Café au lait
 

I have read in many guides that a café au lait should be ordered as a "grand crême" or "café crême" in cafés in France.

However it transpires that they are not one and the same, to the tune of around a Euro.

Apparently a café au lait is an espresso, topped up with hot water and a dash of milk, whereas a café crême is an espresso, with a large cup topped up with hot frothed milk alone.

Lait is milk, & creme is cream - two different things.

A few years ago I ordered a latte in Italy. Latte at Starbucks is coffee with steamed milk. Latte in Italy is milk - and that's what I got - a glass of warm milk.

Stu Dudley

Maybe you had them in some place that served them differently and charged differently, but they are the exact same thing in many cafes whatever you call them. Even if you order a cafe creme in Paris, it isn't coffee with cream, although I guess it depends at what point you consider the fat content to make milk cream. I can't stomach coffee with cream as served in the US, but can drink a cafe creme in Paris.

I personally thought a cafe au lait was literally coffee with some milk poured in (often served in a small side pot, warmed, in those cafes that really have cafe au lait), and the cafe creme was the hot frothy thing.

I agree with Christine.. my mother's French friend Claudine started me drinking cafe au lait back in the 60's.
Hot coffee, hot milk, poured more or less simultaneously ...except when she'd have to talk and then had to put one or the other down to use her hands...

The hot frothy white stuff they add is the same in both cases, just in different quantities. I assume full fat milk.

The two are served at different prices at the same establishment.

While in Provence for all of June, we started most mornings at the same cafe. The first week we ordered Cafe au Lait, and the person taking our order shouted "Cafe au Lait" to the person actually making the drinks. Later, we switched to Cafe creme & the same waiter shouted "Cafe Creme" to the drink maker. The drinks looked the same, but the cafe creme tasted richer - or at least it seemed that way. Prices were the same.

Stu Dudley

In France, an espresso with just a tiny bit of milk is called a "noisette". Sometimes people will ask for an espresso with "un peu de lait froid" which isn't the same thing. Sometimes there is an extra charge, and sometimes there isn't.

A "café au lait" in France is called "un crème" -- most cafés will ask "grand"? or "petit"? if you do not beat them to it and ask for "un petit crème" or "un grand crème". Frothed milk is used, never cream.

If anybody actually used cream, the French would puke.

"A "café au lait" in France is called "un crème"

That's the bit that appears not to be so. I will interrogate the café owner.

I will even go so far as to say that just about every café uses 2% skim milk in their frothing pot, since that is what 90% of the French drink, unless they have small children.

I was shocked when I ordered a cappucino (at two separate places) in Paris, and got what is very similar to a cappucino, but with whipped cream on top! In one case, I was also served a carafe of water, without asking for it.

Who was I to complain?

Buerk!

I've been served an Irish coffee with cream out of a spray can....

Our Canadian friend was surprised to find that when he ordered "cafe au lait" in France, he did not get a big bowl with more or less equal quantities of milk and coffee, which is what he got in Montreal. I think French people may drink from these bowls at home because I see them for sale in shops and in movies, but I have never seen anyone drink from one in a cafe.

I was told by a French friend that one refers to it as cafe au lait at home , with your grandmere, but in a cafe one asks for a cafe creme..even though they are the same thing.

Absolutely: it is a café au lait at home but a crème in a café.

And yes, at home many (most?) French people drink their morning coffee out of a big bowl (no need for refills!).

I think French people may drink from these bowls at home because I see them for sale in shops and in movies, but I have never seen anyone drink from one in a cafe.

Sure, they are called "bols" or "tasses à déjeuner" when they have an handle and are used at home.
If you order un grand crème it will come in a large cup but not as large as a bol or a tasse à déjeuner.

That is correct. No café would ever serve a "bol". The only way a tourist might ever see one would be in a minuscule B&B in a village or in a homestay.

I must confess that I was recently reading a trip report (not on Fodor's) from someone who really likes France but who mentioned receiving a bowl without a handle as though it were a vile, disgusting event.

I don't know what the container was called, but I ordered the cafe creme in a cafe not far from Notre Dame and it was a bowl big enough to do the back stroke in. It had handles on two sides. I couldn't believe it, but was quite happy actually.

crefloors

It is called "bol à oreilles" and is rather typical of Brittany.

Our friends in Provence use the coffee bowls at breakfast; they're ideal for dipping croissants.

Café au lait at home in France is half coffee and half milk served ONLY at breakfast in a bowl of a certain shape or over-sized cup. Antique café au lait bowls are expensive. I have mine here every morning in a bowl I bought 20 years ago. Not an antique yet:)