When you’re visiting Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie in Epcot’s France Pavilion, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with the huge array of choices and just stick with what you know. (In the case of the frangipane, I forgive you.)
Bakery Case at Les Halles
Frangipane — Cross Section
Now, maybe you’ve been tempted to step outside the box, but just haven’t known enough about the other options to trust that it would be a good use of your snack credit on the Disney Dining Plan or your dining dollars.
Les Halles dessert and pastries menu
Well, that’s why you have us! Today we’re going to demystify one of those lesser-known items: the Café Liégeois!
Cafe Liegeois
You’ll spot the Café Liégeois among the soft desserts in the bakery case near items like Chocolate Mousse and Fruit Parfaits.
Cafe Leigeios in bakery case
My understanding is that while a Café Liégeois is traditionally an ice cream treat, the Les Halles take is a coffee and cream mousse, which offers the full coffee-flavor experience in three layers.
Cafe Liegeois
Taking it from the top, the white layer is an airy sweet cream, and reminds me of the flavored coffee creamers that you can buy in the store (and thank goodness for those — they are what get me through the morning!).
Top layer of the Cafe Liegeois
The second, dark layer is an intense espresso flavor for the serious coffee connoisseur, and the most dense in texture of the three.
Second and third layers of the Cafe Liegeois
And the third and final mousse-layer is what we like to call “coffee light;” the taste brought to mind a coffee milkshake (a la a Frappuccino). The coffee flavor is still very much present, but tempered with plenty of creamy sweetness.
Basically what you have here is a layer for every kind of coffee lover. Obviously, you need to really enjoy the flavor of coffee to get on board with this one.
As for me – since Les Halles opens at 9:00 am, prior to the rest of World Showcase — I’m calling this coffee treat a nice little excuse to start the day with dessert 😉 .
What Disney World snack have you always wanted to try, but haven’t yet? Please let us know with a comment!
Our handy (and portable!) ebook guides make sure you get the best deals and can plan a vacation of a lifetime.
I LOVE this dessert!!! The airy layer on top reminds me of the foam on a cappuccino. It’s so much delicious, creamy, coffee, chocolatey goodness. Every time I go to the bakery I mean to branch out and try something else and always come out with that instead!
There are just too many too name to tell you, but this one is certainly a good one to start with! I think that I would get serious sensory overload in that place and have too choose more than one (I’ve never been there yet!!!!!! 🙁 ).
Sorry, I spelled my two ‘tos’ incorrectly up above. LOL
Does anyone know if this is gluten free? I’d love to know if there are any gluten free options at Les Halles.
This looks fantastic! I love the lemon tart so much that it’s hard to break away, but I want to give this a try.
You had me at coffee …. I’ll definitely be trying this. I do see the array of choices and sometimes become dizzy. Especially if I’m not familiar with the name, I may not choose something like this. Its on my list now!
Laura, I know the macarons are gluten free for sure, and my wife (who’s the gluten free one in the family) says that they are the best macarons you can find in Disney. She thinks the Mickey shaped ones elsewhere are much lower quality and have a much different taste than the ones in Epcot, especially Les Halles. Give them a try if that’s your thing.
Jeff, Thanks for the info. We will be there in November and I wanted a reason to visit Les Halles, but all the pictures I saw screamed wheat to me. It’s good to know I’ll have a delicious option when we make our way around the world.
Does your wife have any other gluten free favorites I should try to check out?
Wait, has Les Halles always been open at 9:00am? We were there in April, and if it was-I wish I had known that!! We were at the Beach Club Villas, and that would have been a perfect place for breakfast!
Laura, if you meant does she have any more favorites at Les Halles, then the answer is no. Your assumption that everything there has gluten is correct. Right next door is L’Artisan des Glaces, which has the Macaron Ice Cream Sandwich which she also gets almost every time. If you’re curious about the rest of the parks, let me know what spot you’re interested in and I’ll tell you what her go-to items are.
Julie – That’s awesome, I don’t know many people who have tried it :)!
Essie – Hi! So nice to hear from you :)! You’re right, it’s MAJOR sensory overload in there!
Laura – I saw that Jeff answered your question (thanks, Jeff!). That’s great that you’re taking some time now to prep for your Nov trip… I hope you find lots of terrific options, and have a great vacation!
Sherri – Ooh… I haven’t tried the lemon tart yet…
Cindy – Hope you enjoy :)!
Jeff – thanks so much for sharing that helpful info! Much appreciated…
Maureen – I’m sorry you missed it! Unlike the rest of World Showcase, Les Halles opens at 9:00 am. Hopefully you’ll be able to catch it in the morning on your next trip!
Jeff, I was just wondering if she had favorite eateries that did gluten free really well that I could check out. We will be on the quick service dining plan and spending our days in MK, HS and Epcot. ( In Epcot I love the Moroccan counter service restaurant!)
Our last trip to Disney included many sit down meals ( where I enjoyed delicious, often custom tailored, gluten free meals.) This year we decided that trying to eat at table service restaurants took too long. Our time was always increased due to our allergies ( we spent 3 1/2 hrs at TREX in Downtown Disney!) As someone who loves good food I’m trying to figure out the best counter service restaurants for me. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for your answers.
Laura, My wife just talked to me (she’s out of town) and said she doesn’t have any set foods that she eats during every visit. The one place she recommends most is the gluten-free stand in Animal Kingdom, where you can get all kinds of gluten-free treats, including her favorite, the Babycakes snacks like cupcakes, cookies, and other pre-packaged (now that their store in DTD is closed) items. Unfortunately, AK is the one place you don’t appear to be visiting this time, go figure… As you have already figured out, table service is a great option as you have the chef come to your table to help you find menu items that are gluten-free, can be made gluten-free, or items that he can create specifically for you. You mention that due to the time constraints, you will be avoiding this as well.
I hope AJ is okay with me posting another blog site on here, as I think it’ll be a help to you. I am not affiliated with the site whatsoever, in fact I personally have never even been to it, but my wife checks it out occasionally. The site is http://www.glutenfreedairyfreewdw.com/. I guess the lady that runs it is all about allergy free dining at Disney. While there is no site that would take the place of Disney Food Blog for me, maybe this other site could help add to what this site (the best Disney food site on the net, of course) has to offer for you. Specifically, if you scroll over the tab for “Dining Recources” and click on Reference Sheets, you’ll see a sheet for all gluten-free dining in Disney (produced by Disney themselves). You can print the PDF out and bring it with you to the parks for a quick reference.
There is also an app out, called YoDish, for people to review allergy free places. The owner of the above website is a huge contributor to the app, so you’ll find many reviews from Disney. I hope this helps. We many times wing it at Disney, and when it’s time to eat, we then search for the best place to offer several gluten-free options for my wife. This last trip we used that spreadsheet and it helped immensely.
Jeff, Thanks for all the additional resources. I will certainly look into them. And I agree, this is the best Disney food site out there. I read it everyday.