Just curious: Difference between café au lait, and café crème?
 

Going to paris in march, and never really paid attention to the different types of coffee drinks.

i like milk in mine, but what options do i have?

And while I have you.. what is the average price for a cup of coffee at a pastry shop or after lunch at bistro?

lait= milk
creme=cream

cafes charge about 2-2.5 euro for a coffee - average ordinary cafes but can be more in some Paris cafes. No free refills! And you pay more to sit down than at the counter.

Coffee to go? "a emporter s'il vous plait"

I'm sure this will generate other disagreements, but I believe a cafe creme, despite its name, to be a coffee with milk, just less milk than a cafe au lait.

In my experience, any coffee with milk, is considered a breakfast item by the French (as is cappucino, 'cafe cap'). This doesn’t mean that you absolutely can’t get milky coffee during the day or after dinner, it’s just not traditionally French. If you ask for just “un café”, many times they just bring you an espresso in a small cup. Sometimes they ask you if you want "un cafe noir" (a black coffee). If you say yes, you'll definitely get an espresso. If you hopefully inquire if they have cafe americain, this is what you MAY get: a regular-size coffee cup with a shot of espresso at the bottom, plus a small pitcher filled with hot water, to dilute the stuff, I guess. Then there was a separate little pitcher of milk. Sometimes a menu has cafe filtre, which is closer to American coffee.

Price--just as in the states, from 1 euro (maybe less) to 3+ euro, depending on where you are ordering it, and if you drink it standing up or sitting down.

I'm not sure either if there is a difference between un cafe creme and a cafe au lait - Shallot is probably right.

For a big cup of coffee with milk i ask for "un grand creme" but costs about twice as much as "un cafe" the thimble-sized espresso.

<I believe a cafe creme, despite its name, to be a coffee with milk, just less milk than a cafe au lait.>((y))
:-)

Silly as it sounds, ordering a coffee w/milk in Paris was a challenge for me. I did not want a cafe au lait, or any other coffee with milk or cream already in it. I wanted black coffee with a little milk or cream on the side. I never figured out exactly how to order it that way, and would always the wrong thing. Oh, well, c'est la vie!

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34497082

more (much more) discussion...

i am not interested in the american type coffee, but had read here someone was raving about the café crème, and didn't know what that was.

do you get nice frothy milk head on café au lait.. or not? ( what i like for breakfast is similar to what we have here in spain, which is café con leche.. but some places do it really nice.. almost a capuccino with this lovely frothy head on it).

would love something like that. if it has a name, please post. or if it is something i can order..good.(not interested in paying double, though, for some special request).

Thanks for the insights til now.

I agree with shalott, and that's the way it is in the places I frequent. It's just that cafe creme has gotten to be the more popular name in cafes in Paris (rather than cafe au lait, which is used more at home). In most places, you get the exact same thing regardless of which name you use. I think that in theory cafe au lait has more milk, or the milk is just poured and not steamed or something.

There are a few cafes that still serve the milk on the side, or will if you ask. You can't predict which ones will, though, although you could ask. I think some of the more elegant ones do (it makes more dirty dishes, for one thing). I think they serve it on the side in one of my favorites, the Rotonde in Montparnasse.

You do usually get a nice frothy milk on top if you order a cafe creme. Again, I don't think you can predict it by cafe, but you might give a look around when you are thinking of a place to see if someone is being served and what it looks like.

I think the places I go usually charge more like 3 euro for a cafe creme (at least 2.5), and I always sit at a table.

I have only ordered cafe Americain a couple times (because I really prefer black coffee and dont like milk or anything in it) and regretted it. It was terrible and in some cafes they use that term for black instant coffee. I order a cafe allonge if I really don't want the cafe creme and that's a better bet than cafe Americain.

thanks for the link, travelnut.

anxious to try it all out and see what i get and which i like better!

Funny..a friend asked this question of a waiter one day and we asked another the same question in a different place. When we met up that evening , we found we'd both received the same answer.

They are the same thing, cafe au lait is what you'd ask your grandmother or mother for at home. If yo are ordering in a cafe , it's cafe creme.

When I want a large cup of black coffer, I ask for une grand cafe noir.

Oui je pense Jody est correct. Don't remember seeing the term cafe au lait in cafes - just cafe creme ("kre-h-mmm"

Café au lait is only drunk at breakfast.
Cafe creme is ok throughout the day.

ciaglechanta: you imply there is a difference between the two - what is it? What is the difference between the breakfast drink and the cafe later in the day - same thing with different names or some actual difference. Merci.

There aren't any rules about coffee drinking, except generally speaking if the French want a sweet coffee they'd have it in the morning, with un express or something less sweet later in the day. But it's a moot point, anyway because café au lait and ca'fe crème are one and the same nowadays.

I think there is a consensus to the extent that both cafe creme and cafe au lait have some coffee and a fair amount of milk, perhaps steamed, perhaps just hot.
There isn't any law about any differences between them, any more than someone might wonder what is <u>true</u> hot chocolate. It's however the particular place makes it.
Have fun experimenting. :)

caf&eacute; creme is coffee with a little milk or cream. Caf&eacute; au lait is hot milk served half the milk and half coffee. In some B&amp;Bs it will be served as I have at home in a bowl. Some serve it in an over sized cup.

here's what the shape lokks like. Many collect the old ones.

http://ww5.williams-sonoma.com/cat/p...7&amp;flash=on

in the future you can turn any monster of a url into a very short one at
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SORRY!!!!
Thank you VERY MUCH, shallot ((F))

http://tinyurl.com/bcddq