Location: Paris (21, rue Richard Lenoir)
Nearest Metro Stations: Charonne and Voltaire (line 9)
Opening Times: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 11 – 15:30, Thursday and Friday 11 – 15:30 & 18:30 – 21:30, Saturday 11 – 21:30, closed on Sundays.
Food: 100% gluten free cafe – sandwiches/subs, cakes, muffins, biscuits, etc.
Bears and Raccoons is a brilliant little coffeeshop in Paris (around the 11th arrondissement) that is completely gluten free!
We found ourselves there after digging on the internet for a safe place to grab lunch – all I can say thank god for smart phones and speaking french as a first language (because many of the gluten free places in Paris don’t actually seem to come up in Google unless you search in french); what did people do before the internet? – and the name immediately jumped at me. I mean come on, Bears and Raccoons, how cute is that?! I didn’t even need to see the menu or pictures of the food… my mind was already made up. It has to be good, right? haha
And we were not disappointed. It’s a cosy little cafe with a great atmosphere, great service from friendly staff and the food is pretty good too. A definite must-go for any gluten free people visiting or living in Paris. It was the perfect lunch break on a cold spring afternoon.
I took the ‘Grumpy Bear’ sandwich which is made with pastrami, coleslaw, cheese, pickles and rocket. It was delicious! They were generous with the filling and the bread was perfect; great crispy crust, but still soft on the inside. Even my non-coeliac boyfriend approved. 😉
For dessert, they had many yummy looking options so it was hard to choose, but I just had to go for the cheesecake! With raspberry coulis.
Whenever there’s cheesecake available, it doesn’t matter what else is on the menu, I just have to have it! I’m an addict and it’s made me really picky and critical of all cheesecakes so that’s the only problem, but I wasn’t disappointed. While I normally prefer creamier types of cheesecakes, I really loved this one. It was surprisingly not too sweet and with interesting flavours. There was definitely a touch of nutmeg to it and I loved how the coulis was more sour than sweet. Very nice. Bonus points for the presentation!
Other options available were muffins, cookies, almond tarts, carrot cake, etc. which I would have loved to sample, if I’d had more time!
It’s also worth mentioning that they have a selection of gluten free beers so we got to share a bottle of Estrella Damm Daura along with our lunch which I thought was a nice addition. 🙂
For more info, check out their website –> here
