To push open the door of Capoul is to go back in the course of history. Like all brasseries, it stages the rhythm of the waiters, the pleasant hubbub of conversations and this vaporous impression of suspended time.

The saga of Brasserie Le Capoul marries both the history of Toulouse and the beginning of the 20th century. Created in 1927 by Joseph-Amédée-Victor Capoul, famous tenor of the time, the brasserie, located on Place Wilson, then played a duet with the Grand Hôtel Capoul. A place of welcome and accommodation for passing travelers in its early days, the Brasserie Le Capoul will gradually assert itself as an institution in the Toulouse landscape. “Until the 1970s, it was then the place to be,” says Jean-Roch Bournadet, head of the brewery and forty years of service behind him. As we say today it is “the place to be”. A place frequented by all the great families to the notables, notables, entrepreneurs, artists ”.

Three owners will then succeed one another at the helm of this business, including the Marcel Trepout family, passed down to posterity with the spirits (Armagnac). Then it will be Alain Rouleau, businessman and director of the Toulousaine Rouleau Guichard company, who in 1989 bought the establishment. “Alain Rouleau will then renovate the brewery and the hotel,” continues Jean-Roch. In particular, it will create a high glass roof which will be lowered during another phase of work in 2012 ”.

Le Capoul seduces the young generation in search of authenticity

Today, despite the weather, the Capoul has always preserved its notoriety and its clothing families over several generations. Without forgetting the personalities of cinema (Catherine Deneuve, Eddy Mitchell), sport or show biz (Stéphane Guillon, Patrick Timsit), delighted to taste the specialties of the menu (Norwegian omelette and sweetbread) in a cozy atmosphere and sifted from the past. Flagship dishes that accompany the emblematic seafood platter. “Living on its past, Capoul also knows how to seduce young people delighted to find authenticity and a hint of the past. An aspect that makes brasseries timeless despite the changes in society ”, estimates Guillaume Guyan, Managing Director of Capoul and of the now Novotel Toulouse Center Wilson hotel (Accor group) opened in 2010. A menu valued by chef Samuel Benne, trained at the Ducasse school and moved to the kitchens of prestigious establishments such as the three-star gourmet restaurant, Le Louis XV (Hôtel de Paris) in Monaco, 59 avenue Poincaré (Paris), Le Lapérouse (Paris). With its 130 daily covers, its woodwork and its period parquet, then produced by the Compagnons du Devoir, Le Capoul joined the list of the city’s legendary brasseries, such as the Beaux-Arts or the Opera.

A story that has no intention of stopping. In 2022, Le Capoul, which like a brewery for other establishments, suffered the crisis of the pandemic, after having suffered from the clashes of yellow vests, decided to go back in time and offer itself in the 21st century, a madeleine of Proust. “We are going to give the tea room a second lease of life,” explains Guillaume Guyan. A service which, without ever having completely disappeared, was a little dormant. And which, let us not forget, made the reputation of the brewery ”. A service that will take on its image of yesteryear: white table cloth, dishes with the initials of the place, float of sweets. All this to accompany real hot chocolate with cocoa scents, Mariages & Frères teas and Bacquié coffees.