Whether or not Georgetown needs a new crêpe place is debatable. When a lust for thin pancakes and gooey filling strikes, we already have two strong choices: Snap for quick and affordable fixes and Café Bonaparte for classier meals. Although both restaurants seem to fill the crêpe niche, the fine people of the Aditi restaurant group decided to open Crêpe Amour on M St. underneath Amma Vegetarian Kitchen.
Crêpe Amour is unassuming and benignly modern. A few shiny plastic tables and chairs are squeezed in around the preparation counter, where piles of fresh ingredients grab your attention. The food is made-to-order right in front of you by attentive, bright-eyed employees who have all the cheerful enthusiasm that comes with a new culinary venture. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something comforting about watching them spread batter onto the hot griddles with traditional wooden spatulas and fold the finished product into a neat little packet on a Styrofoam plate.
The menu, like Snap’s, is split into two lists of sweet and savory options, and each variation has a jazzy name (with some more clever than others—“Steve’s Job,” an apple and cinnamon filled concoction, probably took a bit more thought than “Bananalicious.”) Upon close inspection, the sweet menu is more limited than its eleven choices suggest, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to improve the tried and true formula of chocolate plus fruit. Expect to consume about half a cup of Nutella in one sitting, because, happily, these people do not scrimp with the toppings. The “Carnivàle” crêpe is perhaps the most decadent choice, with fresh strawberries, hazelnut chocolate and bananas folded up and covered in whipped cream and chocolate sauce. The flavors are clean and satisfying, if not revelatory.
The savory side of the menu is more ambitious—fillings ranging from the customary ham and cheese to the more unconventional mac n’ cheese and tandoori chicken. The “Mayflower,” a medley of smoked turkey, cheese and cranberry sauce, sounds enticing, but you have to wonder if a crêpe is really the right place for cold cuts. Although it’s a bit dry, it’s better to go with the “Bachan,” which is filled with spiced potatoes and peas and topped with cilantro sauce. After all, these are the people who brought us Amma’s yummy masala dosa.
Even if it’s not particularly inspired or original, Crêpe Amour is serviceable, affordable, and will leave you feeling as though it fed a hunger you didn’t realize you had.
