Day 3: Monday, October 26, 2026
Schedule:
9 am
Depart hotel for pastry class at the Syndicat des Boulangers Pâtissiers de Grand Paris.
10 am - 12 pm
Part 1 of Pastry Class
12:30 pm
Lunch at the Tour d’Argent
2:30 - 3:30 pm
Visit Saint Louis Island
3:30 - 5:30
Part 2 of Pastry Class
5:30 - 6:30 pm
Visit Cité Island and Nôtre Dame de Paris
6:30 pm
Depart for dinner at Crêperie in the Montmartre neighborhood.
9 - 10 pm
Observatory of the Montparnasse Tower
Transportation: Subway
Pastry class
Folks, you are going to have the privilege of taking a class at the literal head offices of the bakers and pastry chefs of France, known as the Syndicat de Boulangers Pâtissiers De Grand Paris.
I used to teach classes there, so I know how to privatise their kitchens just for you.
The building itself is amazing, in part a private museum dedicated to historical bakery equipment, but it is also home to the offices which promote and verify compliance to the laws that protect the quality of French bread.
If you weren’t aware, the word “boulangerie”, or “bakery” is a protected word in France, legally requiring that all bread sold in boulangeries be made onsite and never frozen in the process. This is just one of the laws protecting the quality of French bread, you’ll learn more during the trip!
Tour d’Argent
The Tour d’Argent was world famous even before it inspired the movie “Ratatouille”, and one of Paris’ oldest restaurants.
It’s famous for its beautiful view of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, but also for its pressed duck. Diners who order the duck receive a postcard with the bird's serial number, now well over 1 million. (Serial number #112,151 went to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, #203,728 went to Marlene Dietrich, and #253,652 went to Charlie Chaplin).
The restaurant's wine cellar, guarded around the clock, contains more than 450,000 bottles whose value was estimated in 2009 at 25 million euros. Some 15,000 wines are offered to diners on a 400-page list. During a routine inventory in 2024, wine worth more than €1.5m was found to be missing from the wine cellar… Though I used to work there, it wasn’t me who stole it, I promise!
I have a friend, a British guy named Oliver, who works as a freelance master sommelier for Sotheby’s and Christie’s, evaluating the value of the most valuable wine cellars of Europe. He was given the job of doing this inventory at the Tour d’Argent in order to sell a few bottles, and he told me that the job took so much longer than planned, because the team was locked in the cellars and then at the mercy of someone coming and letting them out from time to time. There was no cell phone service down there, so no way to communicate with anyone above-ground…he said that the job was a “galère” (meaning, “the pits”, unpleasant, troublesome..).
The Saint Louis and Cité Islands
Paris began on these islands so, beyond being the oldest parts of the city, they are also charming and quaint, with Nôtre Dame de Paris being on the Ile de la Cité, and the Ile Saint Louis having a central market street with bakeries, fromageries, boucheries and other enticing stores.
Besides visiting the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, we will also visit one of my favorite fromageries, and you’ll learn about many of the hundreds of varieties of cheese in France!
Montparnasse
People from the Brittany region, with their celtic language and recipes only made with salted butter, settled in the Montparnasse area, which eventually was swallowed up by Paris.
Though naturally this neighborhood is a melting pot like any other in Paris, it is still knows as the place to go to for traditional crêpes, including buckwheat galettes (wheat struggles to grow in cold and wet Bretagne, but buckwheat, an entirely different grain, thrives, hence many recipes featuring this “earthy” flavored grain).
After enjoying traditional crêpes and galettes, we’ll take an elevator to the top of the nearby Montparnasse tower to get the best view of the Eiffel Tower and Paris by night.