About Us

The first Creperi Café in Kanawha City in 2007.

The Creperi Café has been operating in Charleston West Virginia since 2007 when it was first opened on MacCorkle Avenue in Kanawha City by owners Manoli and Aoleen Stavrulakis.

After three successful years, in 2010, the restaurant moved to a better location for customers at the Trace Fork shopping center, just off Corridor G. and at the same time, Manoli Stavrulakis opened Charleston’s best pizza restaurant Pizza Barbarossa, also at Trace Fork.

Aoleen and Manoli Stavrulakis

Manoli’s Greek heritage shines through in the food with delicious Mediterranean cuisine evident in the variety of crepes on offer.

The Creperi Café is one of the very few dedicated creperis in the region and is well worth a visit.

These days, Aoleen runs the Creperi Café while Manoli takes care of business at Pizza Barbarossa (website here).

Why we LOVE Crepes

Crêpes are especially popular throughout France. The common ingredients include, flour, eggs, milk, butter, and a pinch of salt. Crêpes are usually of two types: sweet crêpes (crêpes sacrées) made with wheat flour and slightly sweetened, and savoury galettes (crêpes salées) made with buckwheat flour and unsweetened.

While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is nowadays widespread in France. Crêpes often have a fruit syrup, filling mixed berries, fresh fruit, and lemon cream.

Buckwheat came to Europe from Southwest Asia and also spread to Eastern Europe, where a similar meal called blintz also developed. In Brittany, crêpes are traditionally served with cider. In Italy, it is crespella. Interestingly, an actual Romanian “placinta” is actually more similar to a quiche than to a crêpe, and the Romanian word for crêpe is clatita. In Danish it’s Pandekage, in most German regions it’s Pfannkuchen. In Macedonian it is called petulica. In Dutch pannenkoeken, derived from the words for panna (Latin “bread”) and cake.

In France, crêpes were traditionally served on Candlemas (La Chandeleur), February 2. This day was originally Virgin Mary’s Blessing Day but became known as avec crêpes. It is believed that if you could catch the crêpe with a frying pan after tossing it in the air with your left hand and holding a piece of gold on your right, you would become rich that year.

The Island of Crete

Map of the Island of Crete

Map of the Island of Crete

Sometimes people send me their desired itineraries to Greece for comment and suggestions. Many times along with their 3 days in Mykonos and two days in Santorini they want to do 2 days in Crete. My advise to them is to forget it. Unless they have at least a week to spend on Crete, I tell them to go elsewhere. Crete is simply too big and too multi-dimensional to breeze in and out of for a couple days. It would be like stopping in New York for a couple hours. What’s the point if all you will see is Times Square?

There is lots to see on Crete, and a lot not to see. While the mountain villages and coastal towns on the Eastern and Western tips of the island have retained their traditions and their beauty, towns like Malia, and many of the beach towns in Northern Crete have been over-run by British package tours and gigantic hotels owned by international travel cartels who have turned much of Crete into Nassau with Mousaka.

Crete

Crete, Greece

Not to discourage those who are looking for a Club-Med style vacation. If that’s what you want, it is certainly here in quantity and in quality and two days in Crete is fine, though you might as well have spent the time on whatever island resort you just came from since it was probably not much different from what you will find in Crete.

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