La Compagnie de Bretagne

Time Out says

Fri Feb 1 2013

With a crêperie gastronomique in the 6th arrondissement near Odéon, you have to expect high prices. The décor is part boutique design (elegantly printed presentation plates, Jouy cushions, fresh flowers) and part tailor-made rustic, with everything in subtle black and white Brittany shades. The service is both haughty and inefficient, so concentrate instead on Olivier Roellinger’s menu, which is definitely worth the effort.

The galettes are divided into classics (seaweed butter, complète, grilled sausage and onion compôte) and seasonal versions (black pudding, pear chutney and apple flambée; fried squid, spinach, beetroot chips and beetroot coulis; scallops, cauliflower and vanilla). It’s the same thing for the sweets – among the classics we liked the lemon curd, creamy and sharp. The top quality ingredients are local and organic and the galettes well executed, crunchy at the edges and soft in the middle. The dishes are almost comically well-presented, with artistically arranged fillings and the galette in origami-esque folds. It’s all a bit OTT, but the flavours are there, though not exactly the greedy generosity that is the hallmark of traditional crêperies.

There are also other dishes on the menu, starts like lobster and oysters and mains like the traditional pauper’s meat stew kig-ha-farz, eel stew, scallops and abalone in the Breton style. The quality is unimpeachable, but the pricing and the portion sizes give pause – €25 for a ‘pauper’s stew’ is a overdoing it.

By IS/EH