The Galette Complète is the savoury crêpe at its most fully assembled, and it is the dish the Breton crêperie is built around. A buckwheat batter of farine de sarrasin, water, salt, and sometimes a single egg is poured onto a cast-iron crepière, spread with a wooden rake into a thin disc, and cooked until the underside sets and the surface is dotted with small holes. While still on the iron the galette receives, in order: a slice of jambon blanc, a generous handful of grated Emmental or another mild grating cheese, and a single raw egg cracked into the middle. The four edges fold inward toward the centre to make a square, the yolk left exposed and partially set by the residual heat, and the whole construction slides off the iron onto a flat plate.
The buckwheat is the structural difference. Sarrasin produces a darker, slightly bitter, naturally gluten-free pancake with a more substantial texture than a wheat crêpe, and the slight grassiness of the flour works with the salt of the ham, the fat of the cheese, and the richness of the partly-set yolk in a way that the sweeter wheat crêpe never quite manages. The egg is the third anchor. A properly made Complète has a yolk that has set on its underside but stayed runny in the middle, so that breaking it with the side of a fork releases a small pool of yolk into the centre of the galette and the diner spends the next few bites pushing pieces of cheesy buckwheat through it. It is eaten with a knife and fork on a flat plate, with a bowl of cidre brut alongside, and it is one of the few French sandwich-adjacent dishes that requires the diner to sit down.
The Galette Complète is the Breton three-ingredient sandwich the rest of France has adopted without altering. Variations swap the ham for andouille de Guémené, add a layer of mushrooms or a slice of tomato, finish with a swirl of crème fraîche, or substitute a stronger cheese (Saint-Paulin, occasionally a young Tomme), but the architecture stays the same: galette under, ham and cheese in, egg on top, four corners folded toward the yolk. The wheat-flour cousins (the Crêpe Jambon-Fromage, the Crêpe Beurre-Sucre, the sweet Crêpe Nutella-Banane) take the same form into sweeter territory, and the broader Crêpe & Galette Salée tradition covers the full Breton repertoire. The Complète sits at its centre: the dish the crêperie measures itself against.