{"id":70745,"date":"2026-08-27T23:18:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/70745\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T23:18:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:18:37","slug":"butter-me-up-paris-gets-its-first-boutique-devoted-to-frances-favorite-fat-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/70745\/","title":{"rendered":"Butter me up: Paris gets its first boutique devoted to France’s favorite fat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Owner of Le Butter Shop, Erwan Leo, poses in his first shop devoted entirely to butter in Paris, France, Tuesday Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)\"\"Packs of butter with different flavors are displayed in a refrigerator at Le Butter Shop, the first shop devoted entirely to butter in Paris, France, Tuesday Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)\"\"Packs of butter with different flavors are displayed in a refrigerator at Le Butter Shop, the first shop devoted entirely to butter in Paris, France, Tuesday Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)<\/p>\n

PARIS | The contradiction of the trim Parisian and the butter croissant now has a storefront.<\/p>\n

Le Butter Shop, billed as Paris\u2019 first boutique devoted entirely to butter, opened last month a short walk from the Eiffel Tower \u2014 with 30 varieties from small family producers in Brittany, the Loire Valley and northern France.<\/p>\n

France eats around 8 kilograms (18 pounds) of butter per person a year, so says the agriculture ministry. It\u2019s among the most in the world. Yet the home of Chanel and Dior keeps an obesity rate well below the average for wealthy nations \u2014 14%, compared to an average of 19% for the developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

At the sweet end: vanilla, raspberry, strawberry and chocolate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people don\u2019t expect to like a raspberry butter or to like chocolate butter,\u201d said owner Erwan Leo, 34. \u201cAnd when they try it, this is where they\u2019re just like, \u2018Oh wow, OK.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo, who also runs a wine-tasting business, said butter should be used like wine, to make a meal better \u2014 \u201cthe goal isn\u2019t to get drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tourists and locals are curious about the butter<\/p>\n

Mehreen Himayat, 25, and Salman Bin Ehsan, 27, of Dublin, Ireland \u2014 a country known for its rich golden butter \u2014 saw videos of the shop at home in Dublin, Ireland, before traveling to France.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came here just to taste the butter,\u201d Bin Ehsan told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Alexandra Incolano, a 36-year-old who lives near Paris, came to the shop with a specific mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting married on Saturday and I\u2019m going to have a cheese centerpiece,\u201d Incolano said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reputation of French butter is also attracting visitors who work professionally with food.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that there\u2019s some of the best butter in France, but I\u2019ve never tried any,\u201d said Aleksandr Balaban, a 31-year-old Estonian chef working in Norway. \u201cI work in Norway, they really like salted butter, and my friend asked me to bring him some French butter as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French butter paradox<\/p>\n

Leo said the secret to savoring fatty butter is to be like Parisians: Walk a lot, and practice moderation. \u201cWe don\u2019t go beyond four tartines a day,\u201d he said, referring to a French open-faced sandwich.<\/p>\n

Tasting butter works like tasting wine, he said: \u201cYou have to grab your spoon, you put it on your palate, on your tongue, it has to melt a little bit, and then the flavors are going to start coming one by one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Italians choose olive oil, we choose butter,\u201d Leo said. \u201cWe learn how to master it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighborhood supermarkets give butter a vocabulary: beurre doux, demi-sel and beurre sal\u00e9, sometimes studded with salt crystals. Bakers fold it into croissants; cooks whisk it into sauces.<\/p>\n

Butter is the fat of France\u2019s dairy-producing north and west, and of Brittany above all.<\/p>\n

Salt preserved it before refrigeration, and Brittany\u2019s exemption from the gabelle, France\u2019s old salt tax, kept Breton butter salted as much of the country went unsalted.<\/p>\n

The legacy lives on in cr\u00eapes, salted caramel and kouign-amann, whose Breton name means \u201cbutter cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s producers churn from selected cows and higher-fat milk; an extra 2 or 3 percentage points, he said, \u201creally makes a huge difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tiny shop has drawn crowds through social media and now has a staff of four.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom day one, it\u2019s been crazy,\u201d Leo said. \u201cMost people come in with wanting to try one or two butters, they end up trying 25 butters because they\u2019re just so curious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up: a croissant-flavored butter, and perhaps violet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is limitless,\u201d Leo said.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owner of Le Butter Shop, Erwan Leo, poses in his first shop devoted entirely to butter in Paris,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[633,2096,862,5,43230,41875,30],"class_list":["post-70745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-brittany","tag-chanel","tag-eiffel-tower","tag-france","tag-le-butter-shop","tag-loire-valley","tag-paris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}