200 years of unchanged handcrafted happiness in flavor — Paris’s oldest chocolate shop

Photos and text excerpted from“Paris with 99% Sweetness”

Early in the morning, I headed to Rue de la Huchette to find the café recommended by my distant relative Delphin the night before. It was described as a “café with black glass windows,” which should have been easy to spot — yet no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see any black glass windows on either side of the street. There were two cafés with dark-tinted windows that could barely be called black, and I agonized over which one to choose.

One of the cafés was located at the mouth of an alley and was quite crowded, while the other was a restaurant in the middle of the street, with the words “Salon du Chocolat” written on one of its side windows. The second location was closer to the rough sketch that Delphin had drawn, and the large lettering on the window also appealed to me more, so I decided to go to the second one.

But unfortunately, the door was tightly shut. Thinking that perhaps it wasn’t open yet, I peeked inside through the glass and then headed to the Montparnasse building to find a café where I could kill some time. By the time it was nearly afternoon, I thought, surely it should be open by now? With a mix of anticipation and anxiety, I went back again, only to find the door still closed.

“What the? I’ve heard lots of shops are closed on Mondays — could this one be too?”

While muttering to myself, I made up my mind to try once more and turned back toward the way I had come. As I reached the end of the road, like magic appearing before my weary self, there stood Paris’s oldest chocolate shop.

Like everyone else, I was enchanted by the various chocolates displayed in the window. After admiring them for a while, I noticed a faded and aged newspaper clipping stuck to the glass, featuring several articles about a chocolate shop of the same name. The address was different, but the historic-looking exterior clearly marked it as the “main store.” I copied down the address scribbled in the corner of the newspaper and pulled out my crumpled bus route map from my pocket.

According to the news report, the shop started as a small grocery store in 1761 and was only recently recognized as Paris’s most classic chocolate shop. It was first opened by Pierre Jean Bernard and has remained family-run to this day. Just looking at the logo depicting a mother and her four children evokes a warm, happy family atmosphere.

After transferring buses twice, I finally arrived at the main store. Even among Paris’s many historic buildings, this place stood out as particularly quaint. The display window, like those at the branches, was located on a street corner. Standing outside and pressing my face against the glass, I carefully examined all kinds of chocolates and candies before pushing open the heavy shop door. The distinctive, aged air of an old place immediately wafted into my nose. The counter, display cases, and glass-lidded candy boxes were all original items used by the family.

The display cases, almost reaching the ceiling, were lined with chocolates on one side and an array of candies in various flavors and shapes on the other, filling the entire shop with a sweet aroma. As I admired the colorful and beautifully crafted Calissons — almond-based sweets from Aix-en-Provence shaped like almonds — a tall shop assistant approached me and asked cautiously, “Are you looking for something?” When I told him I was searching for chocolate to make hot chocolate, he immediately recommended a Valrhona 65% chocolate bar.

Clutching the heavy chocolate bar tightly, and feeling inclined to buy more, I looked around the shop again. The assistant quietly approached me once more and said, “Over 80% of our products here are made right on-site. What we’re best known for is using genuine ingredients and putting care into every piece we make.”

As he spoke, the assistant suddenly gave a thumbs-up and flashed a proud smile with a hint of confidence at the corner of his mouth. On impulse, I picked up another chocolate from the counter.

While waiting for the bus, I immediately took a piece of chocolate from the box and popped it into my mouth. The dreamy, rich sweetness of a chocolate with over 200 years of history instantly melted on my tongue. I imagined how happy the children of the past must have felt when they tasted the chocolates and candies their parents bought from this shop. The thought struck me as truly wonderful.

Even after more than two hundred years, the flavor of handcrafted chocolates made by artisans remains unchanged.

Mom’s Shop
Á La Mère de Famille
35 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 75009 Paris
Phone: 01 47 70 83 69
Monday to Friday: 9:30–20:00
Saturday: 10:00–20:00
Sunday: 10:00–13:00
Metro: Le Peletier
www.lameredefamille.com