Not just another Edinburgh cafe

Good South Indian crepes led this week to even better northern French ones, cooked and served with real Gallic elan in a recently-opened creperie in that lengthy Edinbugh boulevard which stretches all the way from Bruntsfield to Fairmilehead and beyond, and which is gradually filling up with pit-stops, some of them well worth lingering in. 

This one, a few paces up from Henderson’s wine shop in Comiston Road, has the taste of real French authenticity and though its name, Marie Delices, and its mildly pinko-mauve decor may carry a faint whiff of Morningside tweeness, it sidesteps this with ease through its obvious expertise and the personality of Marie-Claire Lafont, the young French woman who, with one helper,  runs it all with such delicious flair. 

In theory, the place could be just another Edinburgh cafe or Morningside tearoom for local ladies but, although it clearly performs the latter task quite effectively,  it’s not otherwise like that at all, for it cooks its own fresh crepes and galettes while you wait (quite briefly) for them to arrive on your table. Moreover it bakes its own cakes in the spacious, well-equipped and visible kitchen at the rear, and serves genuinely cool, dry cider imported from Finistere, which you drink from those giant imported bowl-like cups, known as bolees, so traditionally popular in France. 

In other words, despite its Morningside overtones, the place could hardly be more French, even if the coffee is (admirably) Italian. Though the atmosphere is relaxing, it is thoroughy alive, and today, on my first visit, I loved every aspect of it.  The only snag is that, perhaps because it is where it is, it’s a strictly daytime establishment - though France has its daytime places also. Perhaps Marie-Claire will eventually  be persuaded to stay open longer, but that would make it a bigger and not necessarily better operation. Meanwhile it’s at your disposal for lunch and snacks every day from Tuesday to Saturday, which seems in the circumstances quite adequate.

My lunch, let me add, was all it needed to be, and Susie, the eldest and most food-conscious of my four daughters (though the youngest one, it must be said, is catching up on her), joined me in a selection of dishes that gave a good impression of Marie Delices’s possibilities.  My savoury buckwheat galette, made with imported strong French flour, was a sort of glorified croque monsieur called an Incontournable - a splendid word meaning "must have" - with a softly fried egg peeping out from the middle of the cheese and ham, the whole thing neatly folded into an enticingly crispy envelope. 

The sweeter crepes, delectably light, range from a basic one with sugar, salted butter and, if you wish, some blobs of fresh creme chantilly, right up to a full-scale Suzette, with fresh orange and Cointreau. The prettily painted crockery comes from Quimper. The furnishings come from relatives back home. Everything, in fact, is sublimely French, and even although Marie-Claire herself is actually from Bordeaux, she has worked in Brest and it is Brittany that colours the whole of this gallant little restaurant. 

Why has she settled, at least for now, in Edinburgh?  Because, she says, she simply fancied the idea of opening up in Scotland, and the menu includes a Scottish smoked salmon galette to confirm the fact. In a way, she has given us a genuine Scottish offshoot of Montmartre’s famous Moulin de la Galette, which from the seventeenth century milled its own flour and made its own bread.  Marie Delices is at 125 Comiston Road, Edinburgh. 

4 June 2014

www.mariedelices.co.uk