The sweet half of the Nantes crêperie order: a soft wheat crêpe folded around a dark salted-butter caramel, the western French answer to the question of what to do with salted butter and sugar.
Where to eat it: 2 restaurants across 1 city.
Where the savoury galette is buckwheat, the sweet crêpe is wheat flour, milk, eggs and sugar, and in a Nantes crêperie the two arrive in that order with cidre poured through both. The salted-butter caramel that fills it is a product of the region's dairy and its salt: the Guérande marshes down the coast supplied salt up the Loire for centuries, and demi-sel butter is the western French default rather than an affectation. Cooking sugar to a dark caramel and then killing it with cold salted butter and cream gives a sauce that is bitter, salty and sweet at once, and it is now the standard sweet order in crêperies across the region.
Common allergens: Gluten, Eggs, Dairy
Tip from the editors. Warm the cream before it goes into the caramel. Cold cream hitting hot sugar seizes it into a solid lump that you then have to melt back down over a low heat.
Running since 1976 and rebuilt for its fortieth birthday, Heb Ken grinds through galettes at lunch and turns into a tea room every afternoon.
Signature: Buckwheat galettes, Salted butter caramel crêpes, Gâteau nantais
Tip: No reservations are taken, so the queue outside at 12:30 is normal; the homemade chocolate spread crêpe is the one regulars order.
The €8 midday formule at Ker Breizh buys a savoury galette, a sweet crêpe and cider or coffee, on organic Breton flour and Vendée free-range eggs.
Signature: €8 lunch formule, Scallop galette, Salted butter caramel crêpe
Tip: Reserve even at lunch, the room is small and fills; the house cider is made for them near Quimper under the Grain de Pomme label.
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