It’s taken some 25 years for LPQ to reach Irish shores. Its beginnings go back to 1990, when chef and baker Alain Coumont was unable to find the right bread to serve in his Brussels restaurant. His decision to begin baking it himself has since resulted in more than 200 cafés worldwide serving his signature rustic loaves.
And this café in the Kildare Village is one of the latest.
The blue-and-white painted exterior is eye-catching. Inside, to the left, is the shop with dark wooden furniture and tiled walls and floors. Here you can buy any of the breads - wheat loaves, baguettes, walnut bread and rye loaves to name just a few - along with a host of pastries, cookies and preserves prepared in the kitchens.
To the right is the main restaurant with a large communal table and smaller tables to the sides. Light streams in from the floor-to-ceiling windows that form two sides of the large space. Le petit déjeuner – breakfast to you and me – offers a choice of croissant or pain au chocolat with an assortment of organic breads, juice and tea or coffee.
Organic eggs – perhaps served with chorizo - gluten-free soup and unusual salads are just the tip of the menu iceberg.
The signature dish is tartines, the continental take on open sandwiches. A long slice of wheat loaf is topped with, perhaps, mashed avocado and super seeds or Serrano ham and Macroom buffalo mozzarella.
Hot dishes include chicken and leek pie and organic beef and Irish stout stew while popular vegetarian dishes include Chilli sin carne or butternut squash tartlet.
No Irish menu would be complete without apple tart. In this instance it’s tarte aux pommes de grand-mère, inspired by Coumont’s grandmother. There’s also Belgian chocolate tart and of course, tarte tatin. Or, perhaps, a Belgian-style hot chocolate to accompany a Manhattan organic chocolate chip cookie - or an organic coffee, served in the LPQ Belgian 'hand-warmer' bowl.
While the business is now an international phenomenen, its USPs are local, seasonal and organic - you will find some of the same dishes in any of the cafes, but some local dishes areincluded on menus too, and many of the ingredients are carefully sourced from local producers - in Ireland these include The Foods of Athenry, Keeling’s, Gubbeen Farmhouse Cheese, Featherbed Farm Luxury Ice Cream, Connolly’s Organic Eggs, Organic 4 Us Organic Milk, Flahavan’s Organic Porridge and Fior Uisce.
Special dietary requirements are well catered for in a range of vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes - and fans who want to reproduce some of their favourites at home will find everything they need in the irresistible Le Pain Quotidien Cookbook, or one of the other LPQ books.
There’s a short wine list, all organic, just five white and five red and about four Irish craft beers and cider (Porterhouse Brewing Company; Trouble Brewing; White Hag; Craigies), paired with platters of charcuterie or fromage or a mixte – a selection of continental and Irish charcuterie and cheeses from artisan producers.
And the secret to the success of the LPQ bread on five continents? It’s the organic stone-ground flour and the levain, the natural sourdough starter.
Another tasty dining destination for the lucky shoppers at Kildare Village.
