The woman behind the counter at a Los Gatos bakery is appalled at the prices at the newly opened patisserie a few doors down. ``A friend of mine went in there and told me they charge almost $2 for a croissant that's half the size of mine! Can you believe that?''

I couldn't. But in a land where a dozen extra-large croissants come shrink-wrapped in a cardboard box to be picked up at warehouse prices, an expensive croissant is intriguing.

Walking down Los Gatos' main thoroughfare in search of a store with a French name is like looking for Starbucks on Main Street, USA. There's one wherever you look. Celine. Les Chattes Salon. Sur La Table.

But Fleur de Cocoa is not hard to spot. Or smell. The chic, simple facade, the flower insignia on its glass doors, and its gold lettering stand out even in elegant Los Gatos. Outside the store, passers-by in oversize sweatshirts halt, peer in through the glass, linger, shift their feet -- and walk in anyway.

We all have our ways of reacting to shelves of delicately carved mounds of chocolate and fragile pastry. At Fleur de Cocoa, some patrons turn almost orgasmic.

``Oh my goodness. Oh my God! I don't know what I'm having!''

The Aztecs were right about the aphrodisiac qualities of the cocoa bean.

``Everything in here looks so good. Do you bake them fresh every day?'' a customer asks, ogling trays filled with croissants, pain aux raisins, éclairs aux chocolat, brioches and pains au chocolat. Yikes. That's like asking Julia Child if she uses Duncan Hines cake mix.

A man in a toque appears from somewhere in the back and nods pleasantly at the growing line of customers. His toque gives a stamp of authenticity to the croissants.

To go for a milles-feuilles (layers of flaky puff pastry with Tahitian vanilla pastry cream) or not, for breakfast -- that is the question. I settle down instead for a proper French breakfast of a croissant and a pain au chocolat. At two whole dollars, the pain au chocolat on my plate begins to look small. Yet it crumbles under my fingers, and melting chocolate peeks out seductively from its folds. No question. It's got to be the closest a croissant born on Silicon Valley soil can come to its Parisian cousin.

Location is everything

``We knew this was it when we drove all over the Bay Area looking for the best location for our patisserie,'' says Chef Pascal Janvier, the man in the toque. Janvier and his Californian wife, Nicola, decided Los Gatos' European ambience was the perfect setting for a Parisian-style store and tea room (salon de thé) selling gourmet cakes, pastries and chocolates. But, surely, it helps to be in stock-option country. Twelve weeks after opening, Fleur de Cocoa already has regulars who saunter in to savor new pastries with their favorite cup of tea at their favorite table overlooking the action on the street.

And what's the hottest crossed bun? ``Our éclair au chocolat,'' says Nicola Janvier. At $3.50, this cream puff -- bursting with dark chocolate ganache (a mixture of equal parts chocolate and cream) and glazed with dark chocolat fondant (smooth sugar syrup) -- seems snooty. But just eat it pronto. Then forget that you could have bought a whole gallon of milk with the money.

``Money? Prices! You know, Americans drive around in $120,000 cars. And they think twice about what they put in their stomachs? They've got it backward!'' snaps Jacques LeConte, a Fleur de Cocoa fan and a longtime Los Gatos resident. ``I say, put $120,000 in your stomachs. And get a $15,000 car.''

LeConte is French and he owns a wine store in Los Gatos. He says Fleur de Cocoa is the best thing that has happened to the town. LeConte has finally found a patisserie that reminds him of home.

``People here like everything big even if it is tasteless,'' says Angela DiBlasi, who peeps into Fleur de Cocoa at least two times a week to buy cakes or simply to check out the day's treats. She says that after many years she has found a place that cares about using top ingredients for baking.

Talk about ingredients. Janvier won't cook with chocolate with less than 70 percent chocolate liquor. Any less makes confections ``taste like sand,'' he says. Real estate prices in Los Gatos overwhelm him. But ask him about the cost of the 1,800 pounds of chocolate that he regularly imports from (where else?) Paris. It runs him $3.50 a pound -- vs. $1.20 for domestic chocolate -- but he says he won't compromise on quality.

All of the equipment in his gleaming kitchen is imported from France, except the sink and the walk-in freezer. Janvier won't use an American oven. ``Mais, non!'' Janvier says, rolling his eyes heavenward. ``We call them pressure cookers in France. They give heat, but you can't control the steam.''

Chocolate scholar

Trust him. He has a master's degree in chocolate, pastry and ice cream from CIFPA, the Centre Internationale Formation Alimentaire Professionale Academie in Paris. It's a degree held by only 12 percent of French pastry chefs.

``I attended a class taught by Janvier at Draeger's a few weeks ago, and now I have even more appreciation for pastry making,'' says Donna Spagna, who has lived in Los Gatos 10 years. ``It's a demanding art form. No doubt. And this man is a master.''

Janvier learned his art in Normandy, as an apprentice to a master from the age of 13. He likes to think of pastry making not only as an art but also as an exact science that demands ``precision and attention to detail.'' He landed in the United States in 1990 as technical manager and school director for the French chocolate manufacturer Cacao Barry (now Barry Callebaut). The company's U.S. operation includes a school in New Jersey that is a training center for U.S. chefs.

Janvier began his new job after a four-day language immersion program. Parachuting into an American environment was a challenge for a man who couldn't speak a word of English until then. ``But I was considered a god coming from Planet Pastry, so people were patient, even if they couldn't always understand me,'' he says in perfect English.

You'd think this man has it made now. While teaching and consulting on chocolate and pastry, he won gold medals in several competitions and was named one of the top ten U.S. pastry chefs in both 1998 and 1999 by Pastry Art & Design and Chocolatier magazines.

But Janvier toils day and night in his new venture. It's midnight when he locks up for the night. He is back in the store by 4 a.m. to get started with baking for the day.

``But this was his lifelong dream. He dreamt of owning his own patisserie and chocolaterie,'' says Nicola Janvier. Student Nicola and chef Pascal met and fell in love at a course he was conducting for chefs in the East Coast. She had worked in confectionary packaging and importing, and at the time was working on an MBA. His culinary expertise and her background in business have proved to be, well, a sweet combination.

Spagna says the Janviers have enhanced the warmth of the town. ``When you walk into their store, it's like going into a village in France or Italy,'' she says.

Janvier is getting a kick out of introducing Americans to French customs. For the French tradition of Epiphany in the first week of January, Fleur de Cocoa baked galettes des rois (a butter, sugar and frangipane cake) and decorated them with a customary festive cardboard crown. Tucked deep inside each ``cake of kings'' was a traditional fève, a tiny porcelain figure, of the Eiffel Tower, perhaps, a fleur-de-lis or a baby Jesus.

Pumpkin pastries

Janvier also likes to put a French spin on American traditions. For Thanksgiving, he conjured fanciful Franco-American desserts: crème brûlée in tiny pumpkins, harvest cake (five-spice génoise cake filled with pumpkin mousse and glazed in dark chocolate), tarte normande (a Normandy specialty with organic Braeburn apples baked in a rich vanilla-bean custard in a buttery puff pastry shell) and tarte au chocolat (a buttery pâté sucrée pastry shell filled with rich, dark, dense ganache and topped with chocolate cornucopia and marzipan fruits).

Fleur de Cocoa offers a light lunch menu that includes several French staples such as crêpes, galettes and quiches and croque-monsieur -- the French version of a hot ham and cheese sandwich made with béchamel sauce and gruyère cheese.

Janvier varies the assortment of cakes and pastries every day. Then there is a choice of exquisitely packaged chocolates, some made by Janvier and some imported from France. Today, Janvier will be dishing up Valentine treats -- passion fruit tartlets, raspberry tartlets, cakes with white chocolate mousse and brandied raspberries.