Butter me up: Paris gets its first boutique devoted to France’s favorite fat

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The contradiction of the trim Parisian and the butter croissant now has a storefront.

Le Butter Shop, billed as Paris’ first boutique devoted entirely to butter, opened in July, a short walk from the Eiffel Tower—with 30 varieties from small family producers in Brittany, the Loire Valley, and northern France.

France eats around 8 kilograms (18 pounds) of butter per person a year, says the agriculture ministry. It’s among the most in the world. Yet the home of Chanel and Dior keeps an obesity rate well below the average for wealthy nations—14%, compared to an average of 19% for the developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

At the new boutique, customers taste by the spoonful before buying anything from a 10-gram pat to a kilogram (2.2-pound) block: the classics, then shallot, pepper, seaweed, wild garlic, fine herbs, and lemon with green pepper. At the sweet end: vanilla, raspberry, strawberry and chocolate.

“Most people don’t expect to like a raspberry butter or to like chocolate butter,” said owner Erwan Leo. “And when they try it, this is where they’re just like, ‘Oh wow, OK.’” Leo, who also runs a wine-tasting business, said butter should be used like wine, to make a meal better—“the goal isn’t to get drunk.”

Mehreen Himayat and Salman Bin Ehsan of Dublin, Ireland, saw videos of the shop at home before traveling to France. “We came here just to taste the butter,” Bin Ehsan told The Associated Press.

Alexandra Incolano, a 36-year-old who lives near Paris, came to the shop with a specific mission. “I’m getting married on Saturday, and I’m going to have a cheese centerpiece,” Incolano said. “I saw on Instagram that they had lots of great butters, and I thought it could be a little something extra for my guests, a little surprise.”

The reputation of French butter is also attracting visitors who work professionally with food.

“I know that there’s some of the best butter in France, but I’ve never tried any,” said Aleksandr Balaban, a 31-year-old Estonian chef working in Norway. “I work in Norway; they really like salted butter, and my friend asked me to bring him some French butter as well.”

This article and video were provided by The Associated Press.

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[Customers sampling butter]

[Person holding a spoon with a small piece of butter]

[Butter displayed in a glass case]

[Block of butter]

[Sampling of assorted flavored butter]

Erwan Leo (interview): “So I just opened this place for people to really discover what real butter is and all the different tastes you have. So the idea here is before buying the butter, you can taste all of them. I have a tower where all the types of butter—raspberries, strawberries, garlic, all spices can be found. You taste it, and whatever you like, then you can buy it directly in different formats. It can be a normal 125 grams, but also 10 grams, 1 kilo, 500 grams, all kinds of formats.”

[Assorted butters]

Erwan Leo (interview): “Most people come in with wanting to try one or two butters, they end up trying 25 butters because they’re just so curious, they come first with an apprehension of what it would be like, and then they get more and more interested, and it’s just a rolling ball of just wanting to know more.”

[People examining butter selection in a store]

[Assorted butters]

[Mehreen Himayat testing butter, and Salman Bin Ehsan holding a basket]

Salman Bin Ehsan (interview): “We came here. Just to taste the butter, you know? So of course, and we came from Ireland. We saw the videos in Ireland. So it is, of course, something that I suppose maybe gone viral. So yeah, maybe in the future, France will be known more for its butter than other things. Who knows?”

[Packaged butter]

[Alexandra Incolano testing flavored butter]

Alexandra Incolano (interview): “I’m getting married on Saturday, and I’m going to have a cheese centerpiece. I saw on Instagram that they had lots of great butter, and I thought it could be a little something extra for my guests, a little surprise. They already don’t know about the cheese centerpiece, so this will be another surprise for them, with lots of different flavors. I think it’s pretty cool.”

[Person selecting artisanal butter from a refrigerated display]

[Butter wheel with salt crystals]

[Flavored butter]

Erwan Leo (interview): “Everybody around me telling me, ‘you’re crazy, you should not do it, and nobody’s gonna come.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. I want to do it.’ So it’s not based on numbers. It’s based on passion, and this is where we are today. So I can’t complain. I’m very happy today.”

[Butter in a refrigerated display]

[Person selecting butter from a refrigerated display]

Aleksandr Balaban (interview): “I know that for this is one of the best butters in French, in France, but I never tried any. I work in Norway. Well, they really like salted butter. And my friend asked me to bring him some French butter as well.”

[Customers in the butter shop]

[Exterior of the butter shop]

This script was provided by The Associated Press.

The related lesson for this video will be published next Tuesday.