The place smells awful—like no odour I’ve ever known, and nothing like a bakery—but still, it’s crowded with tourists. I really wonder how people can stand the odour. Doesn’t it give you a haut-le-coeur? There’s no way a French bakery would stink like that. In France, the good smell of the bread and of the patisseries must reach you while you’re walking in the street. Intrigued, you have a look through the vitrine and you dribble in front of all those good stuff. Then you check your pockets to see how much money you can spend. You enter the place and a warm and heady flavour comes to tickle your nose. And you spend 10 minutes in the bakery store, hesitating between the chouquettes, the macarons, the eclairs and the viennoiseries.

Not that many choices here, in Le Panier. Actually, the place seems to be a touristic spot. But why should tourists go to a French bakery while they’re visiting Seattle? Weird.

I bought a baguette and a croissant in order to taste them. I was happy to discover that they didn’t smell like the bakery store. They even smell like French croissants and baguettes. The bread is crusty enough and looks good. Same for the croissant. And in my mouth, they’re not the best I’ve ever eaten but they are good.

DSCN4003.JPG

I was surprised by the price, $2.25 for a baguette. The bread has not been imported, so why is it so expensive to mix some baking powder with flour, salt, and water? In France, the average price for a baguette is 0,80 euro (about $1).

I would give this place a C+.

Good points:
• The location
• The taste
• The ambient

Bad points:
• The price
• The smell
• Lack of choice

120 replies on “J’ai Testé Pour Vous: Le Panier”

  3. When I was in France I was told that the baguettes were subsidized by the government. That could account for the fact that they’re more expensive here. Yes, try Le Fournil.

  6. I <3 the French Intern. At the same time though, why on earth are you going to a Le Panier. They are a chain. Most chains are terrible. I echo the Le Fournil recommendation, but also just try any of the local places. Three Sisters in pike place comes to mind. Also the bread makers at the farmer’s markets are killer (though insane expensive). Go to the Ballard Farmer’s market this Sunday and look at the goods on offer there.

  8. Julien, you forget that your government mandates the price of a baguette – market price would be higher. I actually think that the bread at le Panier sucks, but their pastries are solid. Never did find a good (or even passable) baguette in Seattle.

  9. Try Bakery Nouveau In west Seattle. Best bread in the city. Also because our bread, from small bakeries, is not subsidized it is very expensive by comparison.

  14. If by baking powder you mean yeast, ok. Otherwise you have no idea of how to make a baguette, and should stick to eating them in silence.
    There are reasons a place might not smell good that they have no control over-the neighbor’s plumbing problems for example.
    But I don’t even live in Seattle so I don’t have to worry about the poor quality of the baguette available there.

  15. Kinda weird a French guy has to hear from foreigners how his country subsidizes bread. Julien, you didn’t know that? Really?

    And yah, you’re a snob. (Not that that is a bad thing around food.)

  18. OK, we get it, your ‘meme’ is to do the French thing, like Charles’ ‘meme’ is to do the black thing. Only the white guys at The Stranger get to avoid living the stereotype.

    I think Frenchie’s role here is to gin up all the queers into dreaming of living in the Marais with this frog.

  21. You’re obviously being directed to the absolute crappiest places – maybe after you’ve been here a while, the hazing will stop, and you’ll be allowed to go to the decent joints.

  22. Whatever. I LOVE the french intern. I’m having a hard time believing that he’s really from France, but I don’t CARE! But do not stop! Keep it up.

  23. I want daily updates from the frenchman on how not-like-france seattle is, it’s starting to make my morning.

    That said, my mouth was bored through most of france. Hitting the Italian border was ridiculously exciting.

    Though if you find a good Brie En Brioche, please let me know

  28. The only thing that intrigues me about this post is wondering what exactly the off-putting smell was, since you never describe it.

    Is Le Panier that bakery place at Pike Market? I’m not sure if I’ve ever been inside it. I’d be amused to read your review of the little crêperie downstairs in the Market* and also of Rover’s in Madison Park…

    *my kids like the Nutela crêpes at that place – last time we were there a HUGE woman rode in on a Rascal scooter, needing to move tables aside to even fit inside the crêperie as her scooter made beep beep backing up noises. Bon appetit!

  30. Congratulations on winning The Stranger’s annual “Who can write more obnoxious posts than Charles?” contest. You have a bright future as The Stranger’s new foreign exchange hipster.

  31. Le Fournil is the place to go. The baker’s French and an certified artisan baker. My roommate’s French and prefers them over anyone else in this city for bread

  33. Julien – if you really want to meet the baker go find him at 3-4 a.m in the morning on Tuesday mixing ingredients and kneading dough. I’ve been past there at that hour on my way home and have seen him there.

  34. Either this intern is crazy, or there was something off the day he went to Le Panier. It’s never smelled like anything besides a bakery when I lived in Seattle.

  35. If this were one of your *own* hipsters doing this, I think you’d find it funny. Because someone from a foreign country dares to make fun of food in the US, all the hackles go up. (And bakery chain French bread IS crap, it’s like white cotton candy.) Just take a step back and think: The US (Canada too) leads the world in production and consumption of junk food, imagine what our groceries look like to someone from elsewhere. If I could be so bold (and trollish) this reaction is what sets Americans apart from everyone else (even Canadians), the idea that you can criticize each other, but God help the poor fool from another country who suggests you aren’t #1 in every department.

  36. Amazing. Two posts and I’ve already decided that this asswipe has nothing to say that’s worth reading. I think that’s a new record.

  37. @29 – If I was the owner of that shop and a woman with a rascal scooter needed to go through my place disturbing people who were sitting down and enjoying their coffee and pastry, I wouldn’t let her go through. I’d serve her by the door and let her sit near the entrance. We Americans are too damn nice sometimes and make everyone feel entitled to ruin everyone else’s day.

  40. @ 36, I believe someone provided a link very early in the comments on Julien’s post about grocery stores, showing how much junk the French consume. They really can’t get on any high horse about that anymore, especially with an obesity rate that’s steadily climbing too.

    People are always going to “get their hackles up” when someone is so critical in such a snobbish fashion, regardless of where the snob comes from. Just look at the comments Dan has gotten on this morning’s “No Big Loss” post.

  41. This reads like what I would expect if Mudede made a baby with Publicola, and that baby also decided to write stuff. Not sure how I feel about that.

  44. To be fair, Le Panier (which started in Portland but isn’t a “chain”) does hold itself out to be “French.” Grand Central was the first Seattle bakery to use artisan methods. In addition to Le Fournil and Cafe Besalu and the one in West Seattle and St. Honoré in Ballard and so on, don’t forget the French-owned, French-staffed, 100% organic Boulangerie Nantaise on 4th Ave in Belltown.

    Juilien, I’m reminded of the Hasidic rabbi who takes the train from Noo Yawk to the Deep South, where he’s the object of stares and derision. “Vot’s da matter?” he asks, “Haven’t you ever seen a Yankee before?”

    Ne vous-en foutez pas de tous ces cornichons.

  45. These posts are mildly amusing but I guess I don’t see the point of going 5000 miles to an entirely different part of the world and then whining that the French baked goods aren’t as good as in France. No shit, Sherlock. Try something new. Jesus.

  49. Julien is real and he was indeed at Slog Happy last night. He did take off a little early, but I have a photograph of him, Cienna and Grant at 9MiUB.

    He definitely speaks French, he’s friendly and charming, and reading this post after having met him and heard some of his observations delivered with a smile is less hackle-raising than having read yesterday’s post before having met him. Not that yesterday’s post bothered me much, but this one I thought was quite even-handed. Maybe it’s because I’m imagining it delivered with a smile, the way he talked about university prices in France and in the U.S.

  53. Be happy that a good baguette only costs $2.25 in Seattle. In Ann Arbor/Detroit, the only decent baguette to be found runs $3.50 . . .

  55. I”m not reading 54 comments but Le Fournil is terrible. Cafe Besalu in Ballard is the only place making pastries worth bragging about in Seattle. Some people say there’s a place in West Seattle that’s good but i’m not going over there for anything other than Husky Deli and Easy St. Records.

  56. what’s the french intern’s job? i mean, the snobbishly charming bewilderment at american life is mildly amusing, but i feel like he should be doing other things…

  60. A Frenchman coming to Seattle for a baggette is like a Seattlite going to a Starbucks in Paris.

    Go to Macrina’s. Or any other real Seattle bakery, meaning an amalgum of bread styles from around the world, slowly changing a bit to fit our local tastes and ingredients. Or at least go to a sourdough bakery – though the only one I know of is a tourist trap on the waterfront at least it has some local history.

  62. Okay dumbass, it’s hard to know where to start. But no shit a french bakery in the USA is going to be different than one in France, And Le Panier is the fucking shit. The USA doesn’t have the same culture surrounding food we get it you guys are tres superbe, go turn your baguete into a fleshlight and fuck it

  63. Oh and clearly you are a un-cultured french man, because baguettes are not only different over the world, even just in france from north and south there are huge differences in food and baked goods. So suck ma cock homie, suck that shiiit!

  65. Besalu. Besalu. Besalu. Expect to stand in line 10 – 40 minutes on the weekends though. Get a croissant, a cardamon pretzel, some coffee then die happy. Then go back and try everything else.

    The best pastries I’ve had in the United States, hands down.

  66. Besalu. Le Fournil.

    Of course, the best food is one that borrows from certain influences and makes it their own, not food that duplicates another culture to the letter.

    And the best tourists recognize this and embrace it, rather than comparing everything to where they’re from.

  67. Tous ces americains donner trop d’argent pour le pain.

    I remember every time I’d visit France, I’d get way better bread (baguettes) for way cheaper in almost any village, town, or city than I’ve ever found here.

    Ever.

  68. I like the French intern, and snobby maybe, but I’ve had the same reaction: after living in Europe for a few years one of the most frustrating things to try to find here is a good baguette. I have tried lots of places (not in Seattle, don’t live there anymore) and even the places that hold themselves out to be the Frenchiest are disappointing. They are missing either the flavor, or the freshness, or the texture. (Usually the texture) I’m not convinced it’s low quality ingredients or chains, because I’ve been to artisanal local yadda yadda places (they may make good bread, but they tend to insist on using whole grain flours and cramming bread with olives, tomatoes, and other flair)…and the best baguette I ever had was from a convenience store in a Belgian train station.

    I also had the same double take the first time I bought two baguettes at a US French bakery and it came to more than $9. Granted, what we consider cheap US staples will run you more there, so it evens out. It’s stupid and disappointing to expect your home country’s specialties to be done well abroad, but nearly inevitable that if you’ll crave a taste of home sooner or later. For me this was Mexican: I probably ate my weight in catsuplike salsas and slowly sauteed fajita innards at European “Mexican” restaurants before figuring out how to import authentic ingredients and making my own.

  72. It’s been quite a while since I set foot in Le Panier, but I do remember it smelling rather chemical-ly, more reminiscent of a supermarket than a bakery.

  75. Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, Julien, do not eat a macaron here. Every macaron in the city of Seattle is sickly sweet and has the texture of styrofoam. The only decent (still not good enough, but decent) macaron I’ve had in the U.S. can be found in San Francisco.

  76. Welcome to French culture people. When the French make a comment about your dish and you think it’s a complaint, it’s not. It’s constructive criticism but their delivery of it makes it sound like a complaint. Also, they can easily talk about for food for hours. I’m a Southerner, we can easily talk about food for hours. So mix the two together and people outside of the South bitch and whine until they taste the food then rave about how great it tastes. I’ve cooked for French people many times and they love the food and weren’t just being nice.

    I recommend the following book to read: Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience by Raymonde Carroll and Carol Volk

  78. 36: yes.

    It’s really nice getting an opinion of the two-block radius from someone far outside it, no?

    & I am also in French Intern fan club.

  79. Maybe a customer in the bakery had body odor?

    Whatever the case may be, I wish Julien would go try foods and other local offerings specific to Seattle — seafood, local produce and international cuisine — instead of comparing stuff like bread and frozen food, found all over the world and a total waste of time to talk about.

  80. Julien, you’ve inspired me. I walked down to the touristy Sourdough Bakery on Pier 57 and bought a sourdough baguette. It was more expensive ($3.21), shorter, and probably less warm than the one you purchased (though they had just pulled bread out of the oven, they weren’t baguettes and I wanted a fair comparison). And the place didn’t smell much of bread (I wonder if we have more stringent ventilation standards than France). But the texture and flavor was just right (ok, it could have been more sour, but they had samples of their “double sour” bread that was right on target).

  81. If you aren’t completely limited to Seattle, you can always try The French Bakery. There is one in Kirkland, and one in Bellevue. I don’t know how they compare to actual French goods, but I think they’re pretty damn tasty. I’ll go out of my way to pick up one of their Napoleons…

  82. Don’t mind the negative comments; most Americans think “good eating” is to be had via a trough, and become very sensitive with the onset of cognitive dissonance. How does it go… something like “when one’s pride is wounded, one’s vanity is most difficult to wound.”

  84. American food is for the most part better than French food. French music is for the most part better than American music.

    There, that ought to keep you going for a while. Fifteen more comments and you’re two-for-two in the hundred-comment club. Jen Graves is going to cut your throat.

  85. People are surprised that if you’re buying a product in a much smaller market, you end up paying more? Ok.

    “Oh, if only I had access to a top-notch product produced in a limited, zero-competition market … for cheap!” Yeah, that sounds bitchy. This isn’t a matter of American public being stupid; it’s American bakeries being savvy.

  88. This thread cracks me up. French kids are raised to view France as the center of world culture. Period. They don’t mean to be obnoxious, but when they interact with another culture they operate purely from that bias. They are mystified when they offend us because they sincerely meant no offense. Keep in mind that the original meaning of chauvinism, a word of French origin, refers to excessive nationalistic fervor, provincialism writ large.

    Mais, tout cela ne fait rien! Bienvenue Julien! Je vous conseil aussi les menus typique Seattle, surtout le saumon, le crabe.

  89. @45 for a concise & comprehensive review. Thank you.

    Julien – MOAR bakery reviews PLEASE. And be BRUTAL. YES a majority of the bakeries here SUCK and should this suckness be brooked??? NO! If there’s no market, there’s no business! So let’s make a market for quality bakeries!!!

  91. @76, sadly, is correct.

    God they suck here. No melting in your mouth with a sweet light taste of cane sugar, here they just sit like overly-sugared heavy lumps.

  95. Merde. It’s akin to going to a Cajun joint in Montréal. A Korean joint in Seattle. An Udupi Indian joint in Bellevue. Or Tex-Mex food in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It’s all just plain wrong.

    Oh, and speaking of food, ladies and gentlemen: I now have proof of photo existence that the chocolate-dipped honey cruller by Tim Hortons most certainly does exist and, evidently, as a standard item in the location where I found it ON THIS VERY DAY.

    You wanna see it? Email me. telsagrills over at gmail full-stop com. I will happily deliver with proof of this cheap, crazy deliciousness. It was awesome.

  98. Keep up the dispatches, M. Massillon. Some people need to be reminded that Julia Child learned to cook while in France.
    Visit La Belle Epicurean on Fourth Avenue downtown and let us know what you think, please?
    Also, do major French cities have as many beggars as does Seattle?

  101. Ok, Frenchie. First, $2.25 is cheap for a baguette in Seattle. Go to a grocery store and see what baguettes from good bakeries cost – up to $5.00. No, our bakeries do not have government subsidies like they do in France.

    Second, baguettes are made with yeast, not baking powder. Your supidity just makes you look …stupid.

    Third. This schtick is old now. When I was in France, I found lots of stupid things, too. Why don’t you go and try real, local foods – you know, food of the quality you would enjoy back home? Seattle is an amazing food place, just pull your head out of your a** and go find real food.

  102. Will the new French kid continue to keep Dan out of his usual throne atop Slog’s “Most Commented”?

    With posts like this, the answer seems to be YES.

    Keep it up!

  105. mmmm, France. Wish I were there instead of at work.

    Delicious dollar baguettes and yogurt every morning as you backpack around. Subsidized bread and milk products are da bomb!

    Now, if we could just get rid of those pesky Roma. Hmm, let’s see, that would be “cher-riff ar-pai-yo” on le google…

  106. @anita772: I think the trouble about baking powder and yeast is just a misunderstanding. In French, we say “levure boulangère”. I don’t know how you translate it, and I don’t really care.

    @Keister Button: It depends on the place where you are. Some corners of Paris don’t have any begar nor even a pedestrian, and some other are crowded with them, but aren’t they lovely?

  112. I’m torn. Julien’s methodology — head straight for a widely acknowledged middlebrow tourist magnet and generalize the results to demean all American bakery experiences — seems designed for maximum condescension.

    On the other hand, I enjoy watching gashes torn in Seattle’s smug delusions of cosmopolitanism and reading the limb-flailing defensiveness of all the butthurt commenters.

    Does Seattle excel in numerous culinary arenas, including (some) baked ones? Yes! But as @76 said, you’re chances of finding a good macaron here are nearly zero. Seriously, anyone who tells you that you “must try the amazing ‘macaroons’ [sic]” at Honoré or at Bakery Nouveau loses all gustatory credibility immediately and forever. Both have given me garishly flavored, soul-deadeningly stale crap-domes that made my taste buds cry. (Surprising exception: the matcha macaron at Fresh Flours is quite good! As inauthentic as the flavor is, they nail the texture and the combination works.)

    The same goes for croissants. This city has a handful of good ones, but many of its lauded favorites are trash (Bakery Nouveau, I’m looking at you again!). Even Besalu‘s, while delicious, never perfectly strikes the richness/lightness balance; it threatens to devolve into a pool of buttery goo at any moment. (Butter overkill exposes a related deficiency: you simply can’t extract French-tasting butter from American cows.)

    Which is not to say that Besalu and Honoré and Bakery Nouveau and even Le Panier don’t bake some other items amazingly. And Julien might be surprised to find a crêperie or two making Breton-style (savory) galettes better than anyone this side of Saint-Malo (note to the Capitol Hill-centric: 611 Supreme is not one of them).

    A trip to Le Panier was doomed to evisceration, and Julien has rightly been castigated for being a dick about his own poor choice of sample. Now wouldn’t his taste buds be better utilized on a tour of Seattle’s actual preferred bakeries, so that he might reveal some unexpectedly authentic gems while putting to bed this city’s love affair with dubious macarons?

  114. Julia Child’s favorite French bread in the US was found in Santa Barbara at Le Belle Miche in the 80’s. Imported oven, imported flour. Sadly, the owner closed her bakery due to illness.

    General rule in France: don’t buy your bread and your pastries at the same place. No one excels at making both.

  115. French intern asks: “But why should tourists go to a French bakery while they’re visiting Seattle?”

    And why the fuck would a french guy travel to Seattle, USA, to do an internship and spend his entire time bitching and moaning about how things are different than in France.

    Try to experience something (hoepfully positive) while you’re here and analyze simply as a facet of our current surroundings, not lamenting how it’s better back home. That’s how American tourists got such a bad reputaion.

  117. Hee hee. M. Massillon’s post cracked me up and so do the comments. Who knew Seattle people were so thin-skinned and defensive about the quality of their french bakeries? Some nice wits in the mix as well! I live in Atlanta, not Seattle, but our own city weekly is so lame and sad that I was perusing the Stranger for kicks and came across this post.

    Having a french person critique the local baguettes and croissants is a great idea. It is quite difficult to find decent baguettes here in the ATL–i just paid $3.50 for one yesterday and forget pain au chocolat. They are all overpriced, overlarge, dry and crumbly–often with icky chocolate chips inside. I used to get amazing pain au chocolat from a Monoprix in Paris–buttery and squishy with two bars of Eagle baker’s chocolate inside. All bakeries in Paris made them like this. Why do the U.S. people not get this? Please, Massillon, a sequel on the pain au chocolat in Seattle–or come to Atlanta. And props to the Stranger in general–you have a good ambient.

  118. Hee hee. M. Massillon’s post cracked me up and so do the comments. Who knew Seattle people were so thin-skinned and defensive about the quality of their french bakeries? Some nice wits in the mix as well! I live in Atlanta, not Seattle, but our own city weekly is so lame and sad that I was perusing the Stranger for kicks and came across this post.

    Having a french person critique the local baguettes and croissants is a great idea. It is quite difficult to find decent baguettes here in the ATL–i just paid $3.50 for one yesterday and forget pain au chocolat. They are all overpriced, overlarge, dry and crumbly–often with icky chocolate chips inside. I used to get amazing pain au chocolat from a Monoprix in Paris–buttery and squishy with two bars of Eagle baker’s chocolate inside. All bakeries in Paris made them like this. Why do the U.S. people not get this? Please, Massillon, a sequel on the pain au chocolat in Seattle–or come to Atlanta. And props to the Stranger in general–you have a good ambient.

  119. What’s more amusing than Frenchie’s posts are the number of evidently self-loathing commenters who get off on being dick-slapped with his baguette. Good lord, women, get up off the floor, it’s embarrassing.

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