Pastries de Paris

Ali Al Ghoul grew up in a kitchen that smelled, almost without exception, of warm butter and orange blossom. His grandmother kept a tin madeleine pan that had baked through three generations — dented, blackened, beloved. He still uses it.

Years later, he earned his French Pastry Arts diploma at École Ducasse in Paris — the school founded by Alain Ducasse — and trained alongside Meilleur Ouvrier de France instructors and inside the windows of Gilles Marchal, the Montmartre patissier whose madeleines set the standard the rest of the city is still chasing.

Then he came to Texas — for the same reason a lot of Frenchmen quietly have. France and Texas have always known how to find each other. La Salle planted a French flag in Matagorda Bay in 1685. France was the first foreign nation to recognize the Republic of Texas, in 1839 — the original Legation building still stands in Austin. Henri Castro brought a wave of Alsatian bakers to Castroville in 1844; they're still kneading dough out there. Ali fell hard for what he found here: big land, generous people, the way Texans show up.

Pastries de Paris is small, on purpose. We make a short list of things, every morning, by hand, on the edge of Lake Windcrest. The macarons are good. The éclairs are very good. But we are honest about what we are: a tiny piece of Paris dropped into the most generous Republic on Earth — with a few other things to keep the windows interesting.

Come for a half-dozen still warm from the pan. Stay for a coffee. Walk back out into the Texas sun with crumbs on your shirt — the way it should be.