In the past few weeks I've written about pizza joints downtown and some favorite bakeries in the city. I made two notable omissions, one on purpose and one because I smoked way too much pot in college. I regret that I forgot to mention Fatso's pies, the big-as-a-flying-saucer pizzas at WilLee's Blues Club. What was I thinking? Fatso's is a favorite of SFR staffers and all late-night eaters downtown.
In addition, I recently wrote about bakeries for
but I purposefully left out a new one called Le Zodiac. I wanted to take more time to talk about this very authentic French bakery and café that opened
about a month ago on Old Santa Fe Trail in the old Garrett's Spot space between Alameda and the Roundhouse. One cloudy
afternoon last week I managed to corner owner Frederic Allouët for a long conversation about his breads and trying to recreate the memories of the flavors of his youth in France. Here are some excerpts from our chat.
SFR: [After a somewhat lengthy discussion of the spelling of his last name] Your name is from Brittany. Is that where you grew up?
FA: No, I was born and raised in Versailles, the closest provincial town to Paris. You drive for eight miles and it's like you drove 100 miles.
I was just in France in November and I made that drive-it is beautiful countryside. What took you away from Versailles?
I went to Paris to work as a music producer. I came here in 2001, to visit a friend who was living here, and like many other people, I fell in love. The ultimate luxury when you come from Europe is emptiness, free space. I felt very refreshed and regenerated here.
If your background was in the music business, what made you decide to open a bakery here?
In Versailles my family had a
salon de thé
and
patisserie
[a teahouse that serves pastries], which is very common in Europe; they take a break in the afternoon and have a little cake and some tea. When I came here I thought this was definitely not the place for music production...
Not so much!
...So I scouted and checked all the bakeries around and I got the feeling that it could be a place for that. There are a couple places here that are good, but in France or even in Manhattan there is a bakery on every corner.
Do you do all of the baking or does someone else?
To update my knowledge I went to a baking school in Rouen, in Normandy. It's one of the best in France. When I came here and finally found a location, I called a friend who is a French baker…He came here and he set all the recipes for us because of the elevation and the dryness. I told him what kind of breads I wanted to offer and we worked together adjusting the recipes, testing the amount of water, the amount of starter.
You're using a wild yeast starter?
It's a French sourdough starter,
levain
. It's milder and less sour than San Francisco sourdough. Also, we're using exclusively organic flour here. They're using so much chemicals in the processing of flour here [the US] that you can't get the proper quality of bread.
So what kinds of bread do you make?
Our pride is a bread called Le Zodiac…The secret is this flour which is stone ground. The
dough can hold over 73 percent water…so the bread can last for a week without drying out. This type of bread was made for people in the mountainous countryside of France who went only once a week to the village to buy bread. If you keep it under a dry cloth or in the paper bag we give you, it will stay moist. We bake four-pound loaves-big and round with a Z on the top-that we cut and sell by the pound.
Also we have a baguette made from
poulish
, a kind of overnight starter. It's a
baguette de tradition
, not an industrial baguette. [In France, "Baguette de Tradition" has a legal definition; the bread can only be made using overnight starter and 18th century techniques.]
We do a farm bread, a one-pound
boule
[round loaf] made with
levain
. Also a
ciabatta
, with olive oil in the dough, which is really good for sandwiches. And we make our own buns for burgers.
And pastries?
We make
croissants
,
pain au chocolate
,
pain au raisin
[made with a custard] and
brioche
, which is very Parisian. When
brioche
is very fresh it's fantastic. I was born and raised with
brioche
and I miss it.
And you use your breads for sandwiches?
Our bakery is the foundation for the menu. We're using all of the breads for different sandwiches, like the Zodiac bread to do a
tartine
, an open-face sandwich. Le Zodiac is a strong-tasting bread with character, and we do an Italian
tartine
with pesto, prosciutto, mozzarella, tomatoes and fresh basil. The Zodiac is lightly toasted and we spread all these ingredients on it. We have the
Provençal
, with
tapenade
, goat cheese and tomato; and the Spanish with
serrano
ham and
manchego
cheese. Our
pan bagnat
is made with tuna and hard-boiled eggs on
ciabatta
. We also offer the typically Parisian
Croque Monsieur
with cheese, Black Forest Ham and
béchamel
sauce on Zodiac bread. We make our own quiche, with specials every day, and salads, like salade niçoise and cobb salad.
Le Zodiac Café, Salon de Thé and Bakery
311 Old Santa Fe Trail
984-8500
Open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 7:30 am-3:30 pm; Saturday-Sunday 8 am-4 pm.
Tell me where to eat! I need your input. Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to
.
