Dalloyau Focus
Century after century, generation after generation, Dalloyau has served sweet and savoury delicacies that celebrate the glories of French gastronomy
In 1682, the French claimed what came to be known as the Louisiana Territory, an immense parcel of land named in honour of the country’s monarch Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King.
To celebrate the acquisition of this huge, 215,000-hectare territory that included New Orleans and the Mississippi River Valley, the Sun King held a feast, in which pride of place was given to sweet and savoury pastries prepared by Charles Dalloyau, the king’s newly appointed Officier de Bouche (master cook), a regal honour that was the highest French gastronomic distinction of the era.
Though the Dalloyau continued to serve the royal court through the reigns of Louis XV and XVI, the French Revolution swept the old order away. With the birth of the republic, among other revolutionary changes the elaborate banquets of the ancien régime were replaced by more egalitarian eateries that made dining accessible to the public.
And so the Dalloyau family, in the person of Jean-Baptiste Dalloyau, created the first “Maison de Gastronomie” in 1802, a delicatessen located on the iconic rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, where the public began a long-term romance with the House of Dalloyau’s esteemed confections, served “ready to go.”