Paris Eats - Gettin' Brunchy With It at L'Echappée

I always feel a bit of pressure when it's up to me to propose a restaurant for brunch. Will the food be tasty? Will the service be good? What if the baguette is bland and the café is horrible and it's all my fault?  

When Dancer Friend suggested that we make plans on Sunday, I did a bit of Googling and found two options - L'Echappée and Café Rouge.

While I'd eaten dinner at Café Rouge, I'd never had brunch there (slight risk of failure), and L'Echappée was completely new (high risk! but recommended by Timeout ). The other l'Echappée plus- it is  conveniently located right down the street from my house! Always a bonus on Sunday morning when the last thing you want to do is take the metro! 

I ended up making a reservation for Café Rouge since l'Echappée had no tables left for six. But, at 10:30 on Sunday morning, as I was getting the pre-brunch coffee going chez moi, l'Echappée called to say that they'd had a cancellation and that we could come at 2 - parfait!

L'Echappée is not only a restaurant but a spa and yoga / pilates studio. You could easily miss the little black awning while walking along rue de la Folie Mericourt...

Upstairs in the restaurant, the ambiance is relaxed / urban cozy, with a combo of high wooden tables and stools and long table basse with couches and lounge chairs. A wall of windows brings in natural light, and the buffets of delicious sucré / salé are the perfect start to a lazy Sunday.

For 25 Euros we had:

Bottomless coffee, tea and hot chocolate
A glass of freshly squeezed orange juice
Fresh baguette, jams, butter, honey and Nutella
Fruit salad (with pomegranate seeds...yummy)

A plat du jour - choice of vegetarian lasagna, a zucchini and chevre tarte, or scrambled eggs and home fries

An "all you can eat" sweet buffet - rice pudding, crème brulée, moelleux au chocolat, apple almond cake, mango cake, berry pie, flan, fromage blanc, muesli...

An "all you can eat" savory buffet - selection of cheeses, soup of the day (that particular Sunday was pumpkin soup)

and crêpes for dessert! (as if you'd have room!)

coffeeeeeeee

with cinnamon! (this alone earns them 10 extra brunch points from me)

crème brulée on the buffet sucré

cheese platter - (after we had gone in for serving number 1)

Feeling like a delicious brunch in a relaxing setting? (great service and bathrooms too!)

L'Echappée
64 rue de la Folie Mericourt
75011 Paris
Tel: 01 58 30 12 50

Metro: Oberkampf (line 9 and 5), Parmentier (line 3), Saint Ambroise (line 9)

Paris Eats - Pause Café Brunch!

Despite how close we live to Pause Café, I'm only been there twice now. The cafe appeared in Cedric Klapisch's film, Chacun Cherche Son Chat and as a result, is always crowded. Usually when I'm hungry, I just can't wait one more minute to eat, so crowded (read: waiting) is not something we shoot for.

This time, however, we made a reservation for brunch (what a concept!) and there was no waiting to be done! We showed up to hipsters and poached eggs - a great combo for a Sunday morning.

photo credit

I took a bunch of breaky photos, but my Iphone is having a minor breakdown and they are nowhere to be found.  My super-duper descriptive writing will have to do...

Brunch was 19.50 Euros per person and included the following:

• fresh-squeezed OJ
• big mug of coffee or tea (big is relative, it was actually what I would call "normal")
• basket of baguette and mini-pain au chocolat / croissant, butter, jams and a jar of organic Nutella-like spread (Copain had a field-day with the nutella spread).
• poached egg on an English muffin
• mesclun salad
• country potatoes (that were kind of like giant fries)
• greek yogurt sauce (that we dipped the potatoes in)
• yogurt with a mango drizzle and fresh fruit chopped up inside

Pluses: we were definitely full afterwards and the food was basically good. I especially liked the yogurt and fruit (it had pomegranate seeds!) and the poached egg. It was close to our house which meant no metro or biking, and the vibe was relaxed Sunday - 20 to 30 somethings, babies, strollers, chatter.

Minuses: the baguette was nothing special, just your run of the mill baguette. Same for the pain au chocolat and croissant - nothing that took my breath away. Coffee was not bottomless. We did get extra coffees, but the server made a point of telling us that she was making an exception (even though I offered to pay for my extra order...). I'm more of a bottomless coffee kind of gal...but what can you do?

Conclusion: for only 19.50, it's a great place to meet with friends in a chill atmosphere. Also, when I called for a reservation and told them that a baby would be eating with us, they made sure to give us a table that had room for a stroller next to it (not always easy in Paris!). As long as you don't go into it expecting food that is to die for and are mostly going for the ambiance, you won't be disappointed. Note: I have also eaten dinner here and I would say that the dinner food was much better! Also, the desserts were delish! You may even run into Romain Duris, who I definitely saw having an espresso on the terrace here once...

Feeling like a hipster brunch?

Pause Café

41 rue de Charonne

75011 Paris

Tel: 01 48 06 80 33

Metro: Ledru Rollin (line 8)

Paris Eats - Getting Brunchy With It!

For my copine's 33rd anniversaire, I took her to a brunch at A Priori Thé located in the covered passageway, Galérie Vivienne.  I had been there once before, but never for a brunch, and the whole package sounded fantastique.


Behold our lovely brunch:

The entrance to the passageway

We opted for inside seating, but you can also enjoy brunch on the terrace

This is what you see when you look up...

Even the floor is beautiful

Brunch first course: mini cornbread, scones and muffins, fromage blanc with raspberry coulis, tea (with milk for me!), freshly squeezed orange juice, butter and jams

Brunch second course: we both got zucchini stuffed with chèvre and pesto, tapenade with roasted noisette (hazelnuts) on top and fresh tomatoes

Brunch third course: I got the cheesecake with lemon zest, coconut and raspberry coulis; my copine got the double chocolate brownie....to die for.

The ambiance is cozy, service is friendly, food is delicious! Be sure to reserve - I've tried to pop in numerous times without one and it's not the way to go. Brunch was 30 Euros each and to be honest, we could have shared just one; afterwards we were sooo full.  We were there from 12:30 to 3:45pm...in other words, give yourself lots of time to grub and digest!

A Priori Thé

35-37 Galerie Vivienne

75002 Paris

Tel: 01 42 97 48 75

Metro: Bourse or Palais Royal

ps - We took a walk through Palais Royal to digest take in the scenery...beautiful!

Paris Eats - Getting Brunchy With It!

Copain and I decided to get brunchy with it on Sunday - problem was, we hadn't planned in advance and made reservations.  Result: all the brunches we knew about were FULL. Next service at 2pm.

Waiting until 2pm to eat was sooooo not happening for me, so we took a little stroll in our 'hood and stopped in a La Fée Verte ("the green fairy), an art déco style bistrot known for its collection of absinthe, on rue de la Roquette.

I love, love, love the decor and ambiance at La Fée Verte.  Sometimes I think the food is great and sometimes it's just ok, but the ambiance is perfecto every time - hanging plants, mirrors, great art deco designs everywhere, cosy tables with candles, a round bar, friendly waiters. I dig.

While lots of brunches in Paris are of the "all you can eat" variety, this is not the case at La Fée Verte. Here you get a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, a hot drink (we took café crème), scrambled eggs with bacon and mushrooms, a small salad, a chicken sandwich, a smoked salmon sandwich and a fresh fruit salad with a citrus whipped cream on top.

Our main dish

The perfect end to our big brunch

The cost for each brunch was 22 Euros and we didn't feel hungry again until dinner time (we ate at around 12:30 I'd say).  While it was a little more expensive than some all-you-can-eat brunches I've had in a the past (they usually run about 19 or 20 Euros), the portion size was spot on - maybe even a bit too much for me.  So, I ate just enough and not too much, like I would have if I had been able to keep serving myself!

Want to try out La Fée Verte?

108 rue de la Roquette

75011 PAris

Tel: 01 43 72 31 24

Metro: Voltaire or Bastille