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The best king cakes near our hotels!

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Just after the holiday season, on the first Sunday after the 1st January, the French celebrate Epiphany with a “galette des rois” (or king cake) with flaky pastry and an almond paste filling, often accompanied by a little cider. Every boulangerie has them, but how can you decide where to buy yours?

Well, you’re in luck! The Paris area union of bakers and cake makers (Syndicat des Boulangers-Pâtissiers du Grand Paris) recently organised their 35th annual contest to find the best galette of the year! And out of the 118 submissions , several of the top 12 winners are close to our hotels!

© Boulangerie Gosselin

Boulangerie Gosselin (here) isn’t a stranger to prizes – they won the best Parisian baguette prize back in 1996, and the Left Bank boutique has been producing delicious food since 2001 (they even opened a delicatessen opposite in 2020).

They officiallly have one of the best galettes of the year, not only in a classic version but also one with a pear-chocolate filling, and apple version and a hazelnut edition. And a bottle of cider is added for free if you order a galette for 8, 10 or 12 people (between 40€ and 60€)!

You’ll find more info on their website here.

Chez Meunier, on place d’Italie (here), came second in this year’s contest. Everything is made on-site and all their breads use organic flour.

For their galette des rois (either the classic version using Montaigu AOP butter and 100% almond cream, or the remixed version sporting chestnuts and blueberries 😋), they’ve done a collab with street artist Chanoir who has designed murals for the stores, a crown for the ‘king’ who finds the little ceramic figure that is hidden in every galette, the special bag to put the galette in, and even the ceramic figures themselves!

And if you find a golden figure in your galette, that means you’ve won a 20cm statuette created and signed by the artist, worth 4,500€!

The Boulangerie Parisienne (here, but they have six stores across Paris) won the best baguette prize not so long back in 2016, and got 5th place in the galette contest this year.

Look how they make their delicious cake…

You might already know the Boulangerie Moderne (here) – it’s the boulangerie next to Emily’s apartment in Emily in Paris!

It’s also just a minute from a couple of our hotels, and now has become quite the place of pilgrimage for visitors to Paris, so why not you? Especially as their galette was one of the best of the year…

And the final Left Bank establishment to get a prize for their king cake is Maison Thevenin (here, but they have four stores on our side of the river). Even at 10th place in the finals, they should be proud (it’s not bad out of 118 galettes).

LeTheir website doesn’t mention that they won, and their Facebook and Instagram pages haven’t been updated since 1st December 2022, but why not pop by and see them anyway?

And there you have it!

Our map of all this year’s winners (including the top prize winner which is Maison Marquise here in a nearby suburb called Chevilly-Larue) can be found below. Hope you enjoy your prize-winning king cake!