On the sixth of January France eats one pastry, and the palace pastry chefs of Paris spend December preparing theirs. The galette des rois is the year’s first test of a kitchen.
The galette is simple: two discs of puff pastry, a frangipane of almond cream, a bean hidden inside, a paper crown for whoever finds it. Simplicity is the difficulty. The lamination must be perfect, the frangipane not too sweet, the top scored in a pattern that has become the signature of each house.
The palace galettes
The Ritz sells François Perret’s galette at Le Comptoir through January; Le Meurice offers Cédric Grolet’s version with a pattern that changes every year and a queue on the rue de Castiglione; the Plaza Athénée and the George V take orders for whole galettes in December. Cheval Blanc sells Maxime Frédéric’s at Limbar with the buckwheat of his farm in the frangipane.
The boutiques
Pierre Hermé makes an Ispahan galette; Stohrer makes the one it has made since the eighteenth century; Yann Couvreur and Mori Yoshida sell out by noon on the sixth. Order a week ahead and collect on the day; a galette is best warm.
How to serve it
Warm it ten minutes at 160 °C, cut it at the table with the youngest guest under the table calling out who gets each slice, and keep the bean. The crown goes to the finder for the rest of the day.
Try it
Sweet FinderChoose a city, what you crave and the setting you want.Croissant Lamination LabChoose the fold, the number of folds and the butter, and the lab counts the layers of a croissant, draws them and tells you when the honeycomb collapses..Frequently asked questions
When is the galette des rois eaten?
On Epiphany, the sixth of January, and through the whole of January in France.
Do I need to order a palace galette?
Yes for whole galettes; the counters sell slices and small galettes without an order on the day.
