I've been visiting St Malo for years, but it was only on a trip last September that I stumbled…read moreacross this jewel. Visiting with my boyfriend, we arrived in the morning after an overnight ferry journey, and after dumping our bags in the car, wandered into town in search of breakfast. After a little wandering, we found larnicol. I'm a great lover of cakes and chocolate, and the displays in this shop were too tempting to resist. The open front welcomed us in and we spent a good while just staring at the various goodies, finally settling on a Kougniettes each - pistachio for me and apple for the boy. We sat and ate these on the city walls and both agreed that they were absolutely delicious and worth a return visit. Which we made, just before catching our ferry home a few days later. This time we sampled some of the lovely chocolate goodies - from little squares of delicious chocolate, to chocolate coated nuts and fruits, all of them gorgeous - and a box of macarons. Now I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to macarons, and have long said that nowhere can compete with Ladurée...but Larnicol comes very close. All that's left to add is - I can't wait to be able to visit again! Roll on next summer...

I frequent this place very often for their free samples, and I finally felt bad about taking so…read moremany free samples that I decided to buy something else. I stopped by 30 minutes before they closed at 7pm on a Wednesday evening, and got their last Mont Blanc (€4,50) to go. WOW. I am so so so happy that I decided on this one instead of another cake that I was looking at. Mont Blanc's are my favorite cake, and this one now ranks 2nd in my list of favorite Mont Blanc's. Let me tell you why: 1. The size is absolutely adorable. I've had other one's (Angelina in Paris, Mr. & Mrs. Renou in Geneva) where there was just TOO much cream (yes, there's such thing as too much cream) that it became overpowering and way too sweet to eat. 2. THEY. USE. AN ALMOND PIE TART. AS. A. BASE. Can we talk about how creative and different that is!? I've had ones that are a sponge cake, macaron, meringue, and sable, but never a whole tart underneath! And this tart was absolutely amazing too - the pie crust wasn't sweet at all which helped balance the sweetness of the chestnut cream & almond paste filling. 3. No meringue, just whipped cream. Chestnuts instead of a chestnut cream inside. 4. Perfect amount of stiff, creamy, sweet chestnut cream on the outside. Everything about this dessert was amazing. It's been a whole 24 hours since I ate it, and it's still all I can think about.

From the owner: Pâtissier, chocolatier, traiteur sur rennes…read more Meilleur Ouvrier de France 1997 Daniel, meilleur ouvrier de France 1997 en pâtisserie possède aujourd'hui 3 adresses éponymes à Rennes. Sa particularité : le travail du beurre salé breton. Le "Coeur de Bretagne" (crémeux caramel salé, crème brûlée au chocolat, mousse au chocolat au lait, biscuit noisette, sans gluten) est un joli hommage à la Bretagne.

We visited this fine shop several years ago on our honeymoon and enjoyed some of their delicious…read morechocolates. The folks were most helpful and kind even though our french was poor. It was memorable to the point that I decided to surprise my wife with some for our 7th Valentines Day. I was able to contact the folks on the email address of their site and they were very kind in helping me get the chocolates shipped to the states. Laurent was meticulous in every detail and ensured that I was kept up to date all along the way. Great place, great people, great chocolate what more could a person ask for. Keith

Delicious macarons. I'm told that there are three major macaron boutiques in Rennes, and this is…read moreone of them. These are inexpensive compared to macarons from Maison Ladurée in the UES in NYC, but then again, everything is inexpensive compared to that. These were more reasonable even than the Maison Ladurée in Paris, at 4.95 euros for 100g of macarons. This comes out to around 8 macarons, at around 61 cents to a macaron. Less than a euro for a macaron! I could die. I was a bit stunned at how many macarons I could try. I forgot which ones I picked, except for my standbys, the vanilla macaron and the pistachio. I am not yet good at judging macarons, but the pistachio macaron was much more flavorful than the ones I had at Maison Ladurée a few days prior. They also have huge meringues for just over a euro a piece. They had wonderful chocolate sculptures (including one that resembled a painter's palette with a different colored macaron in each paint slot), and many different kinds of chocolate. I am told that the pastries here aren't as good, so I will stick to trying the chocolates and macarons. I'm sure I could spend a decent amount of money in this shop.