“Ladurée embodies the art de vivre, and is more than just a restaurant or a macaron boutique,” explains Elisabeth Holder Raberin, co-president of Ladurée US and sister of Ladurée chairman, David Holder. “Our first tea salon was the first one in Paris and was the place where well-heeled ladies could meet in public with friends or lovers alike. During that time, proper ladies could not be seen [in cafés]. Ladurée was an establishment that broke that barrier. People came to be discreet yet social, but came back because the pastries were irresistible.”
Pierre Desfontaines, Louis Ernest’s second cousin, decided in the 1930s to pipe ganache on a macaron cookie, a centuries-old almond cookie popular throughout France, and top it with another, creating what is now known as the Parisian macaron: two almond shells—crunchy on the outside, moist on the inside—that sandwich a ganache, buttercream, or fruity filling.
