Lou Pécou
Brunching in Halifax’s North End
BY LAURA OAKLEY
PHOTOS MICHELLE DOUCETTE
“I need to be proud of it,” says Cédric Toullec. He’s the owner and pizzaiolo at Lou Pécou, artisanal pizzeria and… brunch joint? “I didn’t want to do [brunch]. Customers kept pushing for it.” He says about starting a Friday, Saturday and Sunday brunch and lunch combo menu within the last year. Toullec unlocks the doors to his restaurant pretty early every day at 5567 Cunard Street, getting started on the impressive amount of prep work it takes to pull off his menus. He needs a lengthy head start with making everything from scratch, including infused oils, oven-dried tomatoes, pickled vegetables and the like. Unsurprisingly, people looking for a morning meal started popping in and asking if anything was available.
Cédric Toullec
“I'm in the hospitality industry and I want to please people. I hate to say no,” says Toullec, explaining why he started serving those curious customers. He always left the door unlocked, so he started taking orders and serving a handful of tables if they came looking for something to eat. But it kick-started a morning and lunchtime following big enough that Toullec couldn’t keep doing it alone. So, he started staffing it and put together a menu with lunch and brunch items available on Fridays from noon to 2 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Why not give the people what they want?
The offering is different from many brunch menus in Halifax. With a focus on schiacciata sandwiches (an airy Tuscan flatbread with a crispy exterior), the menu needed to fit the concept and be on-brand. “I'm a pizzaiolo. People are walking into a pizzeria. I'm from the south of France.
A bunch of my family come from Italy. So I still need it to make sense,” says Toullec. Toullec decided to switch to schiacciata from focaccia this past March. He wanted to establish a bread for Lou Pécou that was more distinct. “I became tired of being looked at as just one of many crafting a dough that ‘everyone knows,’” says Toullec. “It aligns better with its use for sandwiches compared to focaccia.” He says of the schiacciata, made from a 48-hour fermented dough crafted with organic Canadian flours and a blend of seeds. According to Toullec, making schiacciata more adequately “mirrors the craft of the pizzaiolo.”
The brunch is undoubtedly on-brand, and the schiacciata is a delicious sandwich bread—thin, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside. It’s not too bready, allowing what’s inside the sandwich to be the star, but delicious enough to be a noteworthy part of the dish. On the day I come in for a midday meal, the menu has six lunch-style sandwiches (as in, no eggs) on sliced schiacciata, plus two breakfast sandwiches, a three-egg omelette, breakfast board, and mushrooms on toast.
I was fortunate enough that Friday to try a handful of different dishes. “We just respect the ingredients. It turned into something so simple but so good,” says Toullec of the menu they have come up with. I’ll admit it was hard to choose what dishes I’d try, though I was getting to taste multiple. The three-egg “wild” omelette comes with a choice of confit duck, braised wild boar, or pork belly. I went with the duck accompanied by confit duck fat potatoes. The result is a large, potentially shareable omelette. Of course, the potatoes were the proper melt-in-your-mouth texture you expect of the confit treatment, served with aioli spiked with tart, sweet sea buckthorn and seasonal greens on the side. It was very “Lou Pécou”. As decadent as this omelette was, and it deserves a place on this menu, I’m a sucker for a breakfast sandwich.
There is an option for a “simple” breakfast sandwich (according to Toullec, it’s simple), which still involves frying the eggs with fresh rosemary, thyme, smoked Cheddar and house-made mayo. Plus, various locally sourced proteins are available as upgrades for that sandwich. But the “Lou Réi” breakfast sandwich is what caught my eye, which, while still including the herb-studded fried eggs and smoked Cheddar, also has a perfectly shaped-to-the-bread pork sausage patty, house-made chipotle mayo and peppery arugula. Amazing. The combination means each bite includes crunchy bread enveloping a salty, savoury, juicy bit of pork sausage, herby eggs, melty cheese and slightly fiery aioli. Every. Bite. It’s incredibly satisfying.
The other sandwiches all sound delicious, but I am excited to get a jambon buerre sandwich made by a French chef, as straightforward and iconic as it is. Dubbed the P’tit Français on the menu, it is on schiacciata (as opposed to the usual baguette) slathered with a thicker layer of butter than is acceptable by Canadian standards, stuffed with rosemary ham and pickles. There’s a reason this one is simple. The combination of crispy bread, salty ham, creamy butter and bright pickles is perfection.
I also try the Saint Mathieu sandwich. This one contains bresaola (Italian cured beef), raclette cheese, shallots, and confit potatoes (yes, inside the sandwich) with pickled vegetables on the side. The dried, salty meat works well with the rich cheese and potatoes, with a nice palate-cleansing bite of pickles. Of course, there are add-ons, so any of these sandwiches could include a fried egg. The full menu is available during brunch, so it’s a fantastic place to stop for a morning or midday meal with a crowd of mixed tastes. We sip a couple of brunch cocktails (a Caesar, a limoncello spritz) and note the current wine list, which is still predominantly a well-rounded selection of French and Italian wines. There are three beers from Shelburne’s Boxing Rock Brewing on tap and a healthy list of bottles and cans. It’s a fully loaded brunch destination—save for one thing, so I asked Toullec about it. Why isn’t there anything sweet on the brunch menu aside from dessert? I also ask why the much-beloved Eggs Benny isn’t represented.
Once again, Toullec notes how things would have to be just so. “It's a lot of work, a lot of hours for me to cook. From four or five [in the morning] to bake fresh brioche, fresh French toast, done properly.” He refuses to cut corners. (But he doesn’t rule out the French toast completely.) As far as the coveted Eggs Benny goes, “We will do [Eggs Benny]. But in a Lou Pécou way,” says Toullec. “There is an attention to elevation. You can do Eggs Benny, but bring something [unique]. What is your personality? Where we can say if we do a blind taste test—that's Lou Pécou.”
Toullec is creative (and perhaps a little restless?), constantly changing his menus for brunch and dinner, the latter revolving around pizza and a healthy smattering of appetizers and desserts. He takes his cues from local agriculture, working with nearby farmers and even the organic flour mills. “I'm just having fun. I'm considering the season,” says Toullec. So, while I thoroughly enjoyed my brunch-slash-lunch that day, I expect to see quite a different menu the next time I go in. As an avid brunch-goer and solid Lou Pécou fan, that’s okay with me.
Lou Pécou is open six days a week, Tuesday through Sunday. In addition to brunch and lunch service on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, dinner starts at 5 p.m. each day the restaurant is open.
