By Erica Moser, News Correspondent
Google Vilas S. Dhar and all the results that come up are related to law. Yet the lawyer currently owns the “pop-up” restaurant Doré Creperie at 1 Beacon St., on the corner of Beacon and Tremont streets.
“Pop-up” means temporary, so even though the restaurant just opened in June, it will close in a month and a half.
“A pop-up restaurant has a few different meanings,” Alexa Hirsch, a marketing and PR worker for Doré, said. “I guess the more common use of the term is for a restaurant that a famous chef opens up for maybe a night or a few nights.”
Dhar took that idea but decided to keep the restaurant open for a few months instead. It was previously Press Sandwiches, which closed with six months left on the lease at 1 Beacon St.
It was practical for Dhar to “use the land for the last six months, so it didn’t have to sit there as an empty storefront,” Hirsch said.
Dhar said he wanted to open a restaurant “to show that if you have a great food idea, you should take advantage of whatever’s out there and open your own place.”
Doré opened June 18 – the day of the Bruins parade. The first crepe served was banana and Nutella, a tribute to the team’s colors. This theme is also evident in the workers’ black-and-yellow t-shirts, which either showcase a Bruins-inspired logo or read “Planet of the Crepes,” a reference to “Planet of Apes” on the back.
Since opening, Doré has tweaked its menu and added a myriad of new crepe options, from savory options like Figgy Smalls (prosciutto di parma, fig compote, goat cheese and fresh thyme) and Pesto (basil pesto, blue cheese, walnuts and spinach) to sweet choices like Berries and Cream, Bananas Foster and S’mores.
Doré has attracted a wide customer base, from the young to the old and the newcomer to the crepe aficionado.
“A lot of people just want to try a crepe, and then they come back,” Dhar said. He told the story of a girl who came in and asked what Nutella was before trying the Nutella crepe. She has returned multiple times since and has refused to order anything else.
On the other hand, Mariana Simoca, a 27-year-old dental student from Philadelphia who has made her own crepes, said, “I just love crepes. So I’ve been looking for a creperie, I guess. And it’s delicious.”
For those interested in learning to make crepes or improving their skill, Doré offers a crepe-making class 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Thursday nights. Upon entering, participants sat in front of the counter in the storefront and were soon handed samples a Nutella banana frozen yogurt shake.
Northeastern students Jason Franklin, a middler business major and Jackie Mahoney, a middler business and marketing major, had a friendly competition to see who could make a better crepe.
The evening yielded a variety of creative crepes, though Franklin still contested, “I want it published that my crepe was better.”
When all of the attendees were present and assembled, one of the workers began to make crepes. He poured the pale yellow batter onto one of four authentic crepe stones, while steam rose and dissipated the warm, homey smell of dough on a griddle.
Meanwhile, another worker delved into the history of crepes, which, contrary to popular belief, do not originate in France during the Roman Empire.
The background information launched the workers into making crepe after crepe, with fillings from fig preserve to egg to fake compote with walnuts. There was discussion of the “Conan crepe” – cheese, sour cream, and potato – and of how Conan O’Brien did not reply to a Tweet Doré sent about the crepe designed in honor of his hair.
Next came the hands-on part. Two groups formed, one for making the batter – either sweet or savory – and one for making the crepes. At the crepe-making station, Dhar poured batter onto a crepe stone and demonstrated how to spread it out while keeping the trowel in the center.
“Think about a protein, then think about a cheese, then what kind of vegetables you want to fill it with when you’re done,” he said on the process of making a savory, or non-dessert crepe. He also instructed participants that when the batter is brown underneath, it is time to flip the crepe.
By the end of the class, people had made – and eaten, of course – crepes with toppings ranging from apple, cinnamon, honey and strawberry to buffalo chicken and ham, to Swiss cheese and pesto.
