the Ispahan.

Named for an ancient Persian city famous for its Damask roses, the Ispahan is Pierre’s obsession. He began to experiment with its primary combination of rose and raspberry in 1987, and 10 years later, he introduced his first Ispahan: a macaron the size of a cake. It was composed of two discs of almond-meringue batter, tinted pink, baked crisp on the outside and tender in the center, sandwiching a rose-flavored cream that cushioned bits of lychees, a fruit remarkably complementary to rose and raspberry. Raspberries, placed upright like little shoulder-to-shoulder soldiers, encircled the cake’s middle, and on top, there were raspberries and deep-crimson rose petals.