The matcha flan from the White Pages pastry shop, a bittersweet pleasure

VSome people have very firm ideas about the fact that nuclear power will save France from the energy crisis or that a French team without Karim Benzema could not win the World Cup. Others have equally strong flan beliefs.

What is a good flan? The schools clash on this burning subject: supporters of a soft and creamy device, like crème brûlée, on one side; advocates of a more solid, almost gelatinous texture on the other. Should the dough be broken or puff? Some heretics do without it squarely on the sides, bordering on the tenuous limit with the far. And if we ever agree on the structure, we can always argue about the tastes: blue vanilla from Reunion, Tahiti or Madagascar? Would a flan containing praline, coffee or orange blossom still deserve its name?

The tension between the disconcerting flavor of matcha from Kyoto and the familiarity of French pastry creates an osmosis, so perfect that we soon finished the part.

In France, holy homeland of flan, where you can find specimens to your liking almost everywhere, there is still a way to come across very good surprises. That day, in front of the minimalist storefront of the new Pages Blanches pastry shop, boulevard de Courcelles, near Parc Monceau in Paris, it was first a daisy-shaped tartlet that caught our attention through the large bay windows. But once inside the immaculately white shop, the eye stops on a plate of identical and monochrome cakes, of a powerful green evoking a spring lawn.

The object of desire turns out to be a matcha flan, this very fine powder of ground green tea from Asia. The name of this pastry shop, which opened in early 2022, White Pages, did not suggest anything like that, but the chef of the establishment, Kaori Akazawa, is Japanese. Abandoning the flower pie, we give in to the curiosity to taste this flan with perfect proportions, plump but not too much, where the matcha forms a promising velvet coat on the upper part.

Installed at one of the wooden tables of the establishment, we give a first blow of the fork, which sinks without resistance. The cake should be placed on the side of the creamy ingredients, and its shortcrust pastry is remarkably delicate. In the mouth, the bitterness of the matcha powder shakes as expected. But the softness of the creamy interior immediately calms things down, and brings the promised comfort. The shortcrust pastry comes as a reinforcement. The tension between the disconcerting flavor of matcha from Kyoto and the familiarity of French pastry creates an osmosis, so perfect that we soon finished the part.

If we are still as ambivalent about the need for Karim Benzema in the France team, we come out with one certainty: this flan is one of the best we have ever tasted.