On many a cold frigid day in Michaelmas, or hollow awful afternoon of Hilary, or boozy and floozy morning of Trinity—when many a game of croquet was played, and many a bad decision was regretted—I found myself with the most wonderful of companions. No matter the season, I would walk down Broad Street to visit its most worthy of attractions: The Crepe O Mania van. There I would waltz with a regular lover of mine, the Summer Special: a Crepe with Strawberries and Nutella. Of all the illustrious rituals associated with the scholars of glorious Oxon, I had my own. Every morning, I broke my fast with a visit to the van, and a lovely conversation with the gentleman who runs it.

 

 

The gentleman in question is a man named Akim. A refined grey-haired man with a most sophisticated of beards, lodged somewhere between Santa Claus and an Orthodox Priest. His illustrious French accent, still ringing with the singsongy cadence of Brittany, puts a most petit in petit-bourgeois. He is both European and a Europhile, who mourns the ramifications of Brexit on the domestic market. It is therefore quite ironic that his van is positioned less than a few hundred metres from Balliol, where Boris Johnson flowered from Eton twit to Union twat.

 

 

Akim is a man of many surprises. Despite his quintessentially French demeanor, Akim is also half-Algerian. His name in fact comes from the Arabic Hakim, but somewhere down the line the H was dropped. His father’s side is from the mountainous slopes of Kabylia, a lush land of green forests and village hamlets – and one of the few regions in Algeria where Arabic is not the dominant language. Although, Akim picked up the Kabyle language when visiting Algeria in his youth, his father never really spoke it back at home in France. That and the widespread prevalence of French in Algeria at the time, a lingering consequence of imperialism, meant that Akim never became fluent—especially since the last time he visited was in 1986. I was also surprised to find out that his trademark(able) beard has not always been part of his aesthetic, more so a consequence of COVID and a South African man who was something of a spiritual teacher on the path to cheek to cheek salvation. He insists that it is a hard job that requires much precision to maintain—after seeing him carry an unholy amount of butter with ease, I am inclined to believe him.

 

 

Crepe O Mania’s story begins in the ’90s. Akim and his family arrived in Oxford in 1994, the initial plan was to cross the channel, learn English and set forth to Australia after three years. Oxford, with her infinite charm and lurid number of tourist attractions, won over the young family who sold everything and packed their bags. After a brief stint in the French pacific (which ended when the realisation dawned on Akim’s wife that they were 11,000 kilometres from Europe), they returned to the city of gothic spires and adderall-afflicted students. Akim has always worked in the culinary arts, and after an eight year shift at Brown’s restaurant, an establishment once the apotheosis of Oxonian cuisine, he opened a bistro in Abingdon in 2003. The demand for his crepes was high, and his exhaustion with working with shouty chefs was equally high. Scratch The Bear, it was time to become his own.

 

 

Then and there, Crepe O Mania was born. For the last seventeen years, it has entertained students and obnoxious tourists alike. In many ways, Akim feels the timelessness of Oxford—particularly in the fountain of youth that can be seen behind every fresher’s eyes before the Dons sequester it. But he is also very aware of how the city has changed and developed, how everybody’s favourite landlord—the Colleges—build and build. Perhaps, he is not as French as I have given him credit—I would have imagined the sight of Cozy Club would turn anyone on the other side of the Channel into a Maoist.

 

 

Radical Marxism aside. Akim has had many rendezvous with the Colleges. Working as a tour guide pre-Covid and as the catering for various balls, he seems to have worked everywhere. While his experiences have mostly gone quite well, he is very conscious of the insufferability that many undergraduates are imbued with when an open bar is about. For those reasons, he prefers a postgraduate ball where the students are not just there to “get mashed.” Nevertheless, he knows how to handle it—far better than most people ever could, if they had a spotty first year demanding crepes at 10pm.  But just like most people, he did not have much good to say about his experience at a Union Ball. And just like most people, he thinks ball committees always act a bit too big for their boots.

 

 

Within that van, Akim is granted unique insight into the world between town and gown. While he recognises the division, he possesses a historically substantiated optimism. It could always be worse he suggests, referring to the St Scholastica Day riot where a quarrel in an Oxford tavern between students and a innkeeper devolved into full blown class war in 1335.

 

 

Almost seven hundred years later, Crepes O Mania is now a growing enterprise, and Akim seems both successful and content. One really must visit, the strawberries and Nutella are to die for. ∎

 

 

Words by Zaid Magdub. Image Courtesy of Zaid Magdub.