“If you have nice ingredients and stay true to them, it’ll taste good,” Emma Gray tells me, as she foams the milk for my flat white in her French Bakery and Pizzeria on Clanbrassil St. She is one half of Gaillot et Gray. Her partner is Gilles Gaillot and together they opened up their French-style, wood-fired pizzeria on Clanbrassil Street in Dublin 8 in March of this year.
Previously, they had been selling French-style pizza coated in melted and tangy Emmentel cheese rather than the Italian mozzarella, out of a vintage Citroen H van which they picked up in Gaillot’s native France and drove all the way back to Greystones in 2011. Since opening on Clanbrassil St, their evening trade (which runs from 4pm to 10pm, Tuesday through Saturday) of takeaway pizza has been thriving, with my current favourite being the chorizo and fresh chilli pizza (€14). The interiors, designed by Gray, are simple and industrial, with a large communal table and a few other seats for those who want to eat-in.
“It’s lovely to see customers interact on the shared tables,” says Gray, telling me a few tales of sweet encounters between customers who on the surface didn’t have much in common but got friendly over a glass of BYO wine and a slice of pizza.
Once they had found their feet in the evenings, they extended their opening hours to include a French Bakery from 8am to 2pm from Tuesday through to Saturday. There are huge croissants and caramel-coloured pain au chocolate (€1.50 each), dainty madeleine cakes (80c each or three for €2), and a brioche loaf (€7.50 or €2.50 for a slice, toasted). Perhaps the most coveted (by me, anyway) is the traditional French boule loaves (€4.50) that come fresh out of the pizza oven every day.
Gaillot et Gray’s baker, Peter Lee, uses Gilles’ recipe for a traditional rustic boule which is made from a combination of slow-fermented yeast and sourdough starter, so it’s got a bit of a tang, but the consistency is a spongier treat than a crunchy sourdough.
They use two types of flour in the bread, a plain white flour and a buckwheat and linseed flour, giving these loaves an extra bite of flavour.
On Saturdays, they soon found that the pastries and bread were selling out before 10.30am, so they started offering a selection of yummy things on slices of their toasted boule or brioche, such as smashed avocado or butterbean (4.50). All their ingredients are carefully sourced, such as the delicious Broighter Gold rapeseed oil from Northern Ireland that sits on all their tables.
The coffee is from Baobab Roasters, a duo based in Celbridge, whose Brazilian blend is the house bean of choice at Gaillot et Gray. “The tones of chocolate in the coffee match perfectly with the croissants and pastries,” says Gray, and she’s right. It’s the perfect coffee for their milky coffees and pastries, rather than a fashionable fruity specialty coffee. Tea is by Intelligent Tea, an excellent herbal tea made by Freda Wolfe from Irish herbs at Wild Irish Foods.
At Gaillot et Gray, the emphasis is on thoughtful simplicity. For the customer, this translates into a straightforward yet special experience. Taking home a freshly baked loaf of rustic French bread and a well-made coffee, with your pockets stuffed with flaky croissants, is a pretty great start to any day.
