My neighbor left me a generous slice of what I consider to be one of the best French-style king cakes in the city (and maybe one of my favorite king cakes out of all the ones I’ve tried): the La Boulangerie Galette des Rois.

La Boulangerie is a traditional French-style bakery on Magazine Street uptown with a New Orleans twist. It sells “traditional” king cakes (in the New Orleans sense), filled king cakes (this year, both chocolate almond and strawberry) and also a Galette des Rois, which happens to be my personal favorite Galette in New Orleans. I say this with the caveat that I tried a new one this week that was excellent (10 Cent Baking; review forthcoming) and that there are at least two others on my to-do list that I have not yet tried (namely, La Petite Sophie Patisserie in River Ridge and N7 in the Bywater). Also, if there are other Galettes in the area that you think I should know about, let me know. I want to try those, too. I’ll mention here that, generally speaking, the Galette des Rois has been serving as something of a palate cleanser for me, as I have been eating an improbable amount of brioche dough and white icing. A Galette des Rois is king cake’s attractive and cultured foreign counterpart. It’s king cake and it’s also not. But also it definitely is, which is why we’re having this conversation.

This is the third or fourth year that I’ve had the La Boulangerie Galette, which is a cake that I think about fondly quite often, and I feel like it somehow gets better every year. La Boulangerie has gone through some ownership changes over the years and many people have remarked that it used to be better overall. But this Galette is pretty perfect to me, so maybe try it again if you haven’t been over to La Boulangerie in a while because of the new owners. Also, I dare you to walk past La Boulangerie between the hours of 7:30 and noon and ignore it. You’ll at least stare inside, because the smells that emanate from that bakery are nothing short of heavenly.

Now, I’ve never been to France, but I‘ve eaten a lot of French food and I have to believe that this is what a real, authentic Galette des Rois tastes like. My other French credentials include half watching three seasons of Emily in Paris while scrolling through Instagram and writing these reviews.

Let’s break it down. The puff pastry is just fantastic. It is flaky and the scalloped edges have the perfect crisp consistency. My favorite flavor, butter, absolutely sings. Biting into the piece, which I did after giving up on trying to use a fork (it’s fine, I promise) produces a nearly perfect bite. The frangipane filling just seals the deal. It is DIVINE. I also want to take a second to do my best to explain what I love about the frangipane. We’ve covered this already, but to refresh your memory, frangipane is an almond cream paste and, as you may recall, I’m not a giant fan of sweet almond flavor in the style of “wedding cake” flavor. I personally feel that frangipane can be similar to that flavor I just described. This, readers, is not. It is sweet but not at all sugary, somehow. It either has a butter element to it or just becomes enmeshed in the butter from the pastry—but either way, the flavor is extremely balanced and elegant. The overall texture is light and fluffy, and it seamlessly and consistently combines with the pastry throughout the slice. If you’ve never had a Galette des Rois, or if you love Galette des Rois and haven’t yet tried this one, or if you have tried a Galette des Rois one time and didn’t love it, or maybe if you just have taste buds, go get this king cake and eat it fresh; you can thank me later. 5 stars.