Behind the Counter: World of Crepes Cafe

A visitor from France expecting the average crepe from Leo Stojanovic's cafe on Chesapeake Avenue may be a tad shocked.

Last March, Stojanovic opened , which puts Eastern European and American spins on the classic French dish. You can get a crepe filled with chicken parmesan or tomatoes and pesto or peanut butter. And some crepes, if you ask, he'll even flash-fry for you. His menu also features burgers, fries, soups and a salad bar.

The restaurant's name will change next week to Andy's Bistro and Creperie, after Stojanovic's son, he said.

Stojanovic, 43, has a colorful history and an accent that, when you meet him, you can't quite place. Born in the former Yugoslavia, he moved to the U.S. when he was just 2 years old and lived in New York for 22 years. Before opening his cafe, he worked at in Baltimore.

He took a few minutes away from the kitchen to answer some of our burning questions.

You worked in a salon before opening your cafe. Why the jump from haircuts to crepes?

I've been cooking privately for the last 15 years and I've been going back and forth to Europe. I usually went to Europe three to four months out of the year during the summer. I worked in kitchens over there (in Yugoslavia).

When did you realize you wanted to open a restaurant?

When I had enough of the women (at the salon) telling me their secrets, because I worked also behind the counter too. I was also the receptionist-slash-manager-slash-everything, so when women start telling you all their secrets, especially secrets that men shouldn't know, it's time to go, you know?

Tell me a little about the menu. You have a really great mix of options, like the sweet crepes, savory crepes and burgers. How did it come together for the cafe?

Crepes are really French-based. And there's like two or three places that serve the French crepes, so I just sort of take all the stuff that they did and started putting an American twist to it, like the chicken parm.

I've never seen anyone flash-fry a crepe.

In Yugoslavia, that's done. Almost every crepe is flash-fried, the savorys, not the sweets. That's something I found out: when you flash fry the crepe, they have a certain taste to it too. They're very crunchy, stuff like that.

If somebody comes in for the first time, what's the first thing you recommend they try on your menu.

I guess the chicken parm. The chicken parm has been the most popular one. Chicken parm, eggplant parm. And then of course the roasted pepper, because now we do our own roasted peppers. We roast them and peel them and put them in olive oil, a little bit of garlic, then we leave them for two to three days, give it to the people to eat.

Light side: roasted pepper, tomato. Heavy side: chicken parmesan, eggplant parmesan, Italian.