…or at least something alike. Fact is, that once you’ve entered his clean boutique La Pâtisserie des Rêves in Rue du Bac close to Conran Shop and Bon Marché you feel like roaming in a starship or the breeding room of a futuresque hospital. Cakes are made of eggs? Flour? Sticky liquids? Melted Chocolate? Not here, apparently. Philippe Conticini, one of the hush puppies of Parisian lifestyle magazines right now, seems to be able to create all the sweet stuff without getting his hands dirty. Or maybe the glass cabinet does all the work…?

Beam me up: clean cakes on display in Rue du Bac.

Sure, I know…people like Conticini always face split audiences: you either love them or hate them. I tend to join the latter group and let me tell you why. The boutique’s design reminds me more of a genetic engineering plant or an in-vitro-fertilization-lab than of a nice, reassuring…bakery. And although I’m fond of some decadent sensations every now and then I don’t like them to become the rule. Here, at La Pâtisserie des Rêves, decadence IS the overall principle. It’s as far from how a bakery should look as planet earth is from Spock’s vulcanian homeland.

Is it a cake? Or a bunch of tiny aliens sitting at a silly white table?

I bought, by the way, a madeleine and a financier, two classic French cakes to see what Conticini’s art is worth. They were both ok, average, nothing more, really. So don’t waste your time and money there, will you?

(Here you could find a charming video, in French, about how to make French financier cakes).