Michel Roux Jr
Chef at Le Gavroche, London

Ladurée on the Champs Elysées in Paris dates back to the mid-19th century and is timeless elegance at its best. The pastries are divine - the lightest millefeuilles, choux and meringues to be found in the city.

• Ladurée, 75 ave des Champs Elysées, Paris; 00 33 1 4075 0875; laduree.com

Gerhard Jenne
Founder of cake shops Konditor & Cook

Konditorei Kreutzkamm in Dresden looks like an old Viennese coffee house. It's full of ladies in wool coats carrying little dogs. The speciality is baumkuchen, or tree cake, which is baked in 20 or so layers and looks like one of those revolving kebabs. You buy it by weight in 2mm slices and when you cut it you can see the different rings - like a tree trunk. It melts in your mouth. Another cake I miss is herrentorte, made with cream and almonds. You bake it in layers and sandwich it together with a kind of custard cream and smother it in chocolate.

• Konditorei Kreutzkamm, Seestrasse 6, Dresden; 00 49 351 495 4172

Christine Hayes
Editor, Olive magazine

Louis Patisserie in London's Hampstead is brown: from panelled walls to patterned carpet, smoked glass tables, wooden chairs and mustard-coloured banquettes. It specialises in Hungarian confectionery, and a lot of this is brown, too. Try a slice of dobos (multilayered sponge with buttercream and a caramel topping), a poppyseed slice or a vanilla cheesecake. After 10am the window fills with raspberry tarts, gaudy marzipan moons, cream horns and coffee eclairs. Kids love the stickiness; grannies appreciate the flowery teacups.

• Louis Patisserie, 32 Heath Street, London; 020 7435 9908

Steve Fallon
Author of Lonely Planet: Paris

If I took up residency in Stohrer, in the heart of Paris's rue Montorgueil street market, I'd lack for nothing. It's got history: Nicholas Stohrer, who founded it in 1730, was cakemaker at Versailles. It's got art: the painted glass murals are by Paul Baudry, who helped decorate the Opéra Garnier. And it's got pastries: Stohrer invented the baba au rhum, and his puits d'amour - puff pastries filled with vanilla cream and caramel - still sell like hot cakes after nigh on three centuries.

• Stohrer, 51 rue Montorgueil, Paris; 00 33 1 4233 3820; stohrer.fr

Rebecca Seal
Assistant editor, Observer Food Magazine

It has to be Pierre Hermé in Paris, which looks more like a jewellery box than a cake shop, so crammed is it with goodies. Salt caramel macaroons, kouign-amanns (a luscious pastry from Brittany), pains-au-chocolat and canelés (little crusty cakes) are stacked among piles of chocolates, tuiles and sablés. I go there whenever I am lucky enough to be in Paris, though from my waistline's point of view that's fortunately not often.

• Pierre Hermé, 72 rue Bonaparte, 6e, Paris; 00 33 1 4354 4777; pierreherme.com