There's a French food revolution going on in Birmingham. Richard McComb reports on the rise and rise of Maison Mayci.

Popular myth suggests Marie Antoinette uttered the phrase “Let them eat cake” and subsequently got into all sorts of trouble with starving French peasants.

But if Gallic brothers Remi and David Faveau were to make a similar declaration in Harborne High Street I am pretty sure there wouldn’t be an inkling of a revolution. More like an orderly queue.

The Faveaus have just opened the third in their growing empire of French patisseries/boulangeries/cafes in the south Birmingham suburb. The new Maison Mayci outlet is based on the successful models already running in Kings Heath, and more recently, in Moseley.

Maison Mayci does a lot of things well, including coffee and traditional “no rubbish included” breads, but the cakes are a stand-out for those of us who have tired of iced buns and crude American muffins.

I ask Remi to name some of the patisserie, a question that provokes a wry smile.

“There isn’t really a list for the pastries because we change them all the time,” he says. “But we have lemon tart and mixed fruit tart, which are always on. There’s pear and almond, raspberry and almond, chocolate and almond domes, chocolate and pistachio, chocolate and coffee. Of course, chocolate tart – you know, just chocolate – chocolate and pear, chocolate and raspberry ...”

You get the idea; there’s no shortage of choice. The tarts are just like the scrummy cakes you find in shops in tiny French villages, where people on modest incomes are prepared to pay a few more pennies for a treat rather stuff their faces with nasty sugared thrills. It’s a refreshing philosophy. Vive la différence!

Remi, 28, and David, 36, brought forward the opening of their latest outlet so it would coincide with the clientele that comes into Harborne for the monthly farmers’ market. “It’s the best advert you could have,” says Remi, when I visit him a few days later. Not that he had to bend my arm to get me to return. The coffee, Ethiopian mocha, is imported from a small, specialist roaster in the brothers’ home town of Voiron, north of Grenoble, and is some of the finest you will sip in Birmingham. It tastes at the same time like a special occasion coffee and something you could drink every day. The bean are allegedly roasted by a Monsieur Paris. “It is true. It is not made up,” Remi insists.

If you have visited one of the brothers’ other outlets, the Maison Mayci formula will be familiar. Inside the Harborne cafe there is a joyful absence of rowdy big-beat music, just gentle Edith Piaf-style tunes.

The walls are painted magnolia with tongue and groove detailing, the furniture is predominantly wooden, warm, salvaged from sale rooms. An old church pew runs along one wall. There are framed canvas prints of classic Paris Match magazine covers from the 1950s, paintings of Provençale landscapes, drawings of architectural stonework. The shop till is surrounded by recycled French wine crates; mirrors hang on the walls. It’s homespun French chic, including a great clock from a Parisian hotel that was picked up at an antique shop in Selly Oak.