Marc Heu Patisserie Paris — Restaurant in Saint Paul

The pastries here are, in my opinion, not worth the queue and not the quality I expected for the price. Before anyone gets up in arms, please understand that I'm presenting my experience and not asking for a debate. If you're still interested, my reasoning below are described in detail in relation to the quality of the food, and the atmosphere generated.

I've heard many good things about this place so I bit the bullet and stood in line for ~45 minutes. The selection was quite classic and I purchased the butter croissant, ube salted caramel croissant donut, and pistachio Paris-Brest.

The croissant was hefty, appeared to have good lamination from the exerior and had great dairy flavor (you can tell that quality butter is used). The outside seemed to be coated by a sugar mixture which makes exterior kind of sticky and tacky in the mouth. This might've also been a result of how the croissants sit out over time. Overall the texture was more bread-y and heavy and lacking flakiness. For me, this also lacked lightness in the mouth where each layer is translucent and the exterior flakes off. The interior lamination definitely also looked thicker and was a touch uneven in rise (see photos of other croissant cross-sections for comparison, the MC one is top left in the blue box).

The croissant donut was the most exciting one for me because i love the flavors of ube and and salted caramel. Unfortunately this was the biggest let-down and the subtle ube flavor was overshadowed by the flavor of the cooking oil. The dough either absorbed too much oil, or the frying-oil hadn't been changed in too long, leading to the slightly-rancid taste of oil to overpower the palate. The donut itself was chewy (which I've experienced in other croissant donuts as well), possibly fried too long, and the soft filling oozes out when biting into the pastry, making it difficult to get a bite with all the elements.

The Paris-Brest had a good choux pastry that had good structure but too much bite. It's not clear whether pistachio cream, essence, or pralinée was used in the pastry cream but the flavor was again, subtle. The pistachio crumble on-top of the pastry appeared to be blanched but un-toasted which definitely adds to the vibrant green color. The downside is there is less flavor and it lacks the crunch that a traditional Paris-Brest gets from the toasted almonds.

Overall it seemed to be a theme of style over substance, and a lot of the flavors that were promised were not delivered. There seems to be a heavy influence from a certain social-media popular french patisserie here from how the store and service are designed. On one hand, I understand to deliver a very personal experience once the customer is inside and to give them the freedom to explore all the products they want. On the other hand, I feel that there's a bit of artificially generated demand by keeping the queue so long outdoors and there's definitely a lot of inefficiencies in the process, which I think detracted from the experience. With that said, there definitely is a lot of style in the decor, the outdoor seating, down to how employees present themselves.

Finally, I pondered for a long while on whether I should post this review. The reason being the business responds to a lot of the reviews, both positive and negative, which I think is a good way to be in touch with your customers. However, a lot of the responses to negative reviews are defensive, and some are even a bit aggressive (I remember reading one that opened with "let me educate you about..."). While this isn't a deterrent, it does seems that the business is not interested in hearing the feedback of their customers, and rather want to take this as an opportunity to back themselves which...

Wow, just wow! I had been wanting to frequent this bakery after coming across an article about it while scrolling through my IG feed a few months back. I had been craving some high-end treats for a while and after visiting some bakeries locally, I just wasn’t finding anything that really blew my socks off. In addition, my husband is an incredibly picky eater and rarely gives high marks for many desserts.

Finally, I found the time to visit this gem during my day off and it was better than I even expected. I was first in line today and was warmly greeted by the staff behind the counter as I entered. One of the ladies took the time to describe all the pastries to me, which was nice. Since I had been waiting months to check this place out, I knew I was going to buy a lot of items. It is pretty easy to spend $50+ here pretty fast if you are like me and want to sample several items. Full disclosure: some of the pastries are a bit on the pricier side ($10-$12 for a single item), however, I totally understand why. I purchased the chocolate croissant, butter croissant, ipsahan macaron heart, chocolate saint honore, and raspberry passionfruit tart. The lady behind the counter packaged them up beautifully in boxes with black ribbons tied across them to keep them closed.

When I got the pastries home, I had to put my one year old down for a nap and left my husband alone with the pastries. His only request for a pastry was a chocolate croissant because, “nothing else sounded good.” I figured when I came back downstairs after putting the little guy down that my husband would have taken two bites of the croissant and would have stated, “I don’t like it” and left the rest to me.

To my HUGE surprise, he ate the entirety of the chocolate croissant, stating it was the best he had ever had. I was actually bummed because I had wanted to try to chocolate croissant, lol!! In addition, we split the macaron heart, saint honore, and raspberry passionfruit tart and he ate EVERY crumb of his part of the three desserts. He said he really enjoyed them all and liked them all so equally he couldn’t pick a favorite. He even asked when we could go back.

Quite simply: this bakery is AWESOME. The croissants are fantastic, dense and airy at the same time, just the right amount of flakiness. My butter croissant was perfect and the best croissant I have ever eaten.

The macaron of the ipsahan heart was perfectly chewy and light. The chocolate mousse ?ganache?of the saint honore was divine. The flavors of the raspberry passionfruit tart were like a fruity symphony on my tongue, all the notes from the fruit literally made me stop and take notice. A mind blowing experience for sure.

I can’t wait to go back and I feel so lucky to have this amazing bakery just a city away! Thank you Marc Heu and staff for these...

It is possible that in St Paul this is good. The choux is thick, the whatever it is used to glom pastry together is a poorly mixed glob that has picked up odor from the refrigeration and I nearly gagged. I'm not a fussy eater, rather a good food eater as simple as a tomato with salt, when it's good, it's glorious. This is NOT a patisserie and my compatriots would roll in their grave. Patisserie is a heavenly, beautiful thing that melts in the mouth. It's difficult to understand how this business makes it.

The fact that you would call a critique, harassment, corroborates what we have said. Sir, what in the world makes you think I would ever patronize your business? I was gifted something from your store by 2 young women whose intention was generosity......little did they know.

Sincerely, Chantal et Ana

To be a Patissier, like a Chef, is an innate talent, a sensibility, (good cooking is also heavenly) I am now being specific about a niche. Technique is necessary to bring forth the manifestation of the thing itself, such as ballet being a fundamental technique for dancers who excel. They acquire what is necessary for the body to do the impossible. Patissieres must do what they do, like artists. The fulfillment is in the excellence, the creativity, a new flavour being birthed in their own palate. Reaping financial reward is secondary and it is for this very reason that the money comes. What a patissier is NOT, is bamboozling people who don't know any better and charging them astronomical amounts of money for something colourful and shiny, yet poorly made with the promise to bring even more undeserved money. Clean money comes from talent, inspiration, intelligence, unseen creativity, born from the soul. For a community to support out of pity or a belief that they are now "good people" is very unhealthy. However, it is their money so, go forth........to support mediocrity is a travesty for all concerned. Mr. Heu is fortunate in having found his own personal bank in...