It’s time to leave cupcakes to the middle school crowd and move on to a far more elegant baked good – macarons.
The French cookies are notoriously difficult to make and are often accompanied by a steeper price tag, but no other cookie can beat the perfection of a macaron. Ditch the tourist-packed lines at Baked & Wired or Georgetown Cupcake, and venture to these swoon-worthy macaron shops instead.
Olivia’s Macaron
3222 M St. NW, Georgetown
$2 each, $12 for six, $23 for 12.
☆☆☆☆1⁄2
This petit macaron shop is tucked away from M Street’s traffic, and has a modern, minimalist aesthetic. Olivia’s presentation of its 12 flavors is eye candy, offering the perfect palette of pastel colored macarons. Customers walk up a few stairs, past an ornate sculpture made of salted caramel and rose macarons that sits by the main window.
After biting into the crisp red velvet macaron filled with clear ganache – a best-selling flavor – you appreciate the artisan work that goes into baking the perfect macaron. Most bakers can’t master creating the smooth firm shell and soft cookie interior, but Olivia’s makes it seem easy. Their macarons fit perfectly between your fingers and deliver a light sweetness, with an almond undertone. Unlike the red velvet variety, the white-shelled vanilla macaron covered in specks of vanilla bean is much sweeter and lighter.
Macaron Bee
1669 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Georgetown
M closed, TS 117, S 125.
$1.75 each, $10.50 for six, $21 for 12
☆☆☆☆
Despite its charming pastel-yellow paneled exterior, Macaron Bee is just as lovely on the inside. Past the quaint, traditional colonial entrance is a large window display, where a tall sculpture made of the small, French cookies is surrounded by glass decorations filled with the same treats. Although this small shop lacks seating, its macarons do not fail to deliver in taste and quality.
Pink champagne and salted caramel (fleur del sel caramel) are the shop’s best sellers out of the 16 daily and 13 seasonal flavors. Macaron Bee does not follow the traditional 2:1 cookie-to-filling ratio, but the filling oozes out at the first bite and the creamy sweetness is undeniably irresistible. You can channel Marie Antoinette – minus the French Revolution part – while chewing on the rose-flavored macaron accentuated by a pretty, delicate fragrance that complements the subtle sweetness. Another flavor fit for a queen is the fleur de sel caramel macaron, filled with a heavy ganache, made up of a sticky, gooey concoction that perfectly balances sugar and salt.
Kafe Leopold
3315 M St. NW, Georgetown
Sunday – Tuesday 8 a.m. – 10 p.m., Wednesday 8 a.m. - 11 p.m., Thursday-Sunday 8 a.m.-midnight
$1.20 each, $5.50 for five
☆☆☆
Kafe Leopold is a large Austrian cafe and bar filled with modern white chairs and tables, complemented by a touch of blood orange. With a plentiful seating inside and outside, Leopold’s is a perfect casual brunch spot. The service here is not great, as customers must seek out the attention of their waiters. Catering to a large international clientele, one can overhear a symphony of Arabic, Spanish and French, while biting into a schnitzel or an apfelstrudel.
Macarons are only available in five flavors: chocolate hazelnut, banana rum, pistachio, tiramisu and lemon basil. They can be ordered individually or on a plate of five. With a limited palette, Kafe Leopold gives customers an adventure through the tropics, counterbalanced with more earthy flavors. The banana rum tastes obscenely sweet and is filled with a creamy white ganache. Chocolate lovers be forewarned: Although, the macaron ganache tastes like Nutella, the cookie is too chewy and feels too much like a brownie, falling apart and crumbling into pieces. Overall, the macarons here aren’t perfect, and sometimes the ganache seems to ooze out, but Leopold’s provides an opportunity to experience the wilder side of the French treats.
