French Bakery Near Me on Lexington: Aux Merveilleux de Fred's Meringue Counter

Aux Merveilleux de Fred at 1291 Lexington Avenue, between 86th and 87th streets, is open every day from 7 am to 8 pm, and its signature pastry, the merveilleux, costs $4.80 for an individual one. If your french bakery near me search comes from the Upper East Side, this is the place where you can watch the pastry being made: bakers roll meringue in whipped cream and chocolate shavings behind the counter while you wait in line.

The company's own history page credits Frédéric Vaucamps, a pastry chef from northern France, who reworked an old Flemish dessert called the merveilleux into a lighter version and named his first shop in Lille after it in 1997. A merveilleux is a small sandwich of meringue held together and coated with whipped cream, then rolled in shavings. The brand now runs shops across Europe and several in Manhattan, all built around that one pastry.

The interiors are deliberately theatrical. The company describes the look as inspired by the Incroyables and Merveilleuses, the extravagantly dressed young Parisians of the French Directory period after the Revolution, which explains the gilded mirrors, crystal chandeliers and baroque frames. The Lexington Avenue shop opened in March 2024 in a former Teavana space, as East Side Feed reported at the time, joining existing Manhattan branches on Eighth Avenue in the West Village and on Sixth Avenue in Midtown.

The case holds six flavors, according to the official online store: dark chocolate, white chocolate with speculoos, coffee, praline hazelnut, caramel and cherry. Each individual merveilleux costs $4.80. The dark chocolate is the original and the one to try first, because it shows what the pastry is meant to be: crisp meringue, light whipped cream and dark chocolate curls that keep it from becoming cloying.

For a group, the Marvelous Cake comes in larger sizes priced from $33 to $49.50, a whole merveilleux built for slicing. Plain meringues are sold separately too: an individual meringue costs $3.50 and a bag of mini meringues $6.80, a good option if you need something that travels without a cooler. On a hot day the cream-covered pastries are best eaten within the hour, so carry the meringues and eat the merveilleux on the spot.

The bakery side of the counter is more modest than the meringue side, and priced below most Manhattan French bakeries. The online store lists the croissant at $4.30, the chocolate croissant at $4.90 and the almond croissant at $5.40. Brioche sandwiches cost $8.80, and a pack of six waffles, the thin northern French kind, is $16.50 to take home.

The cramique is the regional specialty to know: a Flemish brioche studded with raisins or pearl sugar, sold here in a small size for $4.30. An honest note from the food blog I Just Want To Eat, which reviewed the Midtown shop in 2022: it found the raisin cramique a bit dry and the chocolate croissant overcooked, but called the meringues a must try. That matches the logic of the place. Come for the merveilleux and treat the viennoiserie as a bonus.

Long opening hours, 7 am to 8 pm every day, make this one of the easier French bakeries on the Upper East Side to fit into a plan. Because the pastries are finished in front of you, the line moves at the pace of the bakers' hands rather than a cashier, which is part of the show. Early morning and the hour after school pickup are good windows for families, and evenings until 8 pm suit a dessert stop after dinner on Lexington.

Orders can also be placed through the bakery's Square online store for pickup, a useful shortcut if you want a whole cake for a birthday rather than a single pastry. If the Lexington case is short on your flavor late in the day, the West Village shop at 37 Eighth Avenue is the downtown alternative.

Coming from the East Side, the Q train's 86th Street station at Second Avenue is the other subway option, about a five-minute walk east of the shop. That makes Aux Merveilleux de Fred an easy add-on to a Second Avenue errand. If you are building a full afternoon, buy the meringues first and the merveilleux last, since the cream is the one thing here that does not wait well. A bag of minis at $6.80 survives a museum cloakroom far better than an open pastry box, and it is the sensible souvenir to carry back on the subway.

The shop sits in Carnegie Hill, two avenues east of Museum Mile. Walk west on 86th Street to Fifth Avenue and the Neue Galerie at 1048 Fifth Avenue, the museum of German and Austrian art known for Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, whose Café Sabarsky is a Viennese counterpart to your French dessert. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a few blocks south along Fifth.

Going east instead, 86th Street leads to Carl Schurz Park at East End Avenue, a quiet riverside park with a promenade above the East River and views of Roosevelt Island. It is a calm place to eat a merveilleux on a bench, away from the Lexington Avenue sidewalk, and it stays open until midnight.

Aux Merveilleux de Fred, 1291 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10028, between 86th and 87th streets on the Upper East Side. Open daily from 7 am to 8 pm. The nearest subway is 86th Street on the 4, 5 and 6 trains, a block south of the shop.

An individual merveilleux is $4.80 and a croissant $4.30, so a pastry for two with a croissant each stays well under $20. Online orders for pickup go through the bakery's Square store. Whipped cream and summer heat do not mix, so if you are carrying a cake, ask for it boxed and head straight home.