A Belgian enriched brioche loaf studded with raisins, sliced thick and eaten with butter at breakfast or with an afternoon coffee. Sugar-pearl versions exist too.
Where to eat it: 3 restaurants across 1 city.
The word goes back to 1257, when cremmiche was used at an abbey in Nivelles as a measure for flour or bread. Cramique itself appears in Brussels in 1831. It is Belgian by origin and standard across the Nord and Luxembourg, sold by every serious bakery in Lille and eaten at breakfast or as a four o'clock snack. Toasted, it also turns up beside foie gras. Lille bakeries make it both plain with raisins and in a sugar-pearl version called cramique au sucre.
Common allergens: Gluten, Milk, Eggs
Tip from the editors. Soak the raisins first. Dry ones pull water out of the crumb and leave the loaf dense.
The Place des Buisses branch of Aux Merveilleux de Fred sits beside Lille Flandres station, open from 06:00 and stocked with merveilleux and cramique.
Tip: Open from 06:00 on weekdays, which makes it the only serious pastry option before a first train.
Worth the queue: Cramique
Boulangerie Brier on Rue Esquermoise in Lille bakes the regional canon, cramique au sucre, palet de dame and a vanilla-filled gaufre of its own.
Tip: This is the cheaper place to try a gaufre fourrée before you queue at the famous one up the street.
Worth the queue: Gaufre fourrée à la vanille
Banana Drama on Rue de l'Hôpital Militaire in Lille serves brunch every day of the week, including a cramique turned into a plate of pain perdu.
Order: Cramique façon pain perdu, the northern brioche version.
Tip: Its pastries come from Sweet Flamingo, the tea room on Rue Nicolas Leblanc.
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