Crazy for crepes
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A French restaurant off Sathorn offers terrific cuisine at pocket-friendly prices
LE PETIT Zinc Yen Akart bistro-patisserie wants you to know that fine food doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, it made that point with its first outlet on Sukhumvit Soi 23 but recently moved to Soi Yen Akart, home to a large French community, where it has been winning over both hearts and wallets.
Owned and run by Frenchmen Thomas Dazard and Francois Lecouvez, the restaurant is housed in an attractive white-painted residence with a garden and offers both a private room and larger communal dining area. Red cushions bring colour to the wooden tables and chairs and baked clay figures decorate the walls.
“My friend Thomas opened the first Le Petit Zinc on Sukhumvit 23 three years ago. When he decided to open a second restaurant, my wife and I joined him. We moved to this location earlier this year,” Lecouvez says.
“We keep our dishes at affordable prices because we want to make the point that French food is for everyone. Thais customers still tend to think of French cuisine as expensive and we’d like to change their view.”
The kitchen is in the capable hands of Supreeya Wattanajiamwong, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu School in the UK who learned her trade at the Michelin-starred Gauthier Restaurant in London’s Soho.
In true French style, she uses only the very best ingredients: the butter, ham and snails come from France, the beef is Australian, the scallops Japanese and the salmon hails from Norway. The vegetables she buys at a local market.
“We have good products but they are not expensive. We don’t want to import all our products from Europe because some of them are already available in Thailand,” Lecouvez says.
While Le Petit Zinc serves a range of appetisers, main dishes, salad and pasta, many customers come to savour the crepes. Particular favourites are La Bayonnaise with its topping of smoked duck, onion confit and Emmental cheese and La Paprika, which is topped with spicy salami, goat cheese and onion confit.
“To the French, a crepe is a little like a pizza. You can enjoy it with all sorts of savoury toppings, for example just with cheese, which is very simple, or go for stronger flavours like scallops, salmon and smoked pork, cheese and tuna.” Lecouvez explains..
We start our meal with creamy Onion Soup in puff pastry priced at Bt210, Lobster Bisque (Bt390) and sample the Snails in Puff Pastry mixed with sun-dried tomato, pesto, garlic and cheese (Bt210).
“French cuisine emphasises natural flavour so we season only with pepper and salt,” Supreeya says.
Our main course consists of Scallops with mixed spices, tomatoes and capsicum chutney served on creamy risotto (Bt590) and the very traditional La Totale, a crepe with ham, egg and emmental cheese (Bt170).
Selecting a dessert is difficult given the wide selection, which also includes crepes, but we eventually decide on the light Creme Brulee with a refreshing raspberry sherbet.
Le Petit Zinc has a comprehensive wine list and also serves dry cider.
IT’S ZESTY
>>Le Petit Zinc Yen Akart is open daily from 11.30 to 2 and 6 to 10.
>>Call (02) 249 5572 or visit www.lepetitzinc.com
