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.
