DINING / Breizh Café, Ainslie
A sweet slice of Brittany By Wendy Johnson
FROM the minute we walked in the door we were embraced with the warmth and affection of Breizh Café – not physically, because of COVID-19, but emotionally.
One of the dressing rooms in the second stage of the Belconnen Arts Centre’s expansion.
Big reveal for Belco Arts Centre’s new expansion By Helen Musa
This little slice of Brittany at the Ainslie shops is a must visit. The owners, Bruno Paressant, born in Brittany, and Bronwyn Thomson, with decades in the food industry, opened their crêperie after returning from living with their two sons in the quaint coastal town of Vannes. The café’s décor is inspired by their French sojourn – pretty blue paintwork, Breton memorabilia and artwork, and textures and colours from the stone-wall cottages of charming coastal Brittany. Breizh specialises in crepes and patisserie from Brittany and France. It was lunchtime and while the items on the specials board were enticing, we settled on savoury galettes made with gluten-free buckwheat flour. The smoked salmon – presented as a rose in the centre – was pretty on the plate and so simple yet sophisticated. It came with Gruyère, cut into perfect cubes, and a hard-boiled egg, cut the same way. Perky tomatoes supported the flavour profile as did the sour cream and lovely, salty capers ($23).
Kouign-Amann… as rich and delectable as promised. Photo: Wendy Johnson The mushroom galette, beautifully presented, was also served with Gruyère, and potatoes sautéed in parsley and garlic butter and baby spinach ($22.50). It was loaded with flavour but not heavy. We enjoyed lunch with a quality rosé – a Grenache/shiraz blend from Provence ($11 glass or $45 bottle). Our table was close to the big glass cabinet, loaded with gorgeous sweet and savoury items. Fresh breads stacked in baskets are lined on top of the cabinet and we drooled over what was lined up inside, including cakes and pastries, all made with butter not oil. Speaking of butter, Bruno recommended the traditional Kouign-Amann for dessert, which originated in Brittany around 1860. He promised, with a massive grin, that it was calorie-free.
Here’s the thing. Kouign means cake and amann means butter. The dessert is bread dough layered and folded with butter and sugar, and then more butter and sugar and then more butter and sugar. The cake is slow baked and eventually the sugar caramelises the outside. It’s as rich and delectable as promised. What a sweet deal at only $7 – and we didn’t give a hoot about the calories. We also shared the gluten-free chocolate fudge cake ($5.50). There are no words to describe the experience. And we loved that both desserts were served warm, bringing out the flavours. The staff at Breizh Café are all super friendly. Breizh Café, 15 Edgar Street, Ainslie shops.
THE Belconnen Arts Centre is putting on its best face for the “big reveal” of its Stage 2 development on Friday, August 21. When Stage 1 opened back in August 2009, the then-Chief Minister Jon Stanhope put out the challenge to the arts centre to fill it with activity if it wanted to be granted funds for stage two – and they’ve done just that, with visual art exhibitions, dance, classes, events and concerts, an artist-inresidence program, with minioffices housing arts organisations like Musica Viva and The Griffyn Ensemble and individuals, such as actor Christopher Samuel Carroll. The original design by Williams Ross Architects for both stages 1 and 2 was abandoned when, during the run-up to the 2016 election, the ACT government pledged funding for stage 2 and a totally new design process was set in motion, which resulted in the engagement of DJAS (Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn) Architecture and PBS Building for construction. Now the two designs, old and new, are visually linked by the evocative yellow whispering “reeds” sculpture, “Dancers on a Lakefront”, by Konstantin Dimopoulos. I took a tour of the new facility with staffers Skye Rutherford and Shan Crosbie recently, skirting around a lot of wires being wrestled into submission by technical manager Linda Buck. The state-of-the-art facilities include audio-enhancement for people with hearing disabilities, new public toilets and a small art
Ceiling of the Pivot Gallery. gallery facing the street. That joins the previous main gallery, now called the West Gallery. The old foyer, now called the Generator Gallery and the central Pivot Gallery (“because everything pivots around it”, they tell me) to make a suite of four substantial exhibiting spaces. The Pivot Gallery adjoins the grand foyer, which leads to stage two. There’s a coffee shop and a rehearsal room/dance studio, but without doubt the essence of it all is the new, large theatre. Equipped with lighting catwalks, impressive acoustics, a cyclorama and curtains, it is essentially a big black box with retractable seating for around 200 people and movable seating for another 200. Backstage is impressive, with several dressing rooms, a green room, a substantial loading dock giving access to the whole centre and high-ceilinged corridors leading to production offices and dressing rooms. Co-CEO/artistic director, Monika
McInerney and fellow-CEO, Jack Lloyd, have inveigled Minister Gordon Ramsay and a bunch of insiders and media to wake up early on August 21 for a sunrise smoking ceremony overlooking Lake Ginninderra, performed by Duncan Smith’s group, Wiradjuri Echoes. Then there’ll be some fun and music in the evening in a staged opening to the public that McInerney calls “singing the space into life”. As for showbiz, that will kick off in September with a daring circus called “L’entreprise du Risque” in which aerial expert Bernard Bru, costume designer Olga Dumova, circus performers Adam Read and Jake Silvestro and young artists from Canberra’s Warehouse Circus will weave aerial magic under the 6.5m high catwalks, plainly signalling joy and fun at the recently re-named Belco Arts.
EXHIBITION RUNS 23 JULY TO 30 AUGUST 2020
Bookings to Belco Arts’ opening night function on August 21 at tinyurl.com/ belcoarts CityNews August 20-26, 2020 21
