Who is Paries?

Perpetuating the tradition of Chocolate makers

Expertise and respect for raw ingredients The Pariès firm is the most recent firm stemming in a direct line from the Chocolate Makers of Bayonne, set up by Jacques Damestoy in 1894. The expertise was often handed down through the women, with constant attention to the search for the best products and the highest quality; the firm buys all its goods from listed suppliers and growers complying with very strict conditions of production, with amongst them: The Valrhona firm for the fine single region cocoas. The "Marconas" almond growers of Catalonia. Vanilla pods from Madagascar. But where do "Mouchous" come from? From a mistake! In 1948, one of the assistants in the confectionery, a bit of a reveller, was in charge of making "Saint-Jean-de-Luz Macaroons"; to avoid a scolding, he hid a batch of uncooked macaroons for which the recipe had not been followed. A few hours later, when Robert Pariès discovered the "disaster", he decided to avoid wasting ingredients that were very expensive at the time, by cooking the preparation, which did not look anything like macaroons… He then had to resort to laborious questioning to enable the assistant to recall in the mists of his mind exactly what he had put into his "mistake". It took a few days to sort out the best shape and aspect. Then it was necessary to find a name; Robert Pariès decided to call the product "Mouchous", a French spelling for the Basque word "Musu", meaning a kiss. Ramiro Arrue, a famous Basque painter, provided the drawings for the boxes. The "Mouchous" were born.

All weights indicated on this page are net weights and do not include packaging.