Petite Sierra Madre café delights with big flavors

With a jaunty bistro vibe, Monsieur Crêpe Café, a self-described “hole in the wall” in Sierra Madre, serves a concise menu of Cali-French dishes and deconstructed classics updated to delight a modern Southern California sensibility.

Owners Xavier Sosa, Karla Zelaya and Chef Guilbert Balmaceda have been a team since Sosa bought the restaurant in December 2022, just in time to celebrate the crêperie’s 10th anniversary in October 2023. Balmaceda started working for then-owner Aurélien (Tony) at the café in 2015 and stayed on to lead Sosa’s new venture.

In March 2024, they initiated a kitchen remodeling project with a new stove and oven to serve more menu items and expand the breakfast and dinner options. “We also wanted to offer more quiche quantities because we run out really quick, as they are made fresh daily,” says Sosa. (Of course, you can also enjoy sweet and savory crêpes.)

Dinner is offered Thursday through Saturday with a menu that includes poissonniere (subtitled “linguini with marinara”), ratatouille served with polenta made smoother and lighter with an infusion of Greek yogurt, and beef bourguignon made with pancetta in place of bacon for a less smoky taste.

Balmaceda is not troubled by the robust cross-pollination between the heartiest expressions of French and Italian cuisines. “We listen to the feedback from our guests, so sometimes we depart from tradition,” he says. “Food is not a museum, stuck someplace in the past. It’s an alive thing that responds to time and place, based on what’s available.”

In this sense, Monsieur Crêpe Café is more faithful than most to the essence of French cooking, especially regarding food encountered outside the city limits of La Ville Lumière (the City of Light).

Consider the bouillabaisse, which the chef calls “peasant food.” Monsieur Crêpe’s deluxe version is loaded with choice mollusks and crustaceans (Venus clams, manila clams, mussels and crab claws). This briny bounty takes the dish far afield from its humble origins among the fisherfolk of Marseille who used bony rockfish they couldn’t sell at market as the stew’s base.

And yet Balmaceda’s interpretation reflects the improvisational attitude of the original. Whatever seafood is freshest goes into the pot. The chef, who lives in Torrance, routinely makes the drive to a San Pedro fishmonger he’s worked with for more than a decade to procure the highly perishable ingredients that may vary slightly from week to week.

The small size of the 750-square-foot eatery poses storage and space challenges. The chef explains, “Refrigeration is always a huge issue with seafood, and we don’t have tremendous space for cold storage. So this means we have to buy ingredients more frequently. It also means that the selection may be different tomorrow. Sometimes we wing it, and if we run out, we run out!” Balmaceda then musters a convincing Gallic shrug, though he’s from the Philippines.

The chef maintains the attitude and style of Monsieur Crêpe Café with an array of sophisticated choices in the kitchen. Among them: saffron and fennel. “Not all saffron is created equal,” he says. “Just spend the money. Buy the good stuff. You need so little of it, and it’s totally worth it.”

As for fennel, he calls it “terribly underrated,” and explains that it’s the magic in his velvety lobster bisque that he deglazes with vermouth, port and brandy. Pernod is also a favorite for its licorice-anise flavor, subtly finding its way into the bouillabaisse and le escargot. And then there’s this sage advice: “Never cook with wine you wouldn’t drink.”

The kitchen is visible from each of the café tables and from the street, drawing the curious and the hungry. Aromas of melting butter and sizzling shallots drift out under the trembling purple bower of faux wisteria that Sosa incorporated into the decor to honor the annual Sierra Madre Wistaria Festival.

Regulars passing the doorway call out to the chef, who knows them all by name. He visits every table while diners dig in, explaining “We wouldn’t be here without them.”

One last thing: If you’re using GPS, type in “Monsieur Crêpe Café” instead of the address, which wants to take you to Arcadia.

Monsieur Crêpe Café
54 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre
MonsieurCrepe.com