People that come to Paris commonly request something more famous from Brittany when they ask, "Where can we get a good crêpe in Paris?"
Although crêpes are available on just about every street corner, most of the young folks who make them (when they're not rioting and burning down the city) don't really give a cul de rat (rat's ass) about the quality, any more than the kid flipping burgers at McDonald's care about creating a fine specimen of America's Favorite Sandwich.
In the area around the gare Montparnasse in Paris, there's a plethora of crêperies since the trains departing and arriving from that station go to Brittany and the immigrants set up shop there once upon a time. In an area crowded with crêperies, the only one that stands out is Josselin. It's noisy, bustling, and lots of fun.
In the area around Grands Boulevard, there's fun crêperies run by Arab folks who fill them with crumbly feta cheese, spinach, spicy merguez sausages, and olives.
But one of the best crêpes in Paris can be found at Crêperie Bretonne, in the unlikely area of 11th arrondisement, near the Bastille. I prefer crêpes made with blé noir, buckwheat flour, although buckwheat crêpes are generally called galettes rather than crêpes.
(Er...unless they call them crêpes blé noir, kinda like saucisse vs saucisson, if you remember that conundrum...which I don't care to revisit.)
On a recent visit, I had a classic galette enclosing a find slice of jambon de Paris, grated gruyère cheese, and a softly-fried egg resting in the middle waiting to be broken to moisten the whole thing. The galette was crisp at the edges and had the earthy taste of real, freshly-ground buckwheat. We had bottle of one of my favorite ciders, Val de Rance, brut, of course, which is the driest of the fermented apple ciders. For dessert I had a simple galette smeared with salted butter and a puddle of honey, warmed by the galette. The desserts are so delicious the women at the next table had two crêpes for dessert and they waitress gladly brought her a big jar of confiture de lait to pile on a volonté, as liberally as she wished.
Other addresses and links for great crêpes in Paris:
Josselin
67, rue du Montparnasse (14th)
Tél: 01 43 20 93 50
Crêperie Bretonne
67, rue de Charonne (11th)
Tél: 01 43 55 62 29
Breizh Café
109, rue Vieille du Temple (3rd)
Tél: 01 42 72 13 77
West Country Girl
6, passage St. Ambroise (11th)
Tél: 01 47 00 72 54
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Breizh Café (updated favorite)
oh YUM. Buckwheat and fried eggs and salted butter and melting honey. This is what I want for lunch!
I second Luisa! I've *just* finished breakfast, but oh, for a galette with good, salty, fatty stuff...
Sigh.
I bought some buckwheat from Shuna Fish which I keep in my freezer for crepeoccasions. Or when I am too lazy to make them, we head to ti couz who surely can make very satisfactory galettes. They even have the cidre brut.
67, is a lucky number for creperie in paris :-)
Thanks for the address will try the one from rue de charonne...
By the way in front of this creperie there is a great vietnamese restaurant named paris-hanoi...
Bon appetit ;-)
Yum. It seems that crepes are back in fashion in NYC these days, but GOOD crepes are still hard to find, IMHO. We had excellent galettes and cidre brut recently in Montreal, as well as my first-ever taste of Kouign Amann (at a bakery by that very name, in fact). I'm totally hooked.
Do you know how many times I have found myself on that street, in Montparnasse, and thought "I know that one or two of these crepe places must be better than the others, but which one?" Merci! Merci!
And merci aussi to Olivier for the Vietnamese resto tip!
You are now officially the luckiest man on earth.
YUM!
Gorgeous crepes! Here I am trying to study for term exams and you have me thinking about crepes for lunch tomorrow.. I love your site!
David,
I'm planning to fix crepes this evening -- an attempt to recreate a scallop recipe I fixed about fifteen years ago that has been haunting me lately.
Hi David,
I'm so glad that you mentioned Josselin. Shortly after moving to Paris in 2003, me and my significant other chanced upon this crêperie. Just as you described, the place was buzzing with activity, servers running "to and fro," noisy and frenetic. The crêpes were excellent and even better, the servers were personable and waited on us with a smile on their lips and a twinkle in their eye.
This, I thought, is what I came here to experience in the City of Light.
Ah les crêpes! Mon péché mignon! I will keep those addresses. Thanks. Makes me think, while inn NZ in february, I met an old friend of mine in Wellington who just opened a stand there. She is from Brittany and hers were to die for! She is so popular now.;-) Just in case you went, who knows!
Thanks for all your comments, everyone. I'm glad so many of you share my enthusiasm for crêpes! I've been really craving them lately. Maybe because of the lousy weather here (which is getting better), that unbeatable combination of fat and carbs is too hard to resist.
Sam: I bought buckwheat in Brittany, which is amazing. Someone told me buckwheat flour never goes bad, although I'm not sure about that. There's a great Buckwheat Cake in my book, Ripe For Dessert, which you should try.
Olivier: I've been to Paris-Hanoi (which was how I discovered this crêperies) but the lines are always too long and once you get in, it's too chaotic. Try Le Bambou, in the 13th. It's great.
John: So glad you've been to Josselin. It's really a lot of fun.
Bea: New Zealand? Girl, you get around.
Uh, I'm going to be...uh, difficult here... ;)
Val de RANCE. The Rance is a river in St Malo in Brittany.
;)
Kouign Aman is second to God.
The first time I tasted this I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I had seconds and a slice of heaven was missing. The third day I ate the entire sky. The next day the angels vanished as I ate and ate. By the fifth day hell started to shake. On the sixth day, in my husband birth place, I decided France and I could be friends as long as Kouign Aman and I remain close. and by the seventh day there was one fat american cow.
About a year ago I discovered Kouign Aman for the first time at BOULE PATISSERIE in Los Angeles. I can't imagine how incredible they must be in France with the local ingredients...
There's a word to describe people who put up photos like this: Torturers.
David- I'm wondering if these creperies (and similar) are open for dinner too, or are they more lunch type places? Just doing some advance planning for our trip to Paris and the Dordogne coming up in a couple weeks. Thanks!
Hi AlliK;
Yes, those crêperies are open for dinner. In fact, I had dinner last week at the Crêperie Bretonne on rue de Charonne-yum! Make sure to order the Val de Rance cider, not the stuff in pitchers (which isn't bad, but the V d R is great).
Thanks, David. Sounds like a good possibility for a more low-key dinner. I'd offer to bring over some marshmallows for you, but it looks like you're all stocked up :) Anything else you need?
We just came home from Paris and Josselin's was my most favorite place to eat! Even my 6 yr old appreciated the excellent food, friendly service and adorable setting. Josselin's will rank among our favorite memories!
I found the author's comments about the youth rioting in Paris a little stupid. It's not the French youth who riot, it's the Arab immigrants and those of Arabic and African descent. And they don't burn the city down but riot in the crappy suburbs where they clearly belong. I'm sick and tired of people always putting the French down at every opportunity they get. It's getting old, really.
Politics aside, buckwheat are for savoury and regular flour for sweet crepes.
Just to let you know bout a new crêperie in Paris that I founded really nice.
Home made caramel and Chantilly absolutely great.
http://www.creperieduparc.site-fr.fr
Thanks for the recommendation regarding Crêperie Bretonne. We never would have found it on our own, but had need for good crepes and Brezh was closed. I had one of the special crepes with andouille and apples. Except the andouille was not at all what I expected, but rather a Breton specialty of concentric rings of aged pork, with strong tripe and hay notes. Actually delicious.
We didn't really have a bad meal during a week in Paris. One bistro on Rue Perignon near UNESCO (Cafe Bistro?) served the four of us three great meals, including an incredible hamburger, but sadly overcooked salmon and green beans.