Y’all, we’re going to France and also back in time! Sort of! Yes, friends, this a Galette des Rois king cake (and yes, Galette des Rois is French for king cake) except not really, because it’s a Galette des Reines. Let me explain.

First, let’s talk about the bakery: Levee Baking Co.! Levee is, quite simply, what dreams are made of. Or at least my dreams. It is small-scale operation in the Irish Channel, that sells all kinds of baked goods but specializes in highlighting local, seasonal produce. Seriously, some of these fresh fruit pastries are among the best pastries I’ve ever had, ever. They also have mind-blowing brownies, cookies, and savory pastries. You have to go early, though, because the best stuff sells out really fast.

Second, let’s talk about Galette des Rois! This is the original original king cake. It’s a traditional French-style cake that has historically been served on Epiphany (King’s day, or January 6, which I will never refer to as “January 6” ever again because, for obvious reasons, I can’t go around saying “I can’t wait for January 6!” Weird.). Similarly, in New Orleans, Epiphany is the first day you’re legally allowed to eat king cake, EVEN IF IT IS RED AND GREEN OR BLACK AND GOLD OR WHATEVER. I’m serious!! I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.

Back to the Galette des Rois. The traditions that surround it are similar to NOLA rules—a Galette des Rois comes with either a “féve” (a ceramic figurine) or an actual féve (a literal dried fava bean). Of course, in New Orleans, we have plastic baby Jesuses. To each his own. The Galette des Rois also comes with a paper crown, which I love because my family (and all of England) wears paper crowns on Christmas and this warms my heart. Whoever finds the féve gets the crown and is “king for the day”—which is better than having to ask your mom to buy the next king cake for your fourth grade class, trust me. Most, or at least many, of the Galette des Rois I’ve seen/heard of/tasted have some sort of almond frangipane filling. But Levee likes to highlight local ingredients. I’m going to get right back to that, but one more thing on Galette des Rois (it’s important!)—despite being technically a Galette des Rois, Levee calls their cake a Galette des Reines, or Queen’s cake. I’ve reached the conclusion that there is no generally accepted definition of a “Queen’s cake.” At first, I thought it implied the presence of frangipane, but that doesn’t make sense (see above). After some googling, I decided people just use the term “queen cake” to denote a unique and non-traditional king cake. Okay, do you want to hear about this one yet??

At Levee, the cake, which we will heretofore call a GDR, is a traditional flaky puff pastry (made authentic by the presence of SO much butter) with a local pecan and candied citrus filling. Levee also makes “mini queens” and switches the fillings from week to week. I love this because you can try them all! I might! The week’s special filling for the mini was chocolate chip and almond filled. No regrets. Finally, the GDR (but not the mini) comes with a gorgeous handmade ceramic féve (pictured).

Let me be real. Here, the pastry is unequivocally the star. It is obviously wonderfully butter heavy, which I confirmed for certain after warming a piece of it (in the oven this time; please do not put your Galettes in the microwave, because I will cry). The top of the pastry is baked to a gorgeous dark brown that adds a lovely crispness to the texture of the pastry and makes the flavors even more complex. You can practically count the layers of puff pastry. You probably literally could if you had enough time and were able to stare at pastry that long without eating it (you don’t, and you can’t). It’s absolutely perfect.

The filling is also delicious, but with the caveat that flavors are really subtle. At first, I didn’t really taste anything that felt distinctly pecan-like or citrus-like. I had to eat another piece to fully assess. Upon further review, I did get citrus notes but I would have preferred a bit more than I got. And I’m not sure I would have guessed pecan for the other element—there was zero bitterness, which is generally a good thing, but I also didn’t really get the nutty flavor. There really was nothing wrong with it, though, and it allowed the beautiful flavor of the pastry (butter) to shine. I wasn’t mad about it.

The flavor of the filling in the mini was a lot more prominent, but still not quite what I was expecting. The delicious dark chocolate overpowered the almond flavor (by a lot—I really didn’t taste the almond at all). But, again, all of it was still so delicious that I couldn’t complain. And as you may know by now, almond flavor is not my favorite, But the chocolate was really, really good, and I thoroughly enjoyed eating it.

I went back and forth on the final ranking for these. On one hand, I would stab myself in the eye for the puff pastry any day of the week. But, alas, the fillings didn’t quite have the flavors I was hoping for. And while they were different, they weren’t different enough to give different rankings. So I’m going the conservative route, but with the caveat that you ABSOLUTELY should go to Levee and try this and you should also check their menu year-round for seasonal fruit pasties. Four stars for both!