Friday 25 February 2011

The Gentle Gourmet Bed and Breakfast

* Sadly The Gentle Gourmet B&B is now closed. The people behind this fabulous B&B are now running a The Gentle Gourmet Cafe which I've heard wonderful things about and hope to visit soon*

Last weekend was mine & Nick's first wedding anniversary & we decided to mark the occasion (I'll find any excuse for a holiday!) by spending the weekend in Paris.

After trying some of their delicious food at Paris Vegan Day I decided that I really wanted to spend the weekend at The Gentle Gourmet B&B.

For those of you who haven't heard about this place yet here's the lowdown! The Gentle Gourmet B&B is a vegan owned & operated business located in central Paris. It's only a short walk from the Champs Elysees, Arc du Triomphe & Eiffel Tower.


We took a lovely walk down the Champs Elysees to the Arc du Triomphe & back to the B&B after dinner one night.

The owners Deborah, Caroline, Alex & Paul (who are also the people behind Paris Vegan Day) have two apartments in the building, one with a double room & it's own bathroom situated in the apartment where breakfast is served and one with two double bedrooms & a shared bathroom which can either be rented separately or as one private apartment for 2 - 5 travellers. The Gentle Gourmet also offers Bistrot & Gourmet dinners, cooking classes, picnic baskets & tours of local kitchen gardens.

We chose to stay in the double room with it's own bathroom & we thought our room was lovely, light, bright & airy. We also loved the incredibly warm welcome we received from our hosts Deborah & Paul, it felt more like we were arriving at an old friends place rather than at a faceless hotel.

As far as I'm concerned breakfast is the most important meal of the day (Neither Nick or I are fun people to be around if we haven't eaten in the morning) & I often find that a good breakfast is one of the hardest things to find as a travelling vegan.




On our first morning we opted to have breakfast quite late and we were excited to see the table was all laid out with breads, spreads, yoghurts, granola & juice. The french bread was delicious so we were even more excited when the lovely B&B owner & head chef Deborah brought us out a huge plate of French toast with baked apples to share. In fact I was so excited that I didn't manage to take any pictures of it, it looked great though & it tasted pretty spectacular too. I liked that it wasn't overly sweet, most of the sweetness came from the apples & the maple syrup I drenched mine in.

On our second morning Deborah and Paul whipped us up a batch of pancakes...


...and some little traditional French chocolate chip breads alongside some fruit salad & yoghurts.


This was another fantastic breakfast, what a great way to start the day!

I will be recommending the Gentle Gourmet B&B to all of my vegan friends (in fact, one friend has already booked themselves into the B&B for their next holiday!) and I would definitely love to stay there again next time I'm in Paris.

14 comments:

  1. What an awesome anniversary weekend! We thought about staying at that B & B when we were in Paris, but I don't remember why we ended up not going there. Next time we will. You are so right, vegan breakfast is sometimes hard to get.

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  2. Holy shit. That looks totally worth it for the breakfast alone!

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  3. Wow - that looks stupendous! I'm with Kip - I'd do that trip just for the brekkies!

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  4. That's it! I've got to get back to Paris!!

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  5. They catered for our wedding and we spent our wedding night in the big appartment!
    Deborah, Caroline and Alex are such lovely people. Anyone who wants to discover Paris while eating delicious food should go there, not just vegans ;)

    By the way, you and I have a friend in common. Nick has been meaning to introduce us (his 2 only vegan friends he said), hopefully it happens sometime ;)

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  6. What a fabulous anniversary trip! Those pancakes are making me drool.

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  7. This B&B really looks amazing! I'm going to Paris next weekend to see one of my best friends and I can't wait.

    You should come to Dublin! I can try to see if it's possible to ship any of that amazing raw sweets to you :)

    And I hope I can go to Brighton soon too, I don't know there and I'm so curious to visit the city.

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  8. This is absolutely a dream destination... It's on my bucket list at the very least. Looks incredible, thanks for the tempting reminder!

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  9. Happy Anniversary! That all looks fabulous! I have dreams of one day opening a vegan bread and breakfast, or at least visiting a bunch of them.

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  10. Alejandra, we do indeed have a friend in common. Nick's always mentioning his other vegan friend!

    Glauce I'd love to come to Dublin, I've never been to Ireland which seems ridiculous given how close it is. You should definitely come to Brighton, I'd happily be your tour guide.

    Luciana we have the same dream, we should visit some vegan B&B's together for ''research purposes''!

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  11. It sounds amazing! If I ever go to paris, I'm gonna book in there!!

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  12. Visiting Gentle Gourmet is definitely on my must-do list! From what you describe, it sounds like a great location, terrific people, and delicious food. What could be better?

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  13. Hi there

    Found your blog via Vegan Breakfast (Yum). I don't want to sound weird but we seem to have a lot of likes in common (PEZ dispensers, yes please :D).

    Thanks for bringing a Vegan B&B in Paris to my attention. I loooove Paris and this sounds too good to be true.

    Right, off to snoop around your blog some more. :)

    Nev

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  14. The Gentle Gourmet is a fantastic place - highly recommended!

    Roger Yates
    Dublin.

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