There's actually two new(er) crêpe locations in Epcot's France pavilion… Crêpes À Emporter is a walk-up window on the corner of the main restaurant (very much like the pizza window on the outside of the Via Napoli restaurant in the Italy pavilion) — and then this full-service, sit down location — "La Crêperie de Paris". The outside crêpe window and this location both share the same kitchen, so I'm guessing whatever can be said about food quality here, also applies to the quick-service, walk-up window.
Do you need a reservation for la Creperie de Paris?
Yes and no. While it's a good idea to make reservations for everything at all the Disney parks — la Crêperie de Paris usually has a lot of availability. There's only a handful of full-service locations that you might be able to get into without reservations — and la Crêperie de Paris is one of them.
La Crêperie de Paris isn't as big as I thought it was going to be. The modern "sandwich shop" style dining area might seat 150-175 guests at most.
The thing is, unless you're going on the new "Remy's Ratatouille Adventure" — you're not going to just casually walk by this location. Technically, you would have to walk around and behind the France pavilion to get to "Remy's" entrance and both of the crêpe locations.
If you happen to have a smart phone with you, and you haven't already walked all the way down there — just pop into the Disney app and see if they have an opening. Reservations are available in 15 minute increments. I just randomly checked right now, and there were many slots available.
At the back-end of the restaurant, the area make a little "L". In this area there's some full-booth seating (left), doors to the kitchen (center), and the on-stage kitchen pass-through window (back and right).
Interior and Theming
Many of the initial "we were there on the first day and ate everything" reviews from bloggers seemed to blast la Creperie de Paris for not having any theming or any pleasant design qualities. So I was prepared to not like the environment at all. But you know what? It's actually quite nice.Granted, it doesn't have a "turn of the of the century France" vibe like Chefs de France or faux the "French royalty" vibe like the Be Our Guest Restaurant over in the Magic Kingdom — but it's not supposed to.
This is more like what it would look like if Panera Bread opened up a soup and sandwich shop in Marseille or Nice. It's clean, open and not nearly as dungeon-esque as most people reported. Sometimes, I think one of those bloggers writes or says something — and all the rest of them copy it ... idea for idea.
There are many framed pieces of art on the walls of La Crêperie de Paris. They are all mostly exterior architectural drawings and paintings.
The total seating capacity isn't large — I'd say 150-175 at most. The seating area is shaped like an "L" but it's open enough so that pretty much anyone sitting anywhere can see the whole restaurant. Wall coverings are mixed… some stonework, some wood, and some stucco-esque surfaces — with lots of framed paintings and drawings hanging over the top of those surfaces. The floor is mixed stone and wood (looking) and the ceiling is divided nicely with faux wood beams. Air conditioning linear slot diffuser vents are positioned all around — a modern, high capacity hvac system that's set up correctly — it's really quite nice — if you can appreciate a good HVAC system.
Here's a photo of the main dining area, as seen when standing near the kitchen pass-through window.
Because everything is squared off and most of the wall coverings are reflective — it is a little noisy — much like a typical sandwich shop. I couldn't tell you if there was background music playing or not. It's a little less noisy than a sports bar, but definitely not a "quiet thoughtful conversation" type of dining experience.
Is there an on-stage kitchen? Well… not really. It's more like a food-pass through window, but you can see some activity in there, if you're sitting in the right area. Because of where the kitchen is positioned, they probably share kitchen resources with the quick-service, walk-up window that is Crêpes À Emporter which is basically on the corner of the same building.
Once the crepes are finished and ready for the table, the kitchen staff places them on this pass-though for the servers to pick up. While it's not easy to see in this photo, the bottom two "shelves" have strip warmers attached to them — to help keep the crepes warm.
The Food at la Crêperie de Paris
The whole menu is printed on a placemat that is set on the table for each guest in your party, so there's nothing to touch — just look down and see what you want.
Each seat gets a fresh placemat with a menu printed on it.
The menu isn't really that extensive, but I kind of like that for a change. It's easy to read and there's multiple things I'd like to try, which is not something I can say about most places — so far so good.
The menus at La Crêperie de Paris are also placemats. (For pricing references, this photo was taken in the autumn of 2023.)
Since I wasted to sample a little bit of everything, I chose the "combo meal" option. They list it on the menu as the "prix fixe menu" for $39.95 — prix fixe in this case means, you get one appetizer, one savory crepe, one dessert crepe, and one of their hard ciders — all for one price. It's about $6.00 less than if you bought all of those things separately.
Actually, $39.95 is a pretty great deal compared to other Disney dining prices… especially considering there's a hard cider that's included in the price. These are not just "mini sample-sized" portions either — my Prix Fixe Menu option ended up being quite filling.
There's only two appetizer options at la Crêperie de Paris — a Soup of the Day or a Mixed Salad with a light vinaigrette. The salad is pretty much the same, all the time — but "soup of the day" might suggest that the soup would change from time to time, perhaps seasonally.
I selected the soup, because it offered a couple of great "nods" to French cuisine… it's actually a "chilled" soup, served cold — (not so common in the US) — but a lot like a classic French Vichyssoise. It was topped with a couple of croutons and a hearty drizzle of olive oil. Using olive oil as a condiment (of sorts) is a European thing that hasn't really caught on here in the US (at least I don't think it has).
The soup at La Crêperie de Paris is plated in a cute little French bowl with a paper doily and a soup plate. Very classy.
The soup was served in a cute little french looking bowl on top of a white lace paper doily on top of a soup plate — it's all very proper classic European.
I wish I could tell you absolutely that it was a chilled Cauliflower Soup — but my French is not so good, and my server's English came with a fair amount of trepidation and nervousness, to the point where I mostly couldn't understand what she was saying. But that's okay — the soup was amazing.
Like a Vichyssoise it probably had some combination of onions, garlic, pepper and a pinch of warming spices like nutmeg or thyme — but rather than using potatoes as a base, it used pureed cauliflower. It really is a great chilled soup and a great vehicle for introducing olive oil as a condiment.
The chilled cauliflower soup with olive oil from La Crêperie de Paris is very much like a traditional French Vichyssoise — that uses cauliflower as the main ingredient instead of potatoes.
I think it's pretty common in the US to see olive oil being used to cook with or to be served with bread and herbs — but seeing it on top of soup is maybe not so common. Rather than just taking a spoon and mixing it into the soup, the intention is to get a little of the olive oil in your spoon along with the soup. Kind of like ribbons of brown sugar running through some cream of rice or oatmeal. You control how much or how little you want as you eat. It was a really nice touch.
There are four French Hard Ciders to choose from (one flute comes with the Prix Fixe Menu selection, but you can buy more, if you want more) — they range from dry to sweet. There's a Brut (the driest), a Doux (the sweetest) and a Demi Sec (which sits right in the middle of the dry/sweet scale, technically, "demi sec" means "medium dry") — there's also a Rose, which is a little more fruit forward, and sits somewhere between a Doux and a Demi Sec.
La Crêperie de Paris has four hard ciders that are imported from France... a Brut, Demi Sec, Doux, and Rose. A hard cider flight is also available if you want to sample them all.
I selected the Demi Sec, because I thought it would be a nice pairing with whatever I decided to order — and it was.
If you would really like to figure out the difference between a Brut, a Demi Sec, the Doux and Rose — you're in luck, because they have a Hard Cider Flight that contains a 3oz sample of all the ciders! Hard French Apple Ciders generally have an alcohol volume of between 3 to 7% — so they're more like a beer than a wine in that respect.
Whatever brand it was, my Demi Sec was crisp, cold, had tiny bubble and was just sweet enough without being too fruity — it was great glass of hard apple cider.
This is the Demi Sec hard apple cider from La Crêperie de Paris. One flute of hard apple cider is included with their Prix Fixe Menu option.
Before I get into my savory crepe selection, it's worth mentioning that the Crêperie de Paris menu is an "all-day menu" — for real. Like breakfast, lunch, and dinner — the menu doesn't change. That's because most of the items would feel right at home on any "brunch" menu. Any of these things would be perfectly acceptable for breakfast or a post-morning meal.
All of the savory crepes at Crêperie de Paris are made with buckwheat flour — so technically they're not crepes, they are "Galettes". The menu says that Crêperie de Paris imports their buckwheat flour from Brittany, France. While I can't prove or disprove that — I will say that buckwheat flour contains no gluten — which is probably a bigger reason for them to be using it in all the savory galettes. There should be no cross-contamination issue with regular flour and buckwheat flour if they're only using buckwheat flour.
Is it the best choice for all the savory galettes? Probably not. At the end of the day, they've made a case for the buckwheat flour as having a French culinary connection and it's easier to keep straight in what's probably a small kitchen. There's one galette batter, and that's it. The buckwheat flour makes a thicker, slightly spongy galette that's hearty and more pancake-like than a traditional crepe. It should stand up nicely to any savory item you fold into it.
There's a couple different galettes I'd like to try, but for today's meal, I selected the Savoyarde Galette — a combination of rachlette cheese, caramelized onions, and bacon get folded into a buckwheat galette and then it's topped with shaved prosciutto ham.
The Savoyarde Galette is one of six savory buckwheat galettes on the Crperie de Paris menu. All the galettes (are probably) gluten-free — because contrary to the name — buckwheat, contains no actual wheat.
I mean, you can't go wrong with cheese, onions, and bacon. The prosciutto on top was slightly fatty, and while that is one of the characteristics of prosciutto, any regional subtlety that might be present in the meat, was drowned out by the onions, bacon, and dare I say, even the buckwheat galette.
That's not saying it was bad — all the flavors and texture worked great together — and the prosciutto (frankly) is probably cheeper than something like jambon de Paris, which is a cooked ham. Jambon de Paris on top, would have made this a 5 star galette in my mind… as it stands, it's a 4 star galette.
The prosciutto ham on top of La Crêperie de Paris' "Savoyarde" Galette seems a little out of place to me... maybe a little more Italian or Spain, than French. Something like Jambon Sec de Corse would be more authentic. I guess "prosciutto" is a word that is more widely known.
These are definitely not "sample sized" items though. After you finish the soup and the savory galette, you really do start thinking about that Dessert Crepe differently — which is why I would suggest not ordering your dessert crepe at the same time as your savory crepe. Get through most of the savory crepe first, and then ask yourself, if you want to go with one of the lighter or sweeter selections.
For dessert I selected the Banane Crepe which includes bananas and a caramel beuree salé (which is a salted butter-caramel spread) — in a more transitional (lighter than buckwheat) crepe.
There's five dessert crepes on the La Creperie de Paris menu. Pictured here is the Banane Crepe. It features bananas in a caramel beurre salé all wrapped in a traditional (not buckwheat flour) crepe.
They do like that square crepe shape here at la Creperie de Paris. This one was pretty, not too sweet, and very filling. Much like the savory galette menu, I'd really like to try all the dessert crepes on the menu. On their own, they're not as heavy as the savory galettes are… so even if I didn't want a full meal… one of the dessert crepes with a flute of cider would make for a great breakfast or post-meal snack.
The Banane Crepe is one of the more filling selections on the dessert crepe menu. The caramel beurre salé is not extremely sweet, to the point where I wish there had been a couple pieces of pearl sugar on top to add sweetness and texture contrast.
You can add whipped cream, ice cream, and extra sauces and fruit to any of the dessert crepes, but it will cost you an additional $3.50. A shot of French-style liquor (such as Grand Marnier or Calvados) can be purchased for an additional $8.75 — but these are really worked into the recipe in any way. Your shot come out in a little glass and you just pour on the booze. Honestly — the desserts don't really need anything extra, and those shots will add up quick.
Value and Closing Thoughts
All in all, I was quite happy with my meal at La Crêperie de Paris. You're going to be hard-pressed to find any three-course meal with an "adult" beverage for $39.95 anywhere else — in any of the four Disney parks here in Central Florida.This was also a very filling meal. There's no sample portions here. I'm sure you could put a slightly lighter meal together… go with the salad instead of the soup and finish with something light like the hazelnut chocolate dessert crepe.
Crepes and galette can be a little "one-note" after a while, so no one would fault you for eating the "main stuffing" parts out of the center and leaving the edges on the plate… that might make things a little less filling.
Honestly, most the savory galettes and dessert crepes sound interesting to me, and there are various other selections I'd like to try. I could totally see using La Crêperie de Paris as a great "quick snack" location as well … splitting a savory or dessert crepe between two people and getting a flight of hard cider — without going to the prix fixe menu (even though it's a really great deal).
Is it for kids? They do have a mini menu that's tailored to children that includes one mini sized cheese, veggie, or ham and cheese galette — and then a plain sugar crepe, mixed berry crepe, or hazelnut chocolate crepe for dessert. As of this review writing that kids meal is priced at at reasonable $16.95. However, if your child doesn't like pancakes or trying new things — there's nothing here that's going to change their minds, so it might not be for everyone.
La Crêperie de Paris really does feel like it could be a great quick-stop cafe… that sadly, seems to be located in a somewhat low-traffic spot. I mean, you're really not going to see it, unless you're going back there to ride Remy's Ratatouille Adventure. (And now that I've ridden Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, I'm not likely to walk all the way around to the back of the France pavilion for any reason.)
La Crêperie de Paris could play into some more spontaneous plans though… this is casual spot, with waiters and waitresses — that usually has some walk-up, no-reservations type of seating. If you're really looking to sit down and chill out for a while and grab a quick snack or a full meal — La Crêperie de Paris might be worth looking into.
