THANK YOU!!
Will definitely give Boulangerie Morange a try!..breakfast settled! Ha!
I dunno when DL wrote about Biche but my last visit was 15 years ago or so. nice place, very tight quarters, simple food. Sort of the mythological ideal from a “geezers” view point. That said, you’re not gonna get this in NYC or Kansas. so, there’s that.
There are a number of creperies on Rue Mouffetard, one in particular that we greatly appreciated on the day of our arrival in Paris from the US when we weren’t quite ready for a sit-down meal. It only had window service but the crepes were excellent.
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Sounds like La Crêpe carrée, which had no sitting space. The crêpes were Parisian style, soft and thick. Not sure it’s still there anymore. There was also Crêperie Oroyona (this one is still around).
Might have been Au P’tit Grec. Going down the hill on the right. Walked by there a couple times a week or so ago, always a line to order.
I was told ’ Creperie Petite Bretonne Paris on #48 Rue Mouffetard was pretty good and highly rated! Most importantly, they open on Sunday, the day we arrive!
For many foreigners, any crêpe/ galette is good because they have so little experience of them and no real basis for comparison. Even those rubbery crêpes with cheap Nutella imitation fillings they sell at stands outside the major tourist attractions sometimes get rave reviews on Google.
Rue Mouffetard, very much part of the tourist trail, is very tricky and a gauntlet of the good, the bad and the mediocre. As someone with lots of crêpes/ galettes under his belt over the years, I go to Pot o’Lait crêperie on rue Censier when in “La Mouffe” simply because they are very, very good (by Parisian standards) every time, and it’s a real neighbourhood joint rather than a for-the-tourists place.
@Charles. To make your stroll on the rue Mouffetard a less touristic experience and to appreciate the parisian food culture in action, try to include a browse of the very nearby village-y outdoor food market on place Monge on Sunday (and Wed + Fri) mornings.
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Be careful with the generalized use of the term “crêpes”, it can be irritating for a Breton to hear one generalizes every pancake as crêpes. There is a distinction between a galette (100% buckwheat and usually savoury - but in rare case, it can be sweet) and a crêpe (wheat flour and sweet pancake).
Parn raises an important point here. Although it is in my neighborhood, I have never visited La Petite Bretonne, and there’s nothing I can say about it, except that I’ve never heard of it while I’m surrounded by a few galettes aficionados, some of them professional crêpe makers, who would certainly have mentioned it to me if it were worth it. Perhaps it is. The blurb on their website is cute, but little is said about the way they prepare their galettes, crêpes get a more thorough treatment. At least one picture suggests that they use pure organic buckwheat flour from Brittany, ground at the Moulin de Carmenais (Morbihan), which is an important point. The origin and quality of the buckwheat is the first criteria for good galettes, since buckwheat is a tricky grain which will yield very different results depending on that. Another picture shows a galette which looks okay but is covered with strips of bacon and an egg which wasn’t fried directly on the galette. Hm.
The fact that they’re transfuges from Le Petit Josselin on Crêpe Street hints at me that they could also be subject to the Montparnasse syndrome, which needs to be explained a bit.
A good galette bretonne has to be kraz (very crispy from a slightly overtime frying in butter) and its general shape rather flat, it shouldn’t be thick like a bed mattress. Now depending on the subregions in Brittany, people will like their galettes with a different texture (you can say crêpes de sarrasin or crêpes de blé noir and crêpes in general — in Breton-speaking Brittany they don’t say galettes which is a French word but krampouez gwiniz du, which means « buckwheat crêpes ». Galettes is the right term in French-speaking Brittany, pays Gallo). Regarding texture, they like them kraz in Northern Finistère and Côtes-d’Armor (the pays of Léon and Tregor), if you ask you may have them quite kraz too in Southern Finistère and Morbihan, but they may be a bit more supple elsewhere. In Haut-Léon and Tregor (between Roscoff and Erquy) they like them flat and crispy. However nothing brings out the flavor of good buckwheat like a careful crisping-up in butter, so the fact that a crêperie respects the kraz factor is a good way to evaluate it.
However, as a type of Parisian street food, the buckwheat crêpe/galette was cheap student food before it became a tourist item and the epicenter of student crêpe-eating has always been around the Gare Montparnasse. Being devoured on a daily basis by thousands of hungry and broke young people, it was expected to be as filling as possible, and that is why the Montparnasse crêpes are thick-layered and overstuffed. They were fodder to begin with, and you very seldom see them in that form in Brittany. It is very difficult, actually impossible, to have it kraz and thin, not overstuffed, and with the garnishings cooked properly in these conditions. This is the Montparnasse syndrome.
To make a long story short (sorry), I have never been to La Petite Bretonne for the simple reason that I am just like Daniel/Parn; when I want crêpes/galettes in my neighborhood I have Le Pot’ O Lait, and it is perfect. I can even ask the kitchen to make it extra kraz for me.
My other favorites all over the city, aside from Breizh Café, are Mad’ Eo and Krügen. Not been to Gigi as yet.
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Is milk ued in the galette?
No, just buckwheat flour, water, and salt.
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I can only share my experience over the last 19 years of getting together for meals with other Chowhounds. I find it remarkable just how in sync we are. I have met over 100 and have an extensive list that I invite to meals, though curtailed greatly recently due to the pandemic. Certainly in a meal where we share ~10 dishes, there will be somewhat different reactions, but the the breadth of agreement is eye-opening.
And when I travel I have truly reaped the rewards by following advice, with the caveat that I don’t give or take blanket recommendations.
But maybe that has not been true in your experience.
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Just to add, there’s a reason for this to be centered around Gare Montparnasse. That is the train line to Brittany and was a neighborhood heavily populated by Bretons.
I have had two glorious crepes in my life: one was at Ti Couz in San Francisco (galettes were all the rage) and a crepe auvergnat with ham cream and mushrooms on a farm in Auvergne. I couldn’t tell where the pancake ended and the filling began. It was seamless. The one I had on r. du Montparnasse was not interesting in the least.
Thanks!
Ha! You reminded me of a pit stop my daughter and I made on the road from our morning arrival in Nice (my daughter’s lost luggage report held us up some) to our destination in Aix en Provence. We were frankly starving, saw a sign off the highway for a creperie. It was a one story building, a little rough on the outside. Inside was full (and I mean full) of happy, hungry French people. I can’t recall what variety of galettes we ate, but I felt I had never tasted anything so wonderful before. All’s well that ends well, my daughter’s suitcase turned up at our hotel in Aix the next night.
Noticed no one mentioned the once very popular ’ Auguste '?! Is it still good? Price point almost same as Montee! How does the two compare?!
Of course. The train stations explain a lot of the restaurant and café scene in Paris. Bretons (and Basques) around Gare Montparnasse, Normans around Gare Saint-Lazare (which explains some café names in the neighborhood including names of Norman cities like Argentan or Le Havre) with the brasseries Garnier and Mollard being (formerly?) Norman-owned; Alsatians and Lorrains around Gare de l’Est (the choucroute brasseries); Northerners around the Gare du Nord with frites and mussels; Auvergnat brasseries near gare d’Austerlitz, Gare de Lyon having lost any trace of Lyonnais or Provençal places a long time ago, God knows why. The prominent style of restaurants around Gare de Lyon used to be the Chinese-Vietnamese places of the now-disappeared Ilôt Chalon.
I’ve found an interesting map of Paris dating back from the 1930s and indicating which provincial communities dwelled in various sectors of Paris. Forgot where it was, but I’ll be sure to share it if I find it.
Auvergne is also a buckwheat region, the plant grows on poor soils and thus was not only preferred in Brittany but also in Western Normandy, South Auvergne, and the Limousin, among other places. The buckwheat crêpes were called bourriols in Auvergne and galetous in Limousin. Even today there’s a fantastic crêperie in Clermont-Ferrand, la crêperie 1515 in the Hôtel des Hommes Sauvages.
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Thanks so much for that roundup. Fascinating and instructive.
On Google Maps I found the creperie in CF, (1513) and I see they make galettes Ambertoise, Cantalouse, and of course Auverngate. Plus they serve truffade. Wish I could be there right now.
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Now, to be honest, the crêpes de sarrasin at Crêperie 1513 (my mistake, not 1515) are not the best I’ve ever had, but I cherish them and the place for a few reasons. You’ll seldom hear me praise a serving in a restaurant because it is huge, but this crêperie is an exception.
- The garnishes on the crêpes are extremely generous,
- They are based on good-quality ingredients,
- Some are devoted to local specialties (as you’ve noticed) — Auvergne cheeses, local ham and pork products, etc.
- There are so many different garnishes on the crêpes that the menu is a true museum of La Crêpe going crazy,
- The place is a beautiful 16th-century hall vaulted in carved lava stone, the grey pierre de Volvic that is so prominent in Auvergne, and it’s truly something to wonder about,
- The small courtyard you walk through from the street before entering the crêperie is decorated with a fantastic Renaissance sculpted relief of two « hommes sauvages », i.e. wild men, some kind of old-fashioned furry Bigfeet carrying wooden clubs,
- And this is because the house itself is one of the many Renaissance and Baroque mansions in Clermont-Ferrand making the city center one of the most beautiful ever, though few people really pay attention to it.
I never fail to pay a visit to this lovely place whenever I’m lucky enough to stay in beautiful Clermont-Ferrand, even though it’s very remote from the Breton style.
As a matter of fact, I’ve had their truffade, and although it’s not as good as my friend Bénédict’s version (which can be seen here), it’s quite decent.
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Having read many of his posts for years, IMO Lebovitz is for all things sweet tooth-related what a blend of Parn/Talbott is for Paris restaurants.
In terms of his restaurant recommendations, they are often out-of-date, and I consider them – at best – a small plus factor not much different than what i might take form any random CH or HO poster.
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