A Thousand Leaves

Mille Feuille from Chez Maryse

Back in another life, we lived in the country of Haiti. On one special occasion in the late 1980's, we went out to eat at a nice restaurant. At this point I don't remember if it was in Petionville or Port-au-Prince. For dessert we ordered mille feuille, which we have never had before.

Mille feuille is a French term meaning "thousand leaves," and is a reference to the "leaves" of pastry dough that make up the dessert. (I didn't count them, but I don't think there were actually 1000 sheets of pastry in it.) Referring to pastry sheets as leaves is not unique to French. The Greek do the same thing, referring to their pastry sheets as phyllo, which also means leaf. You may recognize that from its use in baklava.

Anyway, the mille feuille was amazing! Ever since then, we have sought out this delectable French pastry in various places we have been, but without much success. The next time we found the multi-layered masterpiece was on a trip to Germany in 2003 to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We were driving near the French border, so in Rastatt we took a free ferry across the Rhine River into France. The first town we came to was Seltz, and we stopped at a store where we found some. (I don't remember the name of the store but it was one of those large grocery stores with little shops inside. I notice on Google Maps it is now called Super U et Drive, which may have been the name back then as well.)

Back in the US, we have not had much luck. After we moved to Fresno about 20 years ago, I remember checking out French bakeries to no avail. I guess one needs to go to a pastry shop (pâtisserie) as opposed to a bakery (boulangerie) to find mille feuille.

In Thailand, we were on a holiday in Krabi once and we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner one night. They had mille feuille! And it was actually pretty good, especially given that we were at an Italian restaurant in Thailand.

A few years ago, we discovered Barrhead Bakery on one of our trips to Canada. Most of the food there has a Dutch character, but they do on occasion have a pastry called Napolean, which is similar to mille feuille (some people use the terms interchangeably).The Napolean there is pretty good, but it is a long way from Fresno, and wasn't quite what we were looking for, as it uses a different kind of cream filling.

Napoleon at Barrhead Bakery

When we moved back to Fresno last year, we discovered there was a new French bakery/coffee shop in nearby Clovis called Parisien Bakery. They do have some pretty awesome food there, but not mille feuille ☹️.

Then, just last week, a friend posted on Facebook about a French restaurant called Chez Maryse. So, off we were to see if we could  finally find the treasure we have been searching for. We made the 15 minute drive there, and when I arrived I went inside and immediately went over to the pastry display; there it was! There was no label on it as there was for the other items, as if they were trying to keep it a secret. But later when the server took our order, I requested mille feuille and she understood me (even though the receipt said Napolean). And it was actually quite good! And even in our zip code area!!

I'll guess we'll have to frequent Chez Maryse so they don't go out of business.