On November 30, 2008, I was privileged to eat at the French Laundry in Yountville, CA.

I’ll cover each course and what I thought.

Menu

Amuses Bouches

A cheese puff: tasty, great match to the blanc de blanc champagne. And of course the salmon coronet. It tasted precisely as I imagined, but was more buttery. Lots of butter.

Oysters and Pearls

One of my favorite dishes. Oysters, American caviar, and pearl tapioca. Very nice textures and flavors.

Salad of Heirloom Beets

This was “sparse.” We liked the flavors, but I would have preferred larger beets that I could cut. The smallness of this offering made eating a tad difficult. Already, we noticed the flavors were all very subtle.

Sautéed Pavé of Japanese Bluefin

This was among the stronger-tasting dishes. I liked it, but I’m not sure all the accompanying pieces did a lot for flavor.

Caesar Salad

This is really a lobster dish. I cared for this one the least! The lobster was good, of course, but I just felt the flavors were too bland here. The “melba” was rather tasteless, like a slice of very fine bread. The shaved roe was a nice compliment in flavor, but could have used more of that, really.

Hand-Cut Tagliatelle with White Alba Truffle

This was outstanding. Before being shaved tableside, we were able to sniff the giant cousin of this truffle, kept in a gold box. This was an additional $150 for this small pasta course, for one person. A splurge, but it smelled and tasted divine.

Tête de Cochon

This was like a fried piece of head cheese. I liked this: the flavors were very porky. The soft panko crust just held things together, and the sauce added a little picant note to the jowels and face meat.

Lamb Rib-Eye en Persillade

This was unexpected. I had honestly not seen it on the menu. The lamb was very tender, but again, the flavors were light. The best thing was the San Marzano marmalade. Intense and delicious. The beans had good texture.

Cacherin Mont d’Or

This was a stinky cheese course. The cheese was really good. In a naughty way.

Napa Feijoa Sorbet

We were told this was “like” a Hawaiian pineapple. It was a mixture of exotic flavors, from the nut, to the banana, to the sorbet.

Jivara-Caramel Roulade

At this point, I didn’t know what it was. But there were chocolate flavors, pumpkin flavors, and it was all very dark, rich, and a mixture of great autumn flavors.

Others

We of course had bread, with a choice of two butters. Filtered water. Maginardises (little handmade candies), and coffee. Wow, we left stuffed. In all it felt like 13 courses.

Final Notes

This level of cuisine is very intellectual. You simply don’t go here for “good eats.” You go here for the craft of what’s presented. So much of the food culture in the past 10 years I’ve gone for is centered on good quality first ingredients. You don’t mess so much with them, you see, you slap down a good piece of meat, salt it well, then maybe top it off with a simple sauce or a really good EVOO. At the French Laundry, it’s more about what can come from good ingredients with a lot of time and complex techniques.

So, it’s intellectual in appreciation, because you have to know something about what’s behind the preparation of each dish. The results were surprisingly subtle. The cheese course was strong-flavored. The oysters and pearls was a real favorite. I remember saying “I could eat bowlfuls of this stuff!” Some of the wines were really good.

Service was a little stiff. Things were slow to start, quickly to end. Some waiters “messed up” their lines by speaking too fast. Other servers were more friendly, relaxed, and made you feel at home.

The decor is very simple. I thought the lights were too dark. The bathroom? You have to go upstairs. The breads were good. The shortcake you take home “as a gift” was bland.

We left full, I arrived at the hotel feeling sick. It’s my own fault, I ate all of that rich food! But I had a lot of fun with each surprise that comes to my table. Each taste, each bite. You knew you were getting something special in each course.

As I said, the service was a little off-putting. The website says they want you to feel as if you’ve come home, or some such language. Everyone was young, eager, and did a great job, really. But having to call to confirm the reservation? Not very personal. Not having anyone all me by name after I sat down? Eh… No one ever learning the name of my companion? Eh…

They explained each wine poured. But sometimes it was so fast with so many foreign terms that I felt it went over my head. To this day, who knows those details. If you can take a menu home, why not a list of the wines you drank?

Then the decor. We both talked at length about this. The silver service on the table (little cabinet for chocolates, candle holder, etc.) all matched. That was classy. The walls were bare, save for single sconces. The seats were nice, and the underdressing on the tables was ornate, but in a very understated way.

We wondered where some touches of richness or comfort lurked. We didn’t find them.

We compared this meal to many other fine meals, including our first real splurge, at the Inn at Little Washington several years ago. We both thought the decor, the service, and the “punch” of the dishes were superior under Patrick O’Connell. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy myself. Having prepped my experience by reading the French Laundry Cookbook and Service Included, maybe I built up too far my expectations.

No, I didn’t. Every dish was just a little too perfect, perhaps. I think the service was the same way, not too much, just enough to be right. I think what lacked from this exquisite experience was the daring to express a little passion. Passion is an attractive thing when expressed intelligently and honestly. It could manifest itself in a little side conversation from a server, a little punch in heat in a dish, a little salty bit, or something that just wakes you up.

Balanced dish after balanced dish, when some 13 different things come to you, got perhaps a tad bland. Everything was so balanced. Passion shows bias and extremes. We got variety, but lost any loud voices among the crowd.

The French Laundry married perfect French culinary technique with lighter, Americanized flavors and sensibility in cuisine. It may well be one of the world’s better restaurants, but it does so with a soft, very cultured voice. For those used to the “Bam!’s” of Emeril, or food that wakes your mouth up, you might be disappointed here. This place is calm, refined, and all about the subtleties of fresh, prime ingredients. Think seductive whispers, hushed scents.

I hardly understand half of what I ate, really, but I’ll have fun discovering more about it all in the coming weeks of research. Definitely worth a visit for those who consider good food an art.