Café Gondrée - Bénouville

Excellent experience, including meeting the owner

Definitiw a must-visit because it's tangible history. full of artifacts and original but as a caffe, it is a bit müll!

I was looking forward to revisiting this iconic cafe with my family but the joy was soon nullified by madam. Not the faintest whiff of a smile, just a very solemn response to our request for coffee etc. She even corrected my son when she told him Latte was Italian but it was a ‘hostile’ correction. He insisted on letting her keep the change as he thought her solemn manner was amusing, I didn’t! Whilst I appreciate serving customers all day long may be taxing, if it’s so hard to pretend to have a tiny bit of appreciation for the custom, maybe time to hang up the tea towel.

Often close for the first free france house

Usually stop here for a quiche or an omelette if we have an afternoon crossing from Caen. Lovely place, food, and staff. Madame Gondrée works in the café too and looks fabulous (she was 5 when the café, then owned by her parents, was liberated by the British in 1944). Only thing was the wasps, but I guess they're like death and taxes: inevitable. If you've got any kind of service patch handy for military, police, emergency services, volunteer services, etc, the inside is adorned with them.