Skip to main content

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.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lunch in Paris: Le Plat du Jour

When we lived in Paris all of us had, during the weekdays, lunch outside. My wife had her lunch with her colleagues at the school she worked as assistant teacher, the kids in school and me in the simple café/restaurant Le Barbusse across the street of the bank. Le Barbusse, by the way the same place I had my breakfast or at least an espresso in the morning, offered every day choice of ‘Plat du Jour’, mostly one fish dish and one meat, poultry or in wintertime a stew. The Plat du Jour are simple, rustic, grandmother–style dishes prepared with seasonal products and offered at a very competitive price. And they are not only prepared ‘grand-mother style”, they are grand-mother serving sizes and quality also! The variety of the dishes, the fact you can choose makes the Plat du Jour very popular and appreciated by the regulars.  In fact, most neighborhood restaurants like La Barbusse make their business with the regular customers of the offices in the street passing by f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Martino

Every country has their famous ‘national’ sandwich. The Americans have their burgers and hotdogs, the French are very proud on their Croque Monsieur, a baked sandwich with cheese and ham, and their fresh baguettes with ham, the famous 'jambon beurre' , the Italians like their Panini as the Vietnamese have their favorite Banh Mi sandwich. And the Belgians have their Martino sandwich. "Invented" in 1951 by a former soccer player, Albert De Hert, who was running the small sandwich bar named  Quick at the famous De Coninckplein in Antwerp.  The story goes that one evening another soccer player nicknamed ‘Martino’, came in after drinking obviously a few beers too much and asked for a sandwich with ‘everything’ and it had to be spicy. In the kitchen Albert got a half baguette, spread it with ‘filet americain’ (minced raw beef mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, some capers, pepper and salt) and topped it with minced onion, chopped pickles, tabasco sauce, some ket...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sunday in Paris

Sunday was our lazy day. No rush to prepare for school or work and no stressful rush to the metro station (underground) to go to the office. After a slow breakfast, hot chocolate with ‘pain au chocolat’ (chocolate pastry) bread for the kids, coffee and bread or a few croissants for us we prepared to go out for our Sunday mission: The Market. All over Paris there are nearly daily markets as, by law, every district  has to organize two markets a week. There are not only street markets but Paris has also numerous covered markets such as The Enfants Rouges Market. Created in 1615 its Paris oldest food market.  But still today Parisians and foodie-tourists like the Enfants Rouges to buy the fresh produce at the stalls full of color and fragrance. Even in wintertime it is like hanging around on a Provence market is July. Sundays is our market day to get our provision for the week in vegetables, seafood, poultry, charcuteries and cheese of course. And in Les ...
Post a Comment
Read more