French toast, its history and our best addresses

A loaf of bread, not lost for everyone! While French toast was originally a recipe for recovering stale bread, a cheap and easy recipe to make from simple ingredients, today it has become the playground of pastry chefs and cooks alike. Enriched with vanilla and cinnamon, it can also be found as a dessert on a plate. French toast has a bright future ahead of it!

Most often, it's made from brioche, often fresh, toasted and then generously flavored according to the chef's whims. Sliced, cubed, with cream, ice cream quenelle or fruit, there's not just one recipe for French toast, but an infinite number of them, including savoury versions!

Anthony Coquereau's French toast at Fouquet's Paris

Both an iconic Parisian brasserie dessert and a childhood memory for the chef, Anthony Coquereau likes to choose a fresh brioche to make his pain perdu. "I toast the brioche so that it's soft throughout and crisp on the outside to retain its texture. I then soak it in crème anglaise for a few minutes." The brioche slice is then caramelized in a pan to create a light crust on top. Served with salted butter caramel or a quenelle of vanilla ice cream, how can you resist?

• Where? 99 Avenue des Champs Élysées, 75008 Paris
• www.hotelsbarriere.com/restaurants
• Gault&Millau's verdict on Fouquet's Paris

Anne Coruble's French toast at Péninsula Paris

French toast is a classic on the breakfast menu. Pastry chef Anne Coruble takes a playful approach, bringing elegance and indulgence to it. "It's a slightly sweet brioche, toasted in the oven before being soaked, with lots of vanilla and a little orange blossom." Served with a hazelnut creaminess and roasted hazelnut chips, we'd ask for the breakfast French toast as a dessert on the plate to round off the meal!

• Where? 19 Avenue Kléber, 75116 Paris
• www.peninsula.com
• Gault&Millau's review of Le Péninsula Paris

Florent Pietravalle's French toast at La Mirande

A French toast unlike any other, reworked by the chef! Here, French toast gets a modern twist, incorporating mushrooms from La Mirande's cellar as a signature of the place that's both classic and surprising. " To keep the French toast tasty for dessert, I serve it with bread chips, a quenelle of miso bread ice cream and shavings of button mushrooms and Soyu," explains head chef Florent Pietravalle. A bold, offbeat approach to this traditional dessert.

• Where? 4 Place de l'Amirande, 84000 Avignon
• www.la-mirande.fr
• Gault&Millau's review of Le Mirande

Pierre Hermé's French toast

A model of its kind, an ode to gourmandise. Pierre Hermé's pain perdu takes the form of a generous cube of infinitely melt-in-the-mouth brioche. Flavored with vanilla and caramelized with semi-salted butter, the brioche dough is both incredibly soft and deliciously crisp. To amplify the textural contrasts, it's served with fresh fruit that varies with the season to bring a note of freshness to this most regressive dessert.
► www.pierreherme.com