Aren’t all bakeries pretty much the same? We found out they can be different. Very different.
There’s bread, and then there’s…bread.
Imagine a French bread baguette, with diced black olives, twisted.
Where do we start?
The Story
It was our first morning in Orange, France back in October 2019, we left Hôtel Arène specifically en route to the Office de Tourisme.
Photo from Google Maps.
We were greeted on the street to the market that morning and on our way to the tourist office, we saw this bakery, Le Pain Gourmand which translates as Gourmet Bread. We couldn’t help ourselves and decided to stop in to buy a few loaves to eat.
They didn’t speak English, and we only spoke a little French, but that didn’t seem to matter.
We saw this bread in the baker’s case that had small dark chunks spread throughout a twisted loaf. Initially we thought the dark chunks may be chocolate.
Dianne pointed to it and asked in English what it was. The woman and behind the counter figured out exactly what the question was, then clearly stated “Oh-leeve”.
Olives. Oh my. Better than chocolate in our minds.
We were thinking, olive bread combined with a glass of red wine? Spectacular.
Seriously.
This is the kind of experience you see in the movies that you say to yourself – “this can’t be real”. Well this one is.
Everything we bought from Le Pain Gourmand that week was fresh and tasty. What you would normally expect from a bakery. But as the olive bread was so over the top delicious, we ended up going back several more times during our stay. If you go, make sure you get there early or they may sell out!
The Place
Like a lot of smaller mom-pop businesses (like Café Courtois – Salon de Thé or Le Forum Restaurant), they may be fantastic places, but they don’t have a website. And at Le Pain Gourmand, they only take cash (euros).
It’s a walk-in spot with cafe seating outside, but no place to sit inside.
They don’t offer coffee and tea, but the place next door does. As such, it is strictly a bakery, but a very good one.
Like any typical bakery, they make so much of each item and when it’s sold out, you have to wait until the next time they make it.
And they only made the olive bread every other day. This we found out when we went back the very next day for more, expecting to snag more of their delicious olive bread. Instead we discovered we’d have to wait another whole day to get some!
This is one of those places where we look back and asked ourselves why we didn’t take any pictures. In this case, most likely our lack of photography was due to the adventure of working through the language along the excitement and anticipation of eating more of such great bread.
All things considered, if you ever find yourself in Orange, France, take some time out, visit Le Pain Gourmand, and buy some of their fabulous breads. And don’t think you’ll find the same tasting olive bread in other places in France, we bought and ate olive bread from almost a dozen other places, finding none that came even close to theirs. Don’t forget to make sure you get there early or they may sell out!
If you like fresh French bread, you will love this place!