Ladurée Paris Royale-Patisserie - Rated 4,1

Ladurée Paris Royale, the beginning of the company

In 1862, Louis Ernest Ladurée, born in Paris on February 21, 1836, a miller by trade, opened a bakery at 16 rue Royale. At the time, La Madeleine was a business district where French luxury goods were sold.

The baker becomes a "patisserie"

Following a fire due to the 1871 riot of the Commune, the bakery was rebuilt and converted into a pastry shop. During the Second Empire, the wife of Ernest Ladurée, son of Louis Ernest, Jeanne Souchard, daughter of a Rouen hotelier, mixed Parisian café and pastry-making.

Extension of the pastry shop of Rue Royale

In 1930, a salon opened on the second floor of 16 rue Royale in Paris.

After the Liberation of Paris in 1944, Pierre Desfontaines, Ernest Ladurée's little cousin, took over the business, which had collapsed due to a lack of raw materials.

The creation of the "macaron"

He relaunched the business and created the Parisian macaroon in 1960 with the help of his pastry chef Marcel Thébert. They came up with the idea of incorporating cocoa into the Italian meringue (shell), adding a chocolate ganache between the two shells, and then developing coffee and raspberry macarons.

The new owner: the Holder group

In 1993, David Holder and his father Francis, founder of the Holder Group, bought and expanded the Ladurée company.

Three years later, the company generates sales of 24 million francs and employs 140 people. Pierre Hermé becomes Ladurée's head pastry chef.

In 1997, two boutiques open in Paris, one on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées decorated by Jacques Garcia, the other on Rue Bonaparte decorated by Roxane Rodriguez. In 2006, a boutique opens at Harrods in London, also decorated by Roxane Rodriguez. Pierre Hermé left the group the following year, to be replaced by Philippe Andrieu.

From the 2000s onwards, the brand invested in product diversification.

In March 2021, Ladurée sells 100% of its shares to the LOV group owned by Stéphane Courbit.
In April 2021, Julien Alvarez, former chef of Le Bristol Paris, becomes Ladurée's international executive chef.
At the end of 2021, Mélanie Carron also joins the venture as CEO. Appointed General Manager of Maison Ladurée.

Ladurée and its production sites

Ladurée has several production sites, one in France and the main one in Switzerland.

In 2010, the company acquired a 2.05-hectare plot of land in Enney, in the commune of Bas-Intyamon in the Swiss canton of Fribourg, and invested 20 million Swiss francs to open the "La Manufacture suisse de macarons " production and research facility at the end of 2011. The laboratory manufactures macaroons marketed outside Europe, and since 2020 those for the six Paris boutiques.

Pastries for boutiques in the Paris region, as well as Viennese pastries, ice creams and confectionery, are produced in the 2,000 m² laboratory in Morangis, Essonne. Fresh pastries are produced daily in local laboratories.