The sweet wheat-flour crêpe folded over salted-butter caramel is Brittany's dessert default, thin and lacy under a caramel darkened almost to bitterness and cut with fleur de sel.
Salted butter is the Breton constant, the result of a medieval salt-tax exemption that left the region salting its butter long after the rest of France stopped. Caramel au beurre salé as a confection is far younger, developed in Quiberon in the 1970s and spread across Brittany within a generation, and it took over the sweet crêpe almost completely. The wheat-flour crêpe itself is the sweet counterpart to the buckwheat galette, and in a Rennes crêperie the two arrive in that order: galette first, crêpe second, cider throughout. A good caramel is cooked to the edge of catching, then loosened with cream and beaten with salted butter until it pours thickly rather than runs.
4 editor picks for Crêpe au caramel au beurre salé in Rennes, ranked by editorial score. All Rennes signature dishes · Crêpe au caramel au beurre salé across every city.
Bretone ★ 4.4
Colombier · 7 Rue Joseph Sauveur, 35000 Rennes
Bretone serves buckwheat galettes in the mosaic-tiled former home of the Odorico family in Rennes, a Fooding-listed crêperie with a pastel rooftop patio.
Œuf, la Crêperie ★ 4.2
Sainte-Anne · 38 Rue de Saint-Malo, 35000 Rennes
Œuf runs a light-wood crêperie on Rue de Saint-Malo in Rennes, organic all-buckwheat galettes through the week and a Breton brunch on Sunday mornings.
La Gavotte ★ 4.1
Saint-Georges · 41 Rue Saint-Georges, 35000 Rennes
La Gavotte holds the crêperie corner of Rue Saint-Georges in Rennes, open seven days with an andouille, apple and camembert galette as its calling card.
La Crêperie du Thabor ★ 3.8
Thabor · 25 Rue Saint-Melaine, 35000 Rennes
La Crêperie du Thabor sits by the park gates on Rue Saint-Melaine in Rennes, galettes and sweet crêpes with a candy bar that keeps student budgets happy.