Perfected along the coast of Brittany more than 1,500 years ago, crepes are serious business in France. There’s even a holiday dedicated to them where their golden, sun-like shape is tied to luck, prosperity, and tradition as much as it is to breakfast or lunch.
At Petaluma’s Sarmentine bakery, Alexandra Teulet has introduced diners to the art of the crepe, making both sweet varieties and a savory buckwheat version called a galette, a specialty of France’s northwestern coast. She trained in Saint-Malo at a school devoted entirely to traditional Breton crepes — yes, really.
Making them well is part instinct, part technique: the feel of the lightly fermented batter, the grind of the nutty buckwheat flour, and the steady heat of a traditional cast-iron billig crepe maker.
The crepes emerge thin with delicately lacy edges that fold and frame fillings like bubbling cheese, ham, vegetables, fruit, or chocolate. Teulet turns out several hundred a day, exclusively at the Petaluma location, bringing a true taste of Brittany to Sonoma County.
840 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. 707-623-9595, sarmentine.com