À La Crêpe Bretonne
March 16, 2008
Four locations:
5182 Côte des Neiges
2080 Mountain Street
808 St. Catherine Street West
360 St. François Xavier Street
Price range: Inexpensive to moderate
Food: Good to excellent
Service: Fair to good
Décor: Excellent
The cornerstone of Louis Tavan’s restaurant empire has expanded to four locations in and around Montreal. All have beautiful décor, a Tavan trademark, with rough walls, exposed beams and oak furniture. The menu lists different crêpes from plain ($1.35) to crabmeat filled ($4.95). There are two different crêpe batters, lightly salted buckwheat for main course dishes, and slightly sweet wheat for dessert-type crêpes. Fillings-to-crêpes ratio has improved of late; the crêpes are now more generously filled. The Salade de Louis ($1.85) is also very good. Service tends to be erratic, depending on location, time of day and luck. On Mountain Street, the upstairs room, known as Le Colbert, is exquisitely designed to resemble the interior of an old ship with beautiful curving woodwork.
À la carte crêpes from $1.35 to $4.95; crêpe du jour, $1.95 to $2.95, includes coffee. Open every day of the year; 11 a.m. to midnight Sun. thru Wed., 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sat. on Côte des Neiges St.; 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Mon. thru Fri., 10 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Sat., 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Sun. on Mountain St.; 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Mon. thru Thurs., 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Fri., 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Sat., 4 p.m. to midnight Sun. on St. Catherine St.; 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mon. thru Thurs., 11:30 am to midnight Fri., noon to midnight Sat. and Sun. on St. François Xavier St. Reservations advisable. Group arrangements are possible. Fully licensed. Honors AC, AE, CB, CX, DC, MC.
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Notes for 2008 readers:
This restaurant, reviewed in 1976, no longer exists. There does not appear to be any business at the former Côte des Neiges location; the Mountain Street location is now a club called Bluroom; the approximate location of the Sainte Catherine Street location is where the Aveda store is today; and we cannot find any business or restaurant at 360 St. Francois Xavier.
There had been a single remaining À la Crêpe Bretonne restaurant, at 5058 avenue du Parc, just below Laurier, but this location is now occupied by Le Margaux, a mid-priced French restaurant very popular with neighborhood diners.
Share your memories of this restaurant in the comments. If you have period (1974-1979) or current (2006-2008) photographs of this location that you’d like to share, drop us a line at gyron.malloway@gmail.com.
A La Crepe Bretonne’s original location was in Ste Adele. We went there often as kids with all of our Ste Adele friends. One of our friends is turning 50 and we are putting together memorabilia for her. If anyone has a recipe or a menu from A la Crepe Bretonne, I would love to have it.
Karen
I’m with Karen, if you have a recipe, pass it along! I used to go to the Mountain St. restaurant almost every Sunday with a group of friends from McGill, back in 1973. The crepes stand out in my memory as genius, absolutely the best part of my time in Montreal. It’s very difficult to convey what they were like to others, at least in the United States, as I’ve come across nothing like them since. They were about 8-10″ squares when folded over. You had your choice of batters and fillings, ranging from sweet to savory. They were hot and fresh and wonderful.
Oh yes, I will never forget this restaurant. Growing up in Montreal, this restaurant was one of my favourite childhood places to go and eat.
I remember how exciting it was to go out to
the Crepe Bretonne and eat those wonderfully
tasty crepes.
And your right, I have yet to see anything like
these crepes again, anywhere. They truly were
fantastic and were truly part of the wonderful
fare of their era.
Having been to A La Crepe Bretonne on my two visits to Montreal as a young man, I was extremely disappointed when I finally got to France and had crepes…in Brittany! The crepes in that Montreal restaurant (decorated as if on a ship) were far better than anything I found in France. The French crepes were made without any real imagination… honey or jam for example, whereas in Montreal it was fresh fruit, almond shavings and whipped cream. There was a far greater choice too – perhaps 80 different crepes – if memory serves – whereas in France you never found more than perhaps twenty. Too bad this restaurant no longer exists…but all the good ones of my youth have disappeared…
Hello everyone,
thanks so much for your comments, my father would be so happy to know, after all these years, that people still remember his restaurants.
For the recipes that you are asking; sorry but they are a family secret…
Thanks again