Forget about diets and guilt: you are in Paris, for food’s sake. It’s time to cross the threshold of your neighborhood boulangerie.

I never was a sugar addict until I came to Paris. Traveling from New York last January to visit a friend, I unexpectedly developed a huge sweet tooth. I was strolling down the gorgeous but frigid streets of the city one day and suddenly felt starved so I stepped into a warm, inviting boulangerie and bought a small tarte aux framboises.

It was incredible, and cost a mere 2.30 euros.

I had just spent Christmas in Cuba eating rice and beans with pork every day and needed to recover from the deprivation of good food. So I spent the rest of my stay frantically biking from one neighborhood to the next, determined to try as many French pastries—especially tartes—as I could.

I went from trying “illegally baked” guava turnovers in Havana to savoring a Deux Mille Feuilles at Pierre Hermé in Paris. The former is sold surreptitiously in shoeboxes and baked with subsidized flour and sugar, while the latter is, well, couture pastry. Pierre Hermé’s little colorful gâteaux (cakes), displayed in delicate glass houses, resemble fine jewelry. The iridescent macarons rival Ladurée’s and the sophisticated Ispahan, a fresh lychee-flavored pastry topped with a pink crust and sprinkled with raspberries and rose petals, is a masterpiece for the eye and palate.

I also discovered Pain de Sucre, another chic boutique that opened two years ago and was recently elected best Parisian pâtisserie by Le Monde. The seasonal creations are surprisingly innovative, terribly appetizing, and quite expensive. It is impossible to choose between the colorful, exotic verrines, the homemade chocolate and rose guimauve, and the impeccable viennoiseries (butter croissants, pains au chocolat...). Will it be a Roberto (almond pastry, ricotta cream and wild strawberries) or a Rosemary (almond and rosemary pastry, rhubarb puree and raspberries)? A P’tit Coco (choux pastry, hazelnut and coconut crumble with praline custard) or a Mancha (praline and white chocolate biscuit with saffron cream, orange flower and apricot puree)? The only solution is to come back for more.

Luckily for my bank account, I soon discovered that, in Paris, one finds wonderful and inexpensive pastries on almost every street corner, as eating great desserts is an everyday event in France.

A lot of the classics are based on choux pastry, such as the Éclair, filled with a chocolate- or coffee-flavored custard, the Religieuse, which has same ingredients but in a different shape, and the crown-shaped Paris-Brest with praline custard filling. There’s also the Baba au Rhum, a rum-soaked cake, the chocolate-layered Opéra, and the crispy and buttery specialty from Brittany know as the Kouign Amann (pronounced “Koonyaman”), in vogue these days. Even franchised bakeries offer great pastries: Try Paul’s coconut flan, Poilâne’s pain d’épices or its apple tart.

A French patisserie wouldn’t be true to itself without a wide selection of tartelettes of strawberries, raspberries, or gooseberries laid upon crème pâtissière, as well as chocolate and lemon tarts.

I was dumbfounded by the mastery wrapping talents shown in every bakery. I had never seen anyone wrap a square box with such art and skill, much less a tarte aux fraises fit in a perfect high pyramid of paper that doesn’t touch the strawberries inside.

It may seem exuberant to nourish oneself with a fondant au chocolat or have a flan à la noix de coco for lunch and a tarte à la pistache at tea time while knowing a splendid fraisier awaits in the fridge for dinner. But it seemed natural to me in Paris. I just couldn’t stop.

I skipped meals to eat more and, if I have gained weight, I don’t care. The pleasure was worth each gram I put on. Besides, according to French women’s magazines, it is fashionable again to be “shapely.” So, my advice: run to the closest boulangerie-pâtisserie, buy your favorite pastry and get in shape!

* Pain de Sucre, 14, rue Rambuteau, Paris 3. M° Rambuteau.
* Pierre Hermé, 72, rue Bonaparte, Paris 6. M° Saint Sulpice;185, rue de Vaugirard, Paris 15. M° Pasteur.