Lyon: Savoury macarons from Les Halles

I’d say just about a year ago saw the heyday of the French macaron. Miniature, delicate, flexible in terms of flavours, and difficult to perfect; what’s not to like about it? However, I think that after a year of seeing these almond cookies everywhere, I’ve gotten a bit tired of them. But a few weeks ago, while in Lyon I was ambling through Les Halles, an indoor upscale food market in the city centre, when I came across a patisserie store featuring savoury macarons. I was pretty intrigued and had to try some for myself.

I remember Seve had four savoury flavours: foie gras, gorgonzola, porcini, and something else that I forget. Well, I tried the first three. The nice saleslady gave me gorgonzola as a sample, a WHOLE macaron. Wow! Never had that happen before. I was pretty surprised at the generous offer but then, upon chewing my first bite…well…not to say that it was terrible but it wasn’t exactly something that I’d fork out three euros for. I understand that as a blue cheese, gorgonzola is supposed to be strong, but it’s also known for being quite salty. And Seve geared towards bending savoury flavours and making them sweet. So that first macaron tasted like cheesecake made with strong blue cheese. I’m sure there are people who would like that but it didn’t really go down that well for me. The texture, at least, was airy and light; had it been dense, my goodness, I wonder how sky-high strong the flavour would be!

Macaron aux cepes/Porcini macaron

Despite that initial drawback I still bought two other flavours, and those worked better (in differing degrees). The porcini, hmmm…tasted like mushroom with sugar added. Sweet and earthy. The filling was pretty dense, and the macaron cookies, like those of all three savoury macs, were the normal sweet kind. I didn’t really know what to make of it.

Foie gras macaron with a copyright on it. Fancy

The last one, the foie gras macaron, worked the best out of the three. I guess maybe it’s because I’m more familiar with the idea of eating sweet jams with goose liver pate, cause that’s exactly what the macaron tasted like. Well, no jam was present but the sweetness of the filling and the cookies reminded me of it. It’d have been nice if the liver flavour had been stronger, cause it was only barely detectable beneath all that sugariness.

So, that was my experience was savoury macarons. Somewhat disappointing cause I was actually expecting something salty. Maybe I need to try making my own.