Ladurée

Parisian tea rooms' history is intimately tied to the history of the Ladurée family. It all began in 1862, when Louis Ernest Ladurée, a miller from the southwest of France, founded a bakery in Paris at 16 rue Royale.

In 1871, while Baron Haussmann was giving Paris a « new face », a fire in the bakery opened the opportunity to transform it into a pastry shop.
The decoration of the pastry shop was entrusted to Jules Cheret, a famous turn-of-the-century painter and poster artist.

The beginning of this century found Paris wrapped up in an effervescent and buzzing atmosphere. Parisians flocked to the Universal Exposition.  Women were also changing.  They wanted to go out and make new acquaintances. Literary salons and literature circles were outmoded.  Jeanne Souchard succeeded in combining the style of Parisian cafés and the delicacies of French patisserie, giving birth to one of the fisrt of the capital.