You may come across this French word at a restaurant when you’re ordering dessert.
Why do I need to know mignardise?
This French word is mostly found in culinary jargon. Think of: tiny éclairs, mini tarts, little chocolates and refined pastry bites…
What does it mean?
The word mignardise, roughly pronounced meen-yar-deez (listen here), means “small, delicate sweets or pastries”. In fine dining, mignardises refers a selection of miniature desserts served after the main dessert.
In regular restaurants, you often have the option of a café gourmand for dessert, which consists of an espresso and three to five mignardises (midi desserts). For example you might get a tiny chocolate fondant, a single macaron and a crème brulée served in a pot the size of an espresso cup.
It comes from old French mignard, which meant “delicate” and could also have been derived from the word mignon, meaning “charming”, “agreeable” or “cute”.
Initially used to describe a certain elegance in manners or language, the term then took on a culinary connotation to refer to small sweets served at the end of a meal, thus becoming a symbol of delicacy.
If someone tells you that they are serving mignardise, it’s a clue that this will be a fancy meal.
They’re somewhat similar to ‘petits fours‘ in English – in the English usage, these are small sweet treats served at the end of a fancy meal, usually with coffee. However in France, petits fours can either be small sweet things, or small savouries, usually served with drinks before a meal.
Use it like this
Le repas s’est terminé par des mignardises avec le café. – The meal ended with small sweet treats served with coffee.
Le chef propose des mignardises maison. – The chef made homemade pastry bites.
J’apporte plusieurs mignardises ce soir, des mini éclairs, des petites tartes et des macarons. – I’m bringing several small desserts tonight: mini éclairs, tiny tarts and macarons.
