The Bread

While first and foremost a pastry chef, curiosity has led Benoît Castel to explore the pleasure and craft of making quality breads. One bread in particular caught my attention because it adds pinch of North America in Castel’s otherwise patently French pastry shops/bakeries in the 11th and 20th arrondissement.

“I have a supplier who goes around the world looking for interesting spices and then holds a tasting of them twice each year,” says Castel. “The scheduling of one tasting coincided with my reflections on creating a new bread for the shop. One of the products I tasted was alder wood smoked Salish salt from Washington State. As soon as I tasted it I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to use that,’ and I started to imagine a recipe around it. I liked the smoked woody taste that was both subtle and distinct enough that its flavor would come through while keeping the salt level down. And I decided to balance it out with the addition of the earthy-floral touch of honey.”

Save the salt allotment for the butter, that’s what I say.

Along with the honey and Salish salt bread he calls Pain du Coin, his daily bread line-up also includes a traditional baguette, a traditional rounded loaf, and a walnut, hazelnut and raisin bread called Le Granola. On weekends, two other hard-crust slow-fermented breads based on organic specialty flours join the shelves: Le Pain du Traquet Pâtre (flour from Morbihan, southern Brittany) and Le Pain des Deux Livres (flour from Lot-et-Garonne, between Bordeaux and Toulouse).

The hard-crust breads, some the size of couch cushions, nearly require a chain saw to be sliced. That’s a compliment—the play between the hard crust and the spongy heart is part of the pleasure of such breads.

The Brunch

The typical traveler is unlikely to have a chain saw available to cut into a chunk of hard-crust bread during a Paris promenade. Not to worry, it’s already been sliced for those who come for brunch at Benoît Castel Ménilmontant, Castel’s pastry shop/bakery/breakfast/brunch shop-café in the 20th arrondissement.

The bread is only a small part of the pleasure of brunching here. Above all, this is a satisfying and friendly entry to a neighborhood that’s largely off-track for tourist. It’s an ideal place to begin weekend wandering in the increasingly gentrified neighborhoods of eastern Paris. From here you can explore the 20th and 11th arrondissements as you make your way back to center. (You needn’t actually wait for the weekend; Benoît Castel Ménilmontant is also open for breakfast, as wells for a light lunch Wednesday through Friday.)

The semi-industrial décor, the old bread oven in the back, the canteen-style plates, the mismatched tables and chairs, and the haphazard décor are as much a reflection of Castel’s enjoyment of sourcing furnishings from flea market and second-hand shops as it is a sign that the space is fully at home in entrepreneurial (some would say Brooklynesque) eastern Paris.

There’s an open pastry kitchen, where you might see Castel putting the finishing touches on a pie.

That, too, is a sign of the times. In an open kitchen there are no secrets and no pretentions other than to keep it fresh, keep it simple, keep it good. (The bread is made in the basement.)

During brunch, Castel works non-stop while always available for frequent interruptions from clients.

At 29€, Benoît Castel Ménilmontant’s brunch is on the upper end of brunch prices in eastern Paris. But it’s all-you-can-eat, linger-‘til-you’ve-had-your-fill, there’s-something-to-please-everyone, and compares favorably with typical 22€ single-plate offering.

Generally speaking, brunch is not a working class outing in Paris, so a 29€ brunch in an area that was, until a decade ago, largely considered a neighborhood of working class and immigration, is a sign of how much eastern Paris has changed and is changing. It remains a melting pot, though the new arrivals represent less diversity and more financial comfort than earlier arrivals.

It’s a self-serve brunch, other than the glass of fresh squeezed juices (choice of orange, apple and carrot during our brunch) that will be brought to the table.

Castel says that it’s not unusual for brunchers to stay for two hours. We did. We took a seat at 11:30AM, tried all of the breads, croissants, homemade jams and butter for breakfast, sat for a few minutes with coffee, then eased into lunch. Whether because we take our job as travel journalists seriously or because we were feeling particularly voracious, we tasted everything: the egg dish, the hams, and the salads, then the ribs, the chicken and the other salads, all country-style and freshly prepared. There’s something for everyone. We picked from each other’s plates the ones we cared for that the other didn’t.

Brunch doesn’t include the single-serving tarts and dinner-party-size pies available in the pastry shop. Yet the family-style desserts at brunch—French toast pie, panna cotta, chocolate mousse, and watermelon with a strawberry coulis—are evidence already of Castel’s easy-going sense of the sweet life.

We lingered, and only the promise of a sunny afternoon stroll pulled us from our seats.

The Pastries

Pastries are the heart of Benoît Castel’s craft and trade. It’s a craft he began training in as a teen in Brittany and has pursued in Paris since the age of 17.

Individual pastries can be purchased as an add-on to brunch, but you’re unlikely to find room in your appetite. Better to return another time. Or zig-zag slowly through eastern Paris as you make your way downhill toward Castel’s small shop on rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. By the time you arrive you be ready for a tart of one kind or another.

Fans of glossy pastry pics for their Instagram feed may be a bit disappointed to find that Castel’s creations aren’t covered in cute and cheery. He eschews efforts to raise the profile of his pastries through purely decorative means or coloring. His palette is pastel rather than acrylic. Quality classics reign, such as the simple and simply delicious tarte à la crème, along with the tartelette aux fraises, the tartelette aux framboise, the tarte citron, the millefeuille (napoleon) and the moelleux chocolat. The display counter may also include the occasional foreign (but increasingly common) intruder such as a light round of cheesecake.

Castel’s pastry signature is a tiny tart-topping square of shortbread (sablé), placed on top like a cocked cap, inviting us to enjoy, to share, and not take any of this too seriously.

Several crumbs of baking history

The Ménilmontant shop bears some Paris bread-baking history. It was here that, in 1960, Bernard Ganachaud, a son of bakers, opened his first Paris shop, Boulangerie Ganachaud. In 1968 Ganachaud turned to baking his bread in a wood-burning oven, the old-fashion way. The old oven is still visible here.

In 1981, Ganachaud created the recipe for flûte Gana, a traditional poolish pre-fermented stick of bread with a crackly crust and a tender airy crumb. The Gana is a fairly well-known branded bread in Paris, though its fame pales in comparison with that of Poilâne bread, a country-style sourdough bread baked in a wood-burning oven, whose international reputation developed under Lionel Poilâne. Nevertheless, more than 200 bakeries are licensed to produce the flûte Gana in France. The Ganachaud family sold the shop now owned by Benoît Castel long ago as they expanded their little empire in other quarters. Those on the bread tour of eastern Paris might stop at the Ganachaud boutique at 226 Rue des Pyrénées (20th arr.), a 7-minute walk from here.

Benoît Castel Ménilmontant
150 rue de Ménilmontant
75020 Paris
01 46 36 13 82
Open Wed.-Fri., 7:30AM-8PM. Breakfast and light lunch served those days. Open Sat. 8AM-8PM and Sun. 8AM-6PM. Brunch is served Saturdays and Sunday 10:30AM to 3:00PM. The space seats 50. Reservations are not taken, so arrive for brunch by 11:30AM or after 1:30PM to avoid a line. By the time the day’s crumbs have been cleared, 100 to 120 people have brunched here.

Benoît Castel Jean-Pierre Timbaud
72 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud
75011 Paris
01 48 06 70 59
Open Mon.-Sat. 8AM-8:30PM, Sun. 8AM-6PM.

Castel also operates the joyfully named Josephine Bakery at 42 rue Jacob in the 6th arrondissement. The little shop isn’t big on bread but is well situated for tourists looking for a snack in the area. Open Mon.-Fri. 7:30AM-7:30PM.

Map showing the location of the Ménilmontant and Jean-Pierre Timbaud shops.

If visiting the neigbhorhoods in eastern Paris, you might find yourself on rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, as an American couple who brunched at Benoît Castel Ménilmontant did in Paris Street Talk: Chadors, Cannibals, Communists and the Wall of 3 Crowns.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Benoît Castel: Bread, Brunch, Pastries in Eastern Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Kate Robinson

“I’m a fan of beers that are facile à boire, that you can drink the whole evening,” Daniel Thiriez said with a wry smile as he introduced the latest creation of his brewery Brasserie Thiriez.  (Brasserie means brewery in French.) He’d been invited by the owners of Paris’s new craft beer bar La Fine Mousse to present his various brews, including his latest, La Petite Princesse, a pale gold, low-alcohol beer brewed in collaboration with the Austin-Texas-based Jester King brewery. The crowd at La Fine Mousse was in for a special treat that evening. “You’re probably the very first people in France to taste this on tap,” he said.

Until recently, opportunities like this to meet craft brewers or discover beers outside of the Heineken-AB-InBev-Kronenbourg industrial triumvirate on tap in Paris were few and far between. But the Great Beer Desert finally has an oasis: La Fine Mousse, the first bar in Paris to seriously specialize in craft beer. Located on a discreet corner of the 11th arrondissement one block from the heart of the lively Oberkampf neighborhood, La Fine Mousse, roughly translated as “The Delicate Head [of Beer],” offers a revolving selection of 20 craft beers on tap and nearly 150 bottled references, as well as a program of brewery nights, brewing classes, and tastings—all proof that good beer is making its comeback in Paris and in good company.

From couch to counter

Romain Thieffry, Cyril Lalloum and Laurent Cicurel, the trio behind the counter at La Fine Mousse, which opened in September 2012, are also behind Les Soirées Maltées, a Paris-based organization that has been bringing craft beer fans and brewers together since 2010. Their diverse backgrounds did not include experience in the bar or restaurant industry, but they shared a love of good beer and the frustration of not having a place to enjoy it.

“With Les Soirées Maltées, we discovered that there were many difficult-to-find craft beers in France and no bar, even in Paris, that represented the diversity and quality of French breweries,” says Romain. So the three beer-lovers, together with Simon Thillou, owner of the beer shop La Cave à Bulles near the Pompidou Center, decided to create a place dedicated to good beer.

The craft beer revival in France is recent, but the country’s dormant affinity for a good brew goes back a long way. At the end of the 19th century, soon after Pasteur demystified fermentation and long before Americans started putting their own spin on European brewing traditions, France was home to 2,827 large breweries, and thousands of small local operations peppered the country’s northern regions.

At the time, beer and wine were happy tablemates: both were products of strong local industries with deep connections to the land. But the early years of the 20th century were not kind to traditional beer-making. Many village breweries were run by men who ended up fighting and dying in the world wars, which left fewer people to carry on the tradition of craft beer. In the absence of strong local breweries, the industrial giants found an easy foothold. By the mid-1970s, only 23 breweries were operating in France.

It would be the mid-nineties before the first French craft breweries appeared and another decade or more before the public started taking notice. Today there are nearly 500 breweries in France—that’s more than there are in Belgium. While many limit themselves to a small locally-distributed production, altogether they reflect beer’s enormous diversity. Before the recent revival of craft beer, however, as wine continued to evolve in quality and diversity, beer in France followed an inverse curve of standardization and homogenization. From there, it was easy for wine sympathizers to cast beer as a second rate drink. In fact, much of the advertising for wine focused on reinforcing the wine-is-good-beer-is-bad dichotomy.

As a result, many French people were left with the impression that French beer was unfit for anything but guzzling on the couch while watching a football (soccer) match—and definitely not worthy of “tasting.” However, the brew-bashing may actually have supported beer’s transformation from maligned second-choice into a sought-after beverage in its own right that remains accessible even as it grows in prestige.

“People are afraid of making mistakes with wine and this has made it inaccessible and intimidating,” says Romain. Because beer lost the battle for preeminent national beverage, it still has a friendly, guy-next-door kind of approachability that makes it easy to get into. “People don’t have any complexes when it comes to beer.”

Raising the bar

La Fine Mousse is a friendly little bar where the uninitiated rub elbows with seasoned professionals. Having themselves evolved from beer enthusiasts to connoisseurs to mini beer geeks, as Romain puts it, the owners are as attentive to the novice as they are to the most accomplished brewer. “We tried to break the stereotypes with this bar,” explains Romain. La Fine Mousse has nothing in common with a typical zinc-inflected brasserie (in addition to meaning brewery, brasserie also means a large café-restaurant that naturally serves beer), nor is it a wood-paneled beer den. It’s a stone-textured place with subdued modernity that reflects both the terroir of craft beer and the demands of an urban clientele.

From the row of glistening taps to the rustically modern concrete bar to the custom-designed cold room and draft system, everything in La Fine Mousse has been thoughtfully chosen to create an environment conducive to discovery that reflects the exceptional beers available. “We want people to discover different styles and different breweries, to wake up their sense of taste and change their perception of beer. There’s real work and craftsmanship behind it and there are now excellent products out there,” Romain explains.

La Fine Mousse also wants to overturn the stereotype that a craft beer is an expensive beer. “We set out to prove to people that they can drink an excellent, high-quality product at the same price as an industrial beer,” says Romain. Most craft beers here cost 3.50€ to 7€ for un demi (a 25 cl glass of beer), about the same price as a Heineken at many bars and cafés in Paris. Bottles run 6-10€ plus some exceptional higher-priced beers from select brewers throughout Europe.

A chacun son goût – To each his own

The clientele at La Fine Mousse is as diverse as the beer on tap. From the elderly couple looking for a beer they tasted in Flanders to the group of women starting an evening out to the beer geek regulars who know every brew on the menu, La Fine Mousse has something for everyone. And half the fun of an evening at the bar is figuring out what exactly that something is.

The statement “I’d like a beer” triggers a series of questions to identify what you’d really like: Dark or light? Fruity or floral? A touch acidic? (In French or in English if you prefer.) “Some people find it a little disconcerting at the beginning because most of us aren’t used to making a choice about beer, like we would naturally with wine,” explains Romain.

Nevertheless, he says, most people get hooked once they begin to get a sense of the variety of tastes that beer can have. “They see very quickly that this beer is more flavorful than what’s usually available. Once they get into the game they’ll come in and say, ‘I want something that’s not too bitter, with a hint of fruit, a little bit of spice’—and when we find the beer that fits their taste and aromatic profile, they’re enchanted.”

A beer near you

Romain sees the current interest in craft beer as part of a more general shift toward a “consume less, consume better” attitude, one that’s making people more receptive to a new way of thinking about beer. “We have so many good breweries [in France] that are making an incredible diversity of beer with a real savoir-faire,” says Romain. “Someone will try a beer and say, ‘Wow, this is excellent, where’s it from?’ When we tell them Paris or another region they know, the response is often ‘I had no idea.’”

That’s not too surprising considering that the craft beer revival in France is still quite young. “I was the only one in Esquelbecq when I started 16 years ago,” Daniel Thiriez explained to me during the evening dedicated to products of his brewery Brasserie Thiriez. Esquelbecq is less than 10 miles from the Belgian border in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. The village once had five breweries and more than 50 estaminets (the name for traditional northern pubs), but no beer had been produced in the village for 50 years by the time he moved into the former Brasserie Poitevin in 1996.

But Daniel Thiriez is no longer alone. While statistics show the decline of the French beer industry in general, the smallest breweries are maintaining double digit growth. In the last 15 years, the craft beer movement has produced some excellent breweries, including at least six in and around Paris.

Part of the charm of craft beer is that it starts out local somewhere. Rather than go through big distributors, the team at La Fine Mousse goes directly to most of the brewers. That might involve traveling a few hours from Paris to a beer fair or brewery or making a quick trip to Bagnolet, 15 minutes from the city center.

“There are talented brewers all around us,” says Romain. His advice to anyone interested is to go out and meet them. “Find the brewers in your area. They will be thrilled to show you what they’re doing. That’s what local is all about. You’ll see real craftsmanship at work, you’ll smell the grains that go into it, and you’ll drink a beer with the person who made it.”

The cream of the crop

Of France’s nearly 500 breweries a growing fraction are exceptional. Romain and his colleagues hunt down these liquid gems and offer them a wider audience. They decided from the beginning that French beers would represent half the menu at La Fine Mousse. Most of the other half are European brews though some come from overseas. “When we made our list of what we wanted to see on tap and in bottles, we realized that half were already French. We didn’t have to force to find them and that was a really nice surprise,” says Romain.

With so many good beers in France and elsewhere, choosing what to keep isn’t easy. Deciding on a selection of eclectic and refined flavor profiles accessible to both the inexperienced drinker and confirmed beer amateur means making some sacrifices. Stout, I.P.A., cervoise, barley wine and lambic are among the styles that circulate regularly through the 20 taps. “We made it a priority to have a truly diverse selection of breweries and styles,” explains Romain. “We might have 15 different styles of beer on tap so we rotate them frequently to feature different styles, but also different breweries and different styles within the same brewery.”

The beer that binds

There’s a strong spirit of exchange and innovation associated with craft beer and it’s one that La Fine Mousse actively supports. The bar already plays host to beer tastings, guest brewery nights and even beer-making classes with My Beer Company, a microbrewery just beyond the edge of Paris in Levallois. The bar and its owners are bubbling over with curiosity and passion which comes across in the attention they lavish on clients and the beers they serve. “There are still so many breweries that demand to be known,” says Romain.

The many small breweries appearing all over the country are redefining beer as a local product of quality. La Fine Mousse and a handful of other bars and beer shops are finally giving people a place to discover them, proof that wine isn’t the only drink worth ‘tasting’ anymore.

La Fine Mousse, 6 avenue Jean Aicard, 11th arr. Tel. 09 80 45 94 64. Metro Saint Maur or Ménilmontant. Open daily 5pm-2am. Cold cut and/or cheese plates can be ordered after 7pm. See the bar’s site for special events.

Other notable craft beer bars in Paris

Brewberry, 18 rue du Pot de Fer, 5th arr. Tel. 01 43 36 53 92. Metro Place Monge or Censier-Daubenton. Open Mon. and Tues. 3-9pm, Wed.-Sat. 12:30-11pm, Sun. noon-9pm.

Le Super Coin, 3 rue Baudelique, 18th arr. Metro Jules Joffrin or Simplon. Open Tues. and Wed. 11am-midnight, Thurs.-Sat. 11am-2am, Sunday 4pm-midnight.

Beer shops in Paris with a wide selection of craft beers
La Cave à Bulles, 45 rue Quincampoix, 4th arr. Tel. 01 40 29 03 69. Metro Les Halles, Rambuteau or Chatelet. Open Tues.-Sat. 10am-2pm and 4pm-8pm; closed Wed. Owned by Simon Thillou, co-owner of La Fine Mousse.

Bieres Cultes, 14 rue des Halles, 1st arr. Tel. 09 81 98 93 32. Metro Chatelet. Open Mon. 5-8pm, Tues.-Fri. 1-8pm, Sat. noon-8pm. Also stores in the 17th and 18th arrondissements.

Chop’In, 45 rue de Gergovie, 14th arr. Tel. 01 45 42 93 71. Metro Plaisance or Pernety. Open Tues.-Fri. noon-8pm, Sat. 10am-8pm.

La Moustache Blanche, 16 rue des Tournelles, 4th arr. Tel. 01 75 57 15 06. Metro Bastille. Open Tues.-Thurs. 11am-8:30pm, Fri. noon-9:30pm, Sun. 2-8pm.

People’s Drug Store, 78 rue des Martyrs, 18th arr. Metro Pigalle or Abbesses. Open daily noon-midnight, until 2am Fri. and Sat.

© 2013, Kate Robinson  for publication in France Revisited

Kate Robinson is originally from the Pacific Northwest and has lived in Paris since 2004. A freelance writer and editor, she also organizes the reading series “Pause on the Landing” for the Paris literary journal Upstairs at Duroc.

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