Yesterday, I went to Locolat Café at 17th and Florida in Adams Morgan to check out their macarons – as you can see from the picture, they are pretty. The flavors are very nice too, but they definitely ascribe to the crispier macaron approach – I like my macarons pillowy in the cookie part, with a thin crispiness. These macarons were not as pillowy as I like them, though the pistachio was delicious.
That said, I love Locolat Café (see here for address and hours) – even though their website focuses on their online chocolates business, the Café is cute and pretty and has yummy pastries and brunch items. It’s very much like the tea-rooms I remember going to growing up in Europe – incidentally, that’s a term I only have ever heard in Switzerland and Germany (though presumably it is of British origin)– in Switzerland, tea-rooms tend to be attached to bakeries/patisseries. Now that I think about it, a café in Europe tends to also have more substantial food than one thinks of at a café in the U.S., while a tea-room is more like what we think of as a café here.
But anyways, on the way home from Locolat, I remember telling my husband we should try the Michel Patisserie macarons soon – Michel does not yet have a storefront but is based in Virginia, near Washington, DC, so you can have the macarons delivered on a specific day of the week (for quite a surcharge, I might add) or you can pick them up at a very not-metro-accessible location. We’ve kept putting off trying them for that reason.
So, imagine my surprise when I went to ACKC this morning and saw they were carrying Michel Patisserie macarons. I immediately quizzed the assistant manager there about it and he was very nice about answering all my questions, which I appreciate considering how early it was. Turns out that ACKC has been carrying macarons for only two weeks or so, and they are just flying out the door. Apparently ACKC has them delivered every couple of days to keep up with the demand. They had a very small selection left (apparently there had been quite the macaron rampage there the previous day) but I got to try the passionfruit, which was spectacular, and the vanilla and coffee, which were both lovely and had nice discernible flavors, as opposed to the more delicate ones at Locolat.
Of course, I didn’t have my camera, but I will be going back very soon to try more flavors. In the meantime, here are my macaron pictures from other places. When I make it back to ACKC and get pictures of the Michel Macarons, I will add them to this set on Flickr.
As for the verdict of this impromptu throwdown – in my opinion, the Michel Macarons are better because they have that pillowy yet crunchy balance. Plus, I like my macarons to have stronger flavors – the Locolat ones were tasty, but more delicate, while the Michel Macarons were packed with flavor.
As though I needed another execuse to go to ACKC – now they have wonderful macarons tempting me.
General Disclosures & Disclaimers
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I LOVE macarons. I love Adam’s Organ too. When I lived in DC over 10 years ago I lived near the Woodley zoo and we used to go out in Adam’s Organ all the time….sigh.
is this a new place? i need to go try this out!!!
Ack, I miss DC! You keep finding so many delicious things to try!
Chessa – it’s definitely a fun place to visit. When we went on Saturday we also stopped by an awesome falafel place for a late lunch.
K – Locolat is new-ish – the cafe is less than a year old, but the website sales predated it by a bit. ACKC is about 2 years old, but they only started supplying macarons this month.
The Curator – it’s a nice way to not miss NYC in my case