Maison Mataha Escapade Gourmande Grand Cru Absolu de Parfum

What it smells like

Grand Cru is the same memory as the original Escapade Gourmande — a crème brûlée, the thin sheet of burnt sugar cracking under a spoon — told at 35% concentration, where every material has more room to speak. Black sugar opens it, and at this strength the caramelised facet is unmistakable: not sweetness in the abstract, but sugar that has actually been taken to the edge of burning.

The heart is where the money went. Two vanilla absolutes rather than one — Cristal for its clean, almost crystalline lift, Bourbon for the dark, boozy, leathery depth that only a real absolute gives — wound around an absolute of tonka bean, which rounds the edges and adds that almond-and-hay softness tonka does better than anything else. Peru balsam sits underneath, warm and faintly cinnamon-like, lending the resinous body that keeps a gourmand from reading as dessert and nothing more.

Musks carry the drydown. They are what turn a rich composition into a trail: velvety, close to the skin, and persistent in a way the extrait version is not. Worn on wool in cold weather it lasts the day.

How it differs from the original

Escapade Gourmande is the house icon, an extrait de parfum. Grand Cru is an absolu de parfum at 35%, reformulated upward: exceptional naturals in place of their lighter counterparts, two vanilla absolutes instead of a vanilla accord, and tonka as an absolute rather than a note. It is richer, denser and considerably longer-lasting. The bottle is different too — textured gold rather than clear glass, with an embossed plaque.

If you already love the original and want more of it, this is that. If you have never tried either, start with the original.

Who made it

Vincent Ricord composed both versions for Maison Mataha, working with the house's founding couple. Ricord is the perfumer behind the original Escapade Gourmande, the fragrance that established the Collection Mémoire Gourmande and the house's whole premise: take a familiar, domestic memory and build it into something that holds up as perfumery.

When to wear it

Autumn and winter, and the evening more than the day. It is a cold-weather fragrance — heat pushes the sugar forward too fast. Dinner, an evening out, or simply a day when you want to smell expensive and comforting at once. One spray is usually the correct amount.

About the house

Maison Mataha is a French niche house built around gourmand perfumery done seriously — crème brûlée, brownie, peach, café gourmand — the kind of references that are easy to do badly and difficult to do with restraint. The Collection Mémoire Gourmande is the heart of it, and Grand Cru is the house showing what the same idea sounds like with no constraint on the raw materials.

Try it before you commit

A 100 ml absolu is a serious decision, so every size below the full bottle on this page is decanted by hand in our Somerville boutique from a sealed Maison Mataha bottle. It is the same fragrance, in a glass atomiser, with nothing diluted, reformulated or topped up — just a smaller amount of it.

• 1 ml vial — a single wearing. Enough to find out whether Grand Cru is yours.
• 2 ml travel spray — a few wearings, in different weather, on your own skin.
• 5 ml travel spray — a fortnight of regular wear, and the size most people use to decide.
• 10 ml travel spray — a month in a bag or a desk drawer, and the best value per millilitre short of the bottle.

Unlike a decanting service, we also sell the full bottle, sourced through the house's authorised distribution. If a decant convinces you, the 100 ml is on this same page.