January: Everyone talks about detox. Paris eats galette.

If you live in Paris in January and haven’t eaten a galette des rois, you’re either on a very strict diet, or you’re an alien.

Because galette is everywhere.
At the office. At dinners with friends. At home. In schools. At birthday parties.
Even when you simply go to buy bread, bakery windows are filled with galettes. You can’t avoid them. You pass by them. You smell them. And eventually, you eat them.

January in Paris is not about detoxing. It’s about traditions.

We come out of Christmas slightly heavier, still living on carbohydrates, and fully committed to galette des rois season. I didn’t plan to make this a food post, but in January, food is culture.

In France, galette des rois is not something you eat once and forget. It’s a ritual that takes place in every single household throughout the month of January. The rule is always the same: the youngest child hides under the table and decides who gets each slice: a way to keep things fair, and to add a little suspense.

Inside the galette hides la fève, a small porcelain figurine. Whoever finds it becomes king or queen for the day, wears the paper crown, and chooses their king or queen. The tradition dates back to Roman times and later became associated with Epiphany, but today it’s something wonderfully simple: a moment of togetherness, repeated again and again, all month long. Children wait for it. Adults pretend they don’t care, but they absolutely do.

The classic galette is filled with frangipane, a rich almond cream. But not everyone loves almonds, and French bakeries know it. In Paris, you’ll also find galettes with apple, chocolate, hazelnut or pistachio. And in the south of France, a completely different tradition exists: la couronne des rois, a soft brioche scented with orange blossom, shaped like a crown and covered in sugar and candied fruit. Different regions, different recipes, same ritual. That’s culture, the French way.

As January goes on, families and friends start debating who makes the best galette. So they bring different ones to dinners, compare them, argue about puff pastry, almond flavourle, or how generous the filling should be. It doesn’t stop at home. At school, children eat galette too, it’s simply part of January life.

There’s even a giant galette at the Élysée Palace, baked every year as part of a long-standing tradition, another reminder that galette des rois is not just a dessert but part of French cultural life. You don’t choose one galette. You try many. And by the end of January, everyone has an opinion.

Between galette crumbs, school runs and winter walks, January in Paris is about slow moments, shared rituals, and traditions passed on without even realising it.

We’ll talk about raclette later. Ski holidays are coming. Raclette is inevitable. That deserves its own chapter.

For now, one last slice of galette.
After winter, we’ll talk about diets. 😉