Parisian Palate — The Casse-Croûte Straight From the Farm

A fast food restaurant in Paris where vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores can all gather together and enjoy a real meal is a true rarity. The concept at Label Ferme is simple: You pick out your ingredients, the quantity and get a casse-croûte (sandwich) or a salad made for you. After graduating from various business schools in 2009 and spending a year in the corporate world, four French friends decided to pool their strengths together to start this restaurant. With most of the team growing up on farms or coming from families of farmers, they knew that they wanted to stay true to their roots and promote local producers. The idea was to use ingredients direct from local farmers to start a fast food restaurant with the freshest products.

Luckily, these four already had everything they needed close to home. With an uncle who works at a cheese farm, and an aunt who’s specialized in charcuteries in the Haute Savoie region, the essentials for this group’s restaurant were already in place. Their vegetables are carefully selected at Rungis Market, the biggest produce market in the Parisian suburbs. In this huge hub, there are producers from all over, but there are also about forty Paris-area producers who provide fresh ingredients for Label Ferme.

At Label Ferme you eat what you want, and more importantly, you eat what you can. The salads are amazingly good and for about eight euros, you can have a salad with as many ingredients as you want that are both fresh and filling. If you’re in the mood for the sandwich, you’ll get an exquisite half-baguette with fresh lettuce, delicious tomatoes, pickles and any other goodies you want. If you are still hungry for dessert, then you can order a fresh yogurt straight from the farm, or a homemade apple cake!

Eating your meal on communal wooden tables alongside other localvores makes the experience unforgettable, and as one of the co-owners Guillaume would say, “it’s how we do it at the farm.”

Check it Out

The clientele is mainly local at Label Fermel but don’t let that deter you. If you’re around the 9th, stop in for the freshest of fresh salads and sandwiches. Visit Label Ferme at 43 rue Peletier, 75009 Paris.