de thé. At 8.90€ a piece, this Angelina shop alone sells around 400 of these babies A DAY.
vs. Ladurée rue Royale
The Mont Blanc at Ladurée is also priced at 8,90€ in the salon de thé.
It looks pretty, but after my first spoonful, I was disappointed. They just piled up the ingredients one on top of the other like building blocks, making the chunk of chestnut paste on top seem massive. Not refined at all!
The taste was a reversed version of Angelina’s Mont Blanc. The vermicelli had a much lighter consistency and a MUCH weaker chestnut taste, while the meringue was much sweeter.
Seeing that the main reason why I even choose the Mont Blanc is for its CHESTNUT flavor more than anything else, I much prefer Angelina’s version.
Another thing….
…at an elegant place like Ladurée, shouldn’t the porcelain NOT be raggedy? Just a thought.
I brought home Millefeuilles (meel-feye) and a fruity pastry from the boutique of both places…you know, for further research 😀
Angelina’s Vanilla Millefeuille (6.70€) vs. Ladurée’s Old Rum Millefeuille (6.30€)
This one’s easy cuz BOTH were disappointing, but in different ways.
Angelina’s millefeuille was topped with a wiggly vanilla bean whipped cream that had obviously been refrigerated uncovered, so a sort of thin film formed on it. HELLLLLS NO. I just scraped up that nasty thing and chucked it. It’s really too bad because the taste was super yummy.
Thank goodness the puff pastry was slightly caramelized (nice touch!), which somewhat compensated for the fact that it wasn’t exactly super fresh. The texture of the vanilla cream filling was nice and light, but where was the vanilla TASTE? Damned if I know.
And Ladurée’s millefeuille? A dud.
The puff pastry was so LIMP and SOFT I totally lost all interest after one bite. There was also this overpowering taste of rum in the cream filling that was just impossible. All it did was just weigh down an already heavy pastry.
Angelina’s Babylone (6.70€) vs. Ladurée’s Savarin (6.70€)
I realize that these are two completely different desserts, so I just compared their quality…and both were excellent!
I loved the simple and modern presentation of Angelina’s Babylone and its FAB vibrant color.
In it was an almond meringue biscuit, two thin layers of white chocolate, vanilla mousse, and a candied raspberry center. The whole was covered with a thin strawberry marshmallow crust. Sounds tasty huh?
Very airy and light, the Babylone has a winning association of flavors = red berries with vanilla and almond, and textures = biscuit, cream, jelly, white chocolate layers. Nicely done!
Ladurée’s Savarin (sah-vah-rahn) was also pretty amazing. In a nutshell, a “savarin” is a rum baba drizzled with apricot jelly and topped with whipped cream. The key to success of a savarin is its consistency. Drenched with rum, it should be moist and ever so elastic, but not soggy, and give the impression of lightness cuz we’re basically eating a butter brioche here.
The texture of this savarin was perfect, and this time there wasn’t too much rum…just enough to compliment the sweetness of the apricot jelly.
The Verdict
I’d STILL take Angelina’s salon de thé over Ladurée’s ANY DAY.
I prefer its space, its service and its overall salon de thé experience.
YES there’s always a line outside, but it moves quite fast.
YES it’s not cheap, but it’s all relative.
YES it’s usually crowded with tourists, but that doesn’t equal tourist TRAP. The only thing that’s a lil’ tourist trappy is the boutique, strategically placed in the front where everyone waits in line.
In any case I’m not interested in Angelina for their gift shop or pastries to go, but for the sit-down experience.
I probably won’t order the Millefeuille again, but I’ve tried other pastries that are quite good. Some people complain that everything at Angelina is too sweet and heavy after finishing a Mont Blanc AND a traditional hot chocolate. Ladies and Gents, if you put SUGAR on SUGAR, it’ll be sweet. The traditional hot chocolate is made the old-fashioned way, so it’s like chocolate sauce. DON’T pair that up with a pastry if you can’t handle a spike in your blood sugar level.
For those of you who don’t give a hoot about being in a beautiful historical venue, stay tuned for future posts on newer and less touristy salons de thé with pastries that’ll surely dazzle you…
Angelina
226 rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
01 42 60 82 00
Pastries in the salon: 6€ – 9€
Coffee/Tea: 5€ – 7€
Ladurée
16-18 rue Royale
75008 Paris
01 42 60 21 79
Pastries in the salon: 6€ – 10€
Coffee/Tea : 4€ – 6€
Paris for Epicureans 