I’ve had this year’s La Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques (Festival of Scallops) in Montmartre on my calendar for a couple of months. A French friend told me about this annual Breton event and I was instantly intrigued. David and I love scallops. We had big fun in October at the Meaux “Brie Happy” Festival celebrating the local cheese so had high hopes for a festival centered around scallops and other specialties from the Brittany region of France. A quick online search promised booths of food, cooking demonstrations, traditional Breton dancers and more. Fun!
La Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques in Montmartre is a two-day weekend event in January, peak scallop season. This year the fête was this past weekend, January 27-28, 2024. We arranged to meet our friend, Anthony, at pretty place des Abbesses on Saturday afternoon, the first day of the festival. This meant we’d miss an opening ceremony and group toast, but c’est la vie. After some gray days of on-and-off drizzle, Saturday dawned clear and crisp, boding well for the fete.
An incident on the Métro forced us to reroute to the Pigalle Métro stop instead of Abbesses which gave us the chance to enjoy the pretty 5-minute walk along cobbled streets to triangular place des Abbesses. We could hear the music of French bagpipes as we approached the white tents and stalls of the fête. (Bagpipes, which feature in the folk music of several French regions, are generally called “musettes” in France with the Breton version known as “binioù.”)
The entrance to the Abbesses Métro station sits in the middle of the small Abbesses plaza and it was surrounded by throngs of festival-goers. Many shared bottles of wine or cider and plates of scallops, oysters and escargots at tall tables. People navigated the crowds with bottles clutched to their chests or plastic wine and champagne glasses held high to avoid spills. The mood was boisterous and happy, but well-behaved with people of all ages. Children rode the carrousel in the center of the small plaza and begged treats from their parents. Despite overflowing trashcans, visitors neatly lined up bottles and stacked plates.
Anthony texted to say he’d gotten caught up in the same Métro slow-down we did, so David and I bought glasses of delicious local wine and went in search of scallops. Skewers of seared scallops and vats of sauteed mushrooms called to us, but the musicians had begun to form a small parade with pairs of costumed dancers falling in behind. We decided to postpone our first snack and head to the street to watch the show.
Back among the tents after the procession, I snagged us spots on a park bench where we could perch and enjoy our first snack. We’d just finished scallop skewers and mushrooms when Anthony arrived and immediately set out to buy a bottle of champagne. For the next hours, we had fun sharing food, wine and great company. We laughed and joked with a very spirited French group at a table nearby, and I discovered that the woman with whom I was sitting back-to-back on the bench and I had a lot in common. We started out with a few comments, realized we were both American and discovered a surprising number of things in common from childhood schools, to adult careers, expat lives, and mutual friends of friends. We had so much to talk about, we made plans to return for the second and last day of the festival the next afternoon. The fête seemed to inspire camaraderie all around.
After more food including garlicky escargots and a bag of rich, rum-kissed canelés, we called it a night. And, yes, we did make it back the next day to indulge less, but chat a lot more. La Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques in Montmartre is a smaller version of a big scallop festival that takes place in the town of Paimpol in Brittany. In 2024, La Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques in Paimpol will be the 20-21 of April.