Our Daily Bread

I tried a new cafe the other day. Le Pain Quotidien is quite a well know brand. Originating in the gourmet paradise of Belgium they now have locations around the world with the fare based on the founders favourite style of pain au levain.

Update: Non smoking throughout :)

I'm not sure how standardised the decor is, but I think all the cafes have a distinctive long communal table as a kind of centrepiece.

It's about three times as long as the bit shown - the idea is to get people to sit with strangers and strike up conversations. This cafe in Zurich is fairly new and I'm not sure how successful this idea is - need to go when it's busy and plonk myself down next to a complete stranger.

On this visit I skipped the extensive bread offerings and had a big unhealthy looking pain au chocolat instead. The coffee was excellent, the bun suitably fattening, and it all went down accompanied by some cheery, but unobtrusive baroque in the background

I'm very disparaging of global brands like Starbucks, so can I justify liking this smaller version? Well I think so. First of all Starbucks is just like MacDonalds. It provides familiarity but the coffee is crap and the ordering procedure is a joke. In addition they seem to shoulder all the little individual cafes out of the way. How I don't know. maybe it's just market forces. LPQ provides real quality food, has great table service as a cafe should, and generally does things right. For me anyway.