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©1990
2025
Our History
Alain Coumont learned the beauty of baking when he was just a little boy. Too small to reach the counter, his aunt Simone would pull a chair over for Alain to stand on so he could watch her make the dough for bread. On Sundays, they’d bake, not just loaves and boules, but a dozen tarts too. His taste for baking up happiness reaches far back into the legacy of his past. Alain’s mother’s parents owned a restaurant near Liège in Belgium, and his father trained as a chef. Alain even studied at the same hotel school that his father attended in Namur, Belgium. He followed in their footsteps until it was time to mark his own path.
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Our tartines
One slice of bread… and countless variations…. The slices of our handmade 2kg bread serve as the canvas for a myriad of seasonal ingredients. They come together to become our tartines, the Belgian take on the sandwich. Other than the closed-faced sandwich, a tartine is an open-faced version popular in Belgium. At once simple and elegant, our tartines bring taste to the table and delight to the palate. Did you know the word tartine etymologically stems from the old French, diminutive of tarte (tart)? The word tartiner in French literally means “to spread”; in our case: to spread butter, cheese, and ingredients on a slice of sourdough bread.
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Relationships forged around a communal table
Our first communal table on Rue Dansaert in Brussels was made out of wood recovered from the floors of Belgian trains that had been taken out of service. Those simple planks became a tradition. Today, this same rough, reclaimed wood continues to bring rustic comfort to our restaurants, and the communal tables have become our centerpieces. We believe that the community is what nurtures, inspires, and feeds the soul. Our tables are long enough for all to fit and narrow enough for all to talk; they are where friends reconnect, and new friendships, relationships, and career paths are forged over the shared appreciation of delicious food and good company. For every new table, the old wood is planed and sanded until it feels completely smooth, and the surface only gets better after years of guests’ hands touching it and hosts cleaning it.
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Belgian Hot chocolate and hand warmers
When our founder, Alain Coumont, was a young boy in Belgium, he went to his “grandmère’s” house every Wednesday afternoon where she greeted him with a small bowl of steaming hot chocolate. Alain cupped his hands around it, letting the warmth seep into his body and chase away winter’s frigid chill. As a chef, he carried the memory of that warmth to the tables of Le Pain Quotidien. To this day, simple bowls still stir memories of a child’s delight and still carry warmth to our friends. Whether it’s in the form of piping hot chocolate or some organic tea, you’ll receive this same welcome with our wide, round bowls. Hold it in your hands and feel at ease.
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Our unique bread with only 4 ingredients
The original Le Pain Quotidien bakery served only four kinds of round bread of one size and a two-kilo loaf. This simple approach allowed Alain to focus all his effort and R&D on quality. He set out on a quest for maximum quality for the wheat, the ingredients, the flour (stone-milled at a slow pace), and the artisan bakery process (long periods of cold proofing). Other than the vast majority of industrial bread, all signature Le Pain Quotidien sourdough bread only contains four simple ingredients: Flour - Water - Salt - Time. No yeast, no additives, no agents.
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Our Story
Le Pain Quotidien (French for “the daily bread”) is a bakery-restaurant group founded in Brussels in 1990 by Alain Coumont. As a young chef dissatisfied with the quality of bread available in Brussels, Coumont started making his own organic sourdough bread with just four ingredients: flour, water, salt and time. Le Pain Quotidien now has more than 210 bakeries in 19 countries. Our mission is to create meaningful connections in a home away from home, with simple but delicious and authentic and local cuisine made in-house.
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Enjoy the taste of living better
We all want the best out of life! At Le Pain Quotidien we believe this is all about finding balance through eating well, sleeping soundly, and staying active. Eating well is so much more than nutrition, it’s about flavorful food made with quality ingredients and enjoyed with the people you care for. No matter how busy life gets, or what the latest food trend is, you will always find a delicious range of “good food” choices at Le Pain Quotidien.
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Simplicity According to Alain
Alain Coumont was born into a family of cooks. His grandparents had a restaurant, his father was a chef, and his aunt Simone was a talented pâtissier who baked tarts every Saturday for the whole family to devour on Sunday. When he was 6 years old, Alain began reading from the two cookbooks on the shelf at home. He taught himself to cook by reading recipes and hints from famous chefs. His first creations were chocolate mousse, cream puffs, and eclairs. Little did he know…
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