Breizh Café Paris: Where Brittany Meets Japan in Paris
Whenever I leave Paris, one of the memories I savour is the deep, earthy taste of a buckwheat galette at Breizh Café. For fans of Breizh, every crisp, savoury bite has its roots in a cross-cultural love story.
It began when Breizh Café founder Bertrand Larcher left his native Brittany for Tokyo to be with his Japanese wife, Yuko. While there, he noticed how the Japanese revered buckwheat soba noodles and realised that his home region and his new country shared a deep love for the same ingredient.
Inspired by this discovery, he opened Le Bretagne, a small crêperie in Tokyo’s Kagurazaka neighbourhood, serving traditional Breton galettes with the same care and attention to detail as fine soba. The business continued to grow, guided by a single conviction: to encourage a dialogue between Brittany and Japan through the flavours of local produce, the art of preparation and the passing down of culinary traditions. Following his success in Tokyo, Bertrand brought these ideas back home, opening Breizh Café restaurants in Cancale and Saint-Malo, on the Brittany coast, before opening the now-iconic restaurant in Paris’s Marais district in 2010.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Breizh Café has elevated the humble Breton crêpe from a simple comfort food to a more refined dining experience. Every savoury galette is made with 100% organic, gluten-free buckwheat flour. The fillings range from the classic Complète – ham, melted Comté cheese, an organic egg and rich Bordier butter – to more inventive combinations featuring shiitake mushrooms or a touch of yuzu. Some ingredients celebrate traditional Breton cuisine, while others reflect Japanese influences.
To finish, choose from the mouth-watering dessert crêpes, or opt for my personal favourite – a sweet wheat-flour crêpe drizzled with homemade salted butter caramel. Pair it with a glass of crisp, unfiltered Breton cider and enjoy!
Thirty years on, Breizh Café remains one of my greatest culinary pleasures – and the very first place I head to the moment I land in Paris.
Lead photo credit : Wally Gobetz
