Breakfast in Paris

Our mothers always told us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that we have to be sure we include all food groups or the ‘pyramid’: bread or cereals, fruits, dairy,…

But breakfast traditions are different. In Belgium we were used to eat ‘heavy’ breakfasts with bread, butter, eggs, cheese, and ham. The British eat baked beans, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, black pudding, toast and marmalade and in Scandinavia fish is on the breakfast table.

But not in Paris!

Breakfast in Paris is, like lunch, mostly an ‘outdoor’ activity. Only few families have breakfast together during weekdays as most schools offer breakfast for the kids before classes and the parents have ‘something’ on the way to the office.

During my stint in Paris, I usually took my breakfast in the bar/restaurant Le Barbusse in front of our office building. In every neighborhood with offices or workshops there are plenty of those small neighborhood bar/café/restaurants offering breakfast from early in the morning.

What are Parisians calling ‘breakfast’?

Standard is ‘pain beurre’, sliced fresh baguette with creamy butter, sometimes with a little jam and coffee. I always had a ‘café noir’ (strong espresso served with a small sachet of white sugar) but my French colleagues mostly ordered a ‘café crème’, an espresso with steamed milk, served in a larger cup.                                                                                     

Parisians have a sweet tooth when it comes to breakfast. Think of the ‘croissant’, that delicious golden brown pastry made of buttery puff pastry and, even more delicious, the ‘pain au chocolat’, a pastry with melting pieces of chocolate inside. If you are lucky the pastries are oven fresh and still warm when served. Very often Parisians replace their café creme with a hot chocolate and enjoy their bread and butter or croissant dunking in the creamy chocolate drink.

But the neighborhood café/restaurant as the breakfast place to go, have more and more competition of the bakeries whom invested in an espresso machine and a few tables and chairs and offer their fresh crusty baguette with butter and still warm pastries to the customers.

And then there is McDonalds!

In 2004 McDonalds opened the first McCafe in Paris La Defense, where no burgers and fries are served but sandwiches, soups and breakfast! During the day customers can enjoy cakes, pastries, macaroons and specialty coffees as a direct competitor for Starbucks.

Today there are more than 200 McCafe’s in France, a number that is still growing. Globally the McCafe formula seems to be successful with more than 1300 in more than 20 countries, from Paraguay over Australia, Malaysia to the Philippines.

McCafe is a total different style, it’s more like Starbucks, as the breakfast formulas offered all over the world in the typical ‘McDonald’s fast-food’ style where every country has an adapted menu.

But breakfast in Paris is part of the Parisian way of life and surely no fast food! The café-culture will be Paris forever.