From Parisian cafés to our plates the story of the croque monsieur

The croque monsieur is one of those rare dishes that manages to feel both everyday and indulgent at the same time. A toasted sandwich of ham and cheese, dressed with Mornay sauce and browned until bubbling, it has been a fixture of French café menus since before the First World War. Ask any traveller who has lingered over a small marble-topped table in the Marais or near the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and they will tell you that the smell of gruyère melting under a salamander broiler is part of the memory of Paris itself.

At Vino209 we love the croque monsieur for the same reasons our guests in Des Moines do, and for a few reasons unique to a wine bar and bistro with European roots. The sandwich rewards good cheese, honest bread, and a glass of something well chosen. Our version leans on those Parisian bones, then folds in a few choices that reflect the way Australians, Americans, and our own regulars actually eat and drink today. Below is the story behind the classic, and a look at what arrives on the plate when you order one at our bar.

The birth of the croque monsieur in Belle Époque Paris

The first printed mention of the croque monsieur appears in a French menu from around 1910, and most food historians place its origin in the brasseries and cafés of Paris in the years just before the First World War. The name itself is a piece of café slang. Croque comes from the verb croquer, meaning to bite or to crunch, and monsieur was simply the polite way the waiters of the period addressed a male customer. To order a croque monsieur, in other words, was to ask the kitchen for a gentleman's crunch.

The dish was born into a city that had fallen in love with eating out. Department stores like Le Bon Marché had turned shopping into a daytime pleasure, and the great glass-roofed brasseries of the era, from Bouillon Chartier to the still-bustling Bofinger, fed office workers, shoppers, and students from morning until late evening. Bread, ham, and cheese were inexpensive, and the Parisian appetite for something warm between two slices was already strong. Adding a slick of Mornay sauce and a pass under the broiler turned a humble snack into something that could be served on a plate with a knife and fork, which was exactly the sort of small luxury the era admired.

How a café snack became a French icon

For the first half of the twentieth century the croque monsieur remained where it began, on café menus in Paris and the larger French cities. Travellers who wrote home about a lunch near the Sorbonne or a late meal in Montparnasse often mentioned the sandwich by name, which helped to spread its reputation well beyond France's borders. By the 1950s it was common enough in bistros from Lyon to Lille that cookbooks treated it less as a curiosity than as a standard offering.

The international leap came in the second half of the century. As Parisians travelled, and as French chefs opened restaurants abroad, the sandwich turned up on menus in London, New York, and eventually further afield. In Australia the dish landed alongside the broader French influence on Australian café life, the influence that fed the obsession with brunch, with good butter, and with proper pain de mie on every serious sandwich board. A visitor to a laneway café in Melbourne, a wine bar in Pyrmont, or a brunch spot in Fortitude Valley today will find variations that nod to the original Parisian recipe while leaning into the local pantry.

The anatomy of a classic béchamel Mornay

A traditional croque monsieur is a study in restraint. Two slices of pain de mie, the soft square white loaf beloved by French sandwich makers, are buttered on the outside and filled with thinly sliced ham and a generous layer of gruyère or emmental. The sandwich is griddled until the bread takes on a golden crust, then topped with Mornay sauce, a béchamel enriched with grated cheese and sometimes a whisper of nutmeg, and placed under a hot grill until the surface blisters and turns a deep nut brown.

The genius of the dish is the way it balances textures. The bread should crackle when it is bitten, the ham should warm through without drying, and the cheese sauce should coat the roof of the mouth without sliding off the sandwich. Most disagreements among cooks come down to bread. Some prefer a rustic country loaf, others insist on the original soft crumb; purists argue that anything other than pain de mie is a different dish entirely. We tend to agree with the purists, then take the liberty of choosing a soft loaf that adds a touch of tang, which gives the finished plate a brighter finish than the all-white original.

Our Vino209 version of a Parisian classic

Our kitchen treats the croque monsieur as a canvas rather than a relic. The base is a pain de mie style loaf baked for us in Des Moines, soft enough to cradle the filling yet sturdy enough to hold the sauce without going soggy. For the cheese we blend a nutty aged gruyère with a creamier local Iowa cheese that melts smoothly, which gives the sauce a slightly sweeter finish than the all-gruyère version. The ham is a slow-roasted, lightly smoked heritage cut that we slice thin and weigh generously, because a stingy croque monsieur is a sad thing.

The Mornay itself follows the French template, with one small change borrowed from Australian café kitchens, where chefs often enrich a Mornay with a splash of dry white wine. We use a glass of unoaked Chardonnay in the sauce, which lifts the dairy and prepares the palate for what comes next in the glass. The sandwich is finished under the salamander until the top is mottled gold and brown, then rested for a minute so the sauce sets and the bread keeps its crispness when it reaches the table.

Pairing and serving at the bistro

A croque monsieur is a generous dish, rich with butter, ham, and cheese, which means the right drink matters as much as the cooking. At Vino209 the classic match is a glass of dry, mineral white from France, a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire or a Chablis that can cut through the Mornay and refresh the mouth between bites. For guests who prefer red, a light, crunchy Beaujolais or a pinot from the Yarra Valley works just as well, because the wine needs bright acidity more than heavy tannin.

We also pour a few more unusual pairings worth knowing about. A young, unoaked Chardonnay from a cool Australian region like the Mornington Peninsula or Tasmania echoes the wine in the sauce and makes the whole plate feel coherent. A brut Champagne, served in a small flute alongside, turns the dish into a casual celebration, the way the French often enjoyed it on their own café terraces. For those who would rather stay with bubbles, a dry Australian sparkling from the Adelaide Hills holds its own against the cheese without overwhelming the ham.

What makes the croque monsieur last, decade after decade, is that it asks for very little and gives a great deal. Good bread, good ham, good cheese, a careful sauce, and a moment at the table with a glass of something considered. At Vino209 the dish is treated as a small, dependable pleasure, the kind of plate that turns a weekday lunch into a reminder that Parisian café culture and a wine bar in the American Midwest are not so far apart after all. When the Mornay is right, the bread is crisp, and the wine is well chosen, the croque monsieur does what it has done for more than a century: it makes a simple meal feel quietly celebratory.