Fabulous galettes, oysters, crepes, cheese and cider, Brittany France food adventures abound. Here’s where and how to experience the best cuisine on your France vacation.
I basically eat my way through all of my France adventures. The cuisine is soooo good! You can’t not! While croissants are always on my food list when traveling in France, I’ve also discovered so much diversity that now I also seek out more unusual food finds. For instance, while we all know the crepe. In Brittany, France, you have to try the galette, which is a more savory option. Cider is also big in this Northwest coastal region, which is located across the English Channel from Great Britain and with influences from the UK and the Celts.
Dive into the best of Brittany’s food places, below, including restaurants, cafes and markets.
Brittany, France Food Adventures Video
Saint-Malo: Butter, Galettes & Cider
In the medieval city of Saint Malo in France, walk around to experience the best cuisine offerings. They are located close to each other and you’ll want to walk once to start to explore and taste!
At Breizh Café in Saint Malo, you can enjoy innovative crepes, galettes, and cider, all specialties of Brittany. Laura Mariault explained that the galette is more like a savory crepe.
“We used to eat the galette on Fridays without any meat, so only galette and an egg,” Mariault explained. “Then we have created different recipes so you can have many toppings in the galette. The crepe is well known all around the world, but galette is more familiar to Brittany.”
Traditional galettes are made with buckwheat flour, salt and water, and filled with any manner of savory treats. They’re commonly eaten for lunch or dinner, sometimes followed with a crepe, and often paired with local cider. There are over 1000 varieties of apples in Brittany, and each apple makes cider unique. Breton ciders varies from yellow to mahogany brown in color and the total alcohol by volume should be not less than 5 % for cider and 5,5 % for champagne cider without sweetening. It’s quite regulated. I thought that it was not as sweet as other ciders I’d tried previously. With the cider, Brittany France foods like the galette are a perfect compliment.
During warmer months, café patrons spill out onto the narrow pedestrian friendly cobblestone streets inside Saint-Malo’s walls. You’ll find shoppers seeking clothing with Brittany’s signature stripes, a style that has its roots in the practical French Naval uniform. You also find lots of creperie’s and restaurants offering traditional Breton food, including one of its most famous pastries. I stopped to watch a baker making fresh kouign-amann, from the Breton word meaning butter and cake. It’s touted as one of the fattiest pastries in Europe, if not on the planet.
And this isn’t the only place where butter is king. There’s a café devoted to butter called Bistro Autour du Beurre Bordier, and its corresponding boutique specializing in organic sustainable butter, that’s churned, kneaded, and salted by hand. It’s the best butter I’ve ever tasted, and I’m a connoisseur.
Cancale: France’s Oyster Capital
Fresh seafood is always on the table along Brittany’s coastlines. Head to Cancale, France’s oyster capital, where restaurants and an outdoor market entice visitors to enjoy fresh oysters and see how they’re farmed. Cancale has been renowned for its indigenous flat shelled oysters since ancient times. The now a rounded species from Japan is also farmed here. Take a walk with a local oyster expert at low tide, to check out the oyster beds. There are good conditions for shellfish farmers here with high salinity, warmer temperatures and lots of plankton.
Rennes: Markets are a must for your Brittany, France Food Adventures
You can’t travel to Brittany and not visit a bustling market. In Rennes, Brittany’s capital city, marvel at the half-timbered architecture and visit the Saturday market, Marché des Lices, which local guide Severin Even explained has been in Rennes since the end of Middle Ages. There are sometimes 20 markets in Rennes on the weekends, but the Saturday market is the biggest of the town and touted as the second biggest market in France. You can find produce, meats, vegetables, flowers, seafood and lots and lots of cheese. It’s all about what’s local at this market, which has existed for over four centuries and all about a diversity of cuisine in Brittany, France.
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