Pierre Hermé

Pierre Hermé, fourth generation of an Alsatian baking family, apprenticed under Gaston Lenôtre at fourteen and became the pâtissier who made French pastry a designer discipline — Vogue's 'Picasso of pastry' label followed him permanently. Launching his own house in 1998, he introduced collections presented like fashion seasons and built flavor architectures that changed the macaron from sweet to serious: Ispahan's rose, lychee, and raspberry — his most famous creation — Mogador's milk chocolate and passion fruit, Infiniment Vanille's single-flavor depth. His macarons compete with Ladurée's for the Parisian crown, the rivalry itself a fixture of food journalism, and his boutiques treat pastry with jeweler's presentation. On Faubourg Saint-Honoré the house sits appropriately among couture. Ispahan — as macaron or full entremets — is the essential order; the Infiniment series shows his purist register.

Buy the Ispahan croissant in the morning if the boutique carries it; the viennoiserie translation of the famous flavor sells out and travels better than macarons.