Posh crepes

Crepes are as much a mainstay of French cuisine as Boeuf Bourguignon, Quiche Lorraine or Creme Brûlée. Although they originated from Brittany, you can find crepe stalls on street corners across every city in France, selling a variety of flavours from as little as a few Euros. By basically mixing together a wheat-based batter (a galette from Brittany is traditionally made from buckwheat) and frying a thin layer on a hot stove, you have the base for a versatile savory or sweet snack. More traditional fillings include ham, cheese and egg, or strawberries with chantilly cream, or nutella or just a squeeze of lemon and icing sugar.

Given that you can find such a wide variety at such affordable prices, on pretty much every street corner in Paris, it's quite surprising that "high-end creperies" such as La Compagnie de Bretagne on Rue de l'ecole de medicine in the 6th arrondissement of Paris can run a sustainable business.

With no specific plans on New Years Eve, we decided to join some friends at the last minute to try this place and on entering, I was very impressed by the homely decor and open kitchen. The menu is limited to galettes, which I guess is the whole point of the place. Aside from the traditional ones, they had some interesting ones such as scallops in a cream of cauliflower with coral emulsion (whatever that is) and vanilla, which all three of my fellow diners plumped for. The scallops were decent enough although they lacked a flambée which tend to give scallops the finishing touch.

I chose the sardines on a duxelle of mushrooms, served with a lemon confit. As you can see from the picture, this clearly was not sardine. I think it was possibly sea bream but I couldn't be bothered to argue with our waitress who I couldn't help noticing was swigging copious amounts of wine behind the curtain in between serving guests. Presumably this was to compensate for the fact that all her friends were probably drinking legitimately elsewhere while she had to work, and this only added to her moodiness.

I could see she was already getting short-tempered when I dared show surprise that my first choice (pollock fillets) was not available. This was later compounded by the fact that half the dessert menu was apaprently only at lunchtimes (not marked on the menu anywhere) and the one thing I wanted - roasted figs pan fried in cider with cumin ice cream - was also not availale. The restaurant was, after all, only half full at 8pm on a Saturday night - how could I expect them to have anything more than 30% of the menu available?

I did finally go for the apple tart crepe which was so delicious that I forgot to take a picture and had to take one of my friend's half-eaten one instead.

The mains were around 13 Euros and the desserts 8 Euros. There is also a good selection of ciders, which are apparently what Bretons wash their galettes down with. All in all, pretty over-priced for what it was especially given the service was average and half the menu was unavailable. I guess we were paying for the decor which is fairness was great.

To top it all off, the sea bream-masquerading-as-sardines, which I'm sure was probably cooked from frozen, gave me a mild bout of food poisoning that evening. I guess you could say that I spent the night having non-stop crepes. Happy new year!

La Compagnie de Bretagne: 9 Rue De L'ecole de Medecine, 75006 Paris.