The Most Mouth-Watering Bakeries In Paris, According To Locals

Many of us are content to pick up a loaf of pre-sliced bread or a box of sweets from the grocery store. Specifically those packed with preservatives that take more than a week to show signs of mold. But forget that in France. The European country takes its bread so seriously that the law mandates its ingredients, and an annual baking competition declares which baker will supply the president with daily bread for a year.

France gives the same serious treatment to pastries, as its sweets are known as some of the best on the planet. French bakers spare no passion in creating the ultimate delights, including crepes, tarts, meringues, macarons, and eclairs. But keep in mind the one thing tourists should know before dining in Paris. 

So, of course, Paris is the who's-who when it comes to baking and is home to some of the most beloved and delicious bakeries in the world. But which is better than the rest? Explore dug into the likes of locals to find out. We evaluated which French bakeries had the most and highest reviews on sites such as Tripadvisor and Google, as well as the biggest local crowds and the most acclaim from food publications and French food bloggers. Here's which Parisian bakers are worth breaking your diet for.

Atelier P1 is as respectful to ingredients as it is to stomachs. Breads are made onsite with organic wheat flour and water filtered with activated carbon. They are kneaded and fermented slowly; no industrial methods are required, making them easier to digest. Even its drinks are thoughtful, as Atelier P1 serves coffees and housemade lattes, lemonade, and kombucha. It's all presented in a warm, simple space surrounded by brick and stone walls and walnut wood tables. 

The interior includes an open kitchen where customers can see the preparation of products such as einkorn bread, levain focaccia, and pain au praliné. Vegan and gluten-free options are also available. Customers can explore the kitchen, as Atelier P1 offers family-friendly organic sourdough bread classes every Wednesday for €90 per person. The offer includes baking instructions, a tasting, a jar of sourdough starter, and a recipe to take home.

But none of it would be possible without founder Julien Cantenot. With a long family history in the baking industry, he opened Atelier P1 with the dream of sharing his favorite breads made with the love and care he enjoyed growing up. More than 390 people have reviewed Atelier P1 on Google, earning the beloved bakery 4.5 stars. One happy customer wrote on Google, "We got the pain au chocolat praline. My life will never be the same. It is now my favorite boulangerie in Paris."

With an eye on their craft and nothing else, many bakeries have bare-bones digs and a seating area that might as well be a blank canvas. But that's not true for the colorful, feminine Bontemps La Patisserie. This ornate bakery, restaurant, and tea salon is filled with porcelain tableware, fresh flowers, vintage tulip lights, and pastel tones. 

It's all designed to complement its flagship shortbread that can be enjoyed in its purest, buttery form or adorned with flavorful fillings ranging from Sicilian lemon to Comice pear. It's also a labor of sisterly love. Pastry Chef Fiona Leluc and her sister Fatina sourced each décor piece. They also make all their sweets from scratch. While sitting on lounge-like seats, customers can acquiesce to menu items like lemon cake, tarts, sandwich cookies, pies, and cakes.

You're unlikely to spot a Parisian in line for Bontemps La Patisserie's Secret Garden. The restaurant sits in a courtyard where Sunday brunch, lunch, and tea time are served in a space that begs to be Instagrammed. But Bontemps La Patisserie is the bakery many locals turn to for desserts. It has earned 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor through more than 230 reviews. One former customer wrote on Tripadvisor, "Elegant patisserie with a classy decor. Their mini sablé are amazing: so fresh, fine texture & rich flavors. If you try it once you will definitely come back!"

There aren't many items more classically Parisian than the baguette, which is so instrumental in French food society that it has a law detailing how to prepare it. At Boulangerie Utopie, the baguette couldn't be taken more seriously. It's even won awards for it — Boulangerie Utopie baker Xavier Netry's baguette was named the best in Paris in 2024. The bakery was also declared the best bakery in the country in 2016 by a French television channel. It makes its baguette by sticking to the basics, as Boulangerie Utopie only uses raw, high-grade flour, a short list of ingredients, and long fermentation times.

Boulangerie Utopie has earned 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor through more than 280 reviews. A customer detailed their experience on Tripadvisor, "The baguette was perfect, crunchy but not burnt on the outside and soft and glutinous in the middle with a slight sourness from the levain ... Utopie is the best bakery I've been to in Paris, and I will definitely be returning to try the other bread and pastries." 

Speaking of pastries, Boulangerie Utopie has perfected those, too. Unlike many French bakeries specializing in sweets or breads, Boulangerie Utopie excels at both, offering items such as strawberry tarts, cheesecakes, and sesame rolls. It's so good that you're bound to wait in a long but worth-it line, mostly full of locals and a few tourists with a sweet tooth.

Gluten allergies and sensitivities have become more widespread, and people with these food limitations often resign themselves to crumbly, dry, and flavorless bread products. But that's not what they'll bite into at Chambelland, a gluten-free and organic bakery. It makes everything in-house and even has a mill to prevent cross-contamination. Customers enjoy gluten-free items like five-grain bread, cocoa bread, focaccia, cookies, cakes, and tartlets, all made with French and Italian rice, as well as buckwheat and chestnut flour. They're so good that people with and without food allergies flock here.

That's apparent in Chambelland's 350-plus Tripadvisor reviews, which have earned it 4.5 stars on the site. "The cakes, bread and pastries were incredible," one past visitor wrote on Tripadvisor." My mum who is coeliac could not believe she had so much choice and those of us that do not need to eat gluten free enjoyed the food just as much." 

Besides being tasty and food-allergy friendly, Chambelland's products are healthier than traditional baked goods. Without chemical additives, the rice flour used to make the bread includes vital nutrients and helps consumers feel sated for longer. Even Chambelland's pastries lack additives and colorants. But it took a lot of work by founders Thomas Teffri-Chambelland, a biologist-turned-baker, and Nathaniel Doboin, a businessman, to create such simple yet delicious products for their bakery, which launched in 2012.

Before Du Pain et des Idées opened in 2002, it was already a storied, beloved bakery. It is located in the former home of a bakery dating back to 1875, with a nationally recognized hand-painted ceiling and beveled mirrors. Du Pain et des Idées is so busy that it doesn't open on the weekends, and most of its popular items are sold out near closing hours. Some items worth waking up early for include the orange blossom brioche, baker's flan, apple slipper, and the chocolate and pistachio "escargot"-shaped pastries. 

They were all invented by founder and self-taught baker Christophe Vasseur, who makes the bakery's name, which translates to "bread and ideas," ever more fitting. Vasseur makes all his creations using raw, organic ingredients sourced from local farms, including flour, eggs, fruits, and seeds. He's a baking celebrity in his own right, as he was named the best baker in Paris in 2008 and the baker of the year in 2012 by two renowned food critics. 

Du Pain et des Idées has earned 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor through more than 970 reviews. "Excellent bread, delicious mouna brioche, very good croissants, and snail with pralines," one past customer described on Tripadvisor. "The quality of the ingredients is excellent. We recommend this bakery." Many locals do as well, as it's a favorite go-to bakery for Parisians who live nearby.

In France, a bastard is a bread without a definite shape. Besides being a way to make people look twice at its sign, that's surely the game plan at The French Bastards, an eight-location Parisian bakery doing bread and pastries its way. Here, owners and longtime friends Julien Abourmand, David Abehsera, and Emmanuel Gunther use their creativity — no tradition required — to create fun, offbeat baked goods that look as good as they taste. 

Contrary to the classic white Parisian baguette, customers can enjoy breads with pecans and orange rinds. Items with international influence are also welcomed, such as brioche braided with chocolate and cruffins with caramel. But don't get it twisted — The French Bastards takes its products' creation seriously. All baked goods are made with organic flours and natural yeast and utilize long fermentation times. Plus, everything is made in-house, and customers can witness the process, thanks to the large window into the kitchen. 

Unlike stereotypical French establishments, The French Bastards is known for its friendly customer service. It's paid off, as The French Bastards has earned 4.6 stars on Google through more than 1,500 reviews. "Amazing pastries, possibly my favorite in Paris," one past visitor wrote on Google. "Get there early in the morning to avoid lines and grab a nice table out front while it's still warm. Everything is fresh and delicious, and well-priced."

Want a little bit of all the best bakeries that Paris has to offer without setting foot on the Réseau Express? Fou de Patisserie is a dessert connoisseur's heaven, as the bakery offers sweets from some of the most acclaimed pastry chefs in the city. Every day, bakers from all over Paris deliver their baked goods to Fou de Patisserie, which means customers can find everything from Mélanie L'héritier and Arnaud Mathez's orange blossom pistachio pie to Nicolas Bernardé's Cakissimes. 

It was the brainchild of the editors of the French pastry magazine of the same name. The publication, founded in 2013, was the first to solely focus on French pastry. Likewise, Fou de Patisserie was the first in Paris to create a pastry marketplace, which makes it easier for customers to get their hands on hard-to-find goodies. Customers can eat their finds at the shop's counter and purchase baking necessities such as aprons and cookbooks. 

Fou de Patisserie has 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor, gleaned from over 130 reviews. One happy customer wrote on Tripadvisor, "This is the epitome of perfection in desserts. Each bite is pure heaven, every dessert we tried (about half of them) was worthy of this praise. Just delicious, a must try on your visit to Paris, it will not disappoint." Looking for more Parisian food fun? Check out the real-life version of Gabriel's Restaurant in Emily in Paris. 

Carl Marletti won the "Best Pastry Chef of the Year in 2009 and created the city's best lemon pie and millefeuille. But for years, fans of Marletti's baking prowess had to get his sweets from lavish Parisian destinations such as Grand Hotel Intercontinental and Café de la Paix. However, since 2007, locals and visitors have been able to find Marletti's nearly too-pretty-to-eat pastries from his flagship shop, Patisserie Carl Marletti. 

He's known for his colorful and internationally-inspired eats from countries such as Madagascar, Korea, and Russia. This means customers get to choose from items like lemon curd tartlets, opera cake with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache, galette des rois, and seasonally-flavored eclairs — all of which are made onsite. According to Patisserie Carl Marletti's reviews, you're bound to be overjoyed no matter what you pick. 

The pastry shop has 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor and more than 330 reviews. One customer living in Paris wrote on Tripadvisor, "Near the Rue Mouffetard, this pastry shop presents a beautiful array of classic and modern pastries. Full of locals on [weekends] and located right next to a few other very good pastry shops." But don't leave Paris without visiting the neighborhood known for its remarkable food scene. 

Take one bite of Poilane's sourdough bread marked with a hand-carved letter "P," and you'll enjoy a taste of Paris' history. Poilane has been a city landmark since 1932 after being founded by Pierre Poilâne. Third-generation members of the Poilane family now run the bakery, and it has four Parisian locations and one London store. Thanks to a one-day shipping service, it supplies bread to everyone from Parisians to food celebrities like Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. 

What keeps Poilane's bread so good is that it still makes everything by hand — a machine is only used for kneading — and bread is baked with reclaimed wood in a wood-fired oven. Poilane's breads are fermented slowly and made with natural leaven, just as they have been since 1932. But even though Poilane has a long history, it embraces modernity, offering new products like cornbread and spoon-shaped biscuits.

Customers can choose from items like apple tarts, rye bread, biscuits stuffed with chocolate, walnut rolls, and more. Through 250 reviews, Poilane has 4.2 stars on Google. "You can feel that it is a family run business that reveres bread," one customer wrote on Google. "The demeanour of the staff is more like a sommelier of bread and they are thoughtful in helping you pick the right bread...I mean how can you go wrong?" Staff even give away glasses of wine and butter cookies — now that's service.

Those looking for a taste of royalty should look no further than Stohrer. It is the oldest pastry shop in Paris, created by Louis XV's pastry chef, who was married to the daughter of the King of Poland. In 1730, Nicolas Stohrer founded his namesake bakery. In doing so, he paved the way for today's pastry industry with inventions of flagships like baba au rhum, which is brioche soaked in rum, and puits d'amour, puff pastry with vanilla custard and caramel. 

Today, customers can taste these must-tries at Stohrer inside an interior just as historic as the pastries. But not all Parisian food destinations are worth visiting. A good example is the restaurant deemed underwhelming because of TikTok. Paul Baudry, a French artist, decorated the shop. He is also credited with the art at city landmarks like Opera Garnier and Musée d'Orsay, making Stohrer a designated monument. But despite Stohrer's noble décor and high-class treats, it caters to a local crowd as it lacks touristy features like multiple locations or merchandise. 

Through more than 700 reviews, Stohrer has earned 4.0 stars on Tripadvisor. "Lived up to its reputation," one past customer wrote on Tripadvisor. "Really amazing pastries, and totally delicious. This is worth going out of your way for. Must try it." Taking your pastries to-go? Here are the picnic etiquette rules for a sophisticated outdoor meal in Paris. 

Just like the "t" and "p" are switched up in the name "Tapisserie," the inventive pastry shop and coffee shop with two locations switch up French staples to create delectable yet creative sweets. That's clear through Tapisserie's items, such as the baba pisco cerise soaked in pisco instead of the traditional rum, as well as the pollen-pistachio chou puff with bee pollen and pistachio cream. 

Everything is produced onsite and made with organic flour, local eggs and fruit, and sustainably sourced ingredients. Customers can also purchase homemade grocery items to-go, like granola, cold brew, jam, and peaches in syrup. However, if it wasn't for the maple syrup tart, Tapisserie might never be. Bertrand Grébaut and Théo Pourriat opened the pastry shop after the popularity of the desserts served at their restaurant across the street.

Tapisserie has 4.4 stars on Google based on over 340 reviews. One past visitor and resident wrote on Google, "Wanted to highlight the choux framboise/crème vanille as one of the best desserts I've tried in my life (my boyfriend agrees and he is hard to please. [The] tarte with figs is also excellent. I wish I lived closer to this bakery, but also that would be dangerous because I would be there every morning." Follow your visit to Tapisserie with visits to the places in Paris where Anthony Bourdain ate.

With a bakery culture as renowned as Paris', it's unsurprising that The City of Light is home to 30,000 bakeries, each as mouthwatering as the last. But Explore wanted to narrow down which bakeries were the best of the best according to locals, so we took to blogs run by Parisians, French food publications, and review sites to help us determine which belonged on this list. 

We only handpicked bakeries with 4.0 or more stars and hundreds of reviews on sites like Tripadvisor and Google. This painstaking yet delicious research led us to bakeries making unique, delectable creations inside historic spaces. We also discovered a bread bakery home to "the best baguette in Paris," and another with pastel colors and décor just as sweet as what's on its plate.