Napping and Noshing in Napa
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
Our long-awaited meal at The French Laundry in Yountville, California has come and gone and we (barely) lived to tell about it. That may sound ridiculous since it’s only food, but considering the fact that we decided to go with their extended tasting menu, it was more like a marathon than a meal. We spent the morning sleeping in and recovering from our Yosemite torture trek and woke up in time to blog for a bit and head up to Yountville for our 5:30PM dinner reservation.
Now, I’ll say up front that we had extremely high expectations for our meal at TFL, but I do not think that they were unrealistic expectations at all. While we have had the opportunity to dine at some of the best restaurants all over the world, we are pretty easy to please when it comes to food (from diners to Denny’s to Daniel, we can enjoy meals across the restaurant spectrum). Long story short, it pains me to say this, but we were somewhat disappointed by our experience at The French Laundry.
Considering all of the things that we had read and heard about TFL paired with the extremely difficult reservation process, we expected one of the best meals of our lives. The overall meal fell short, not because of the quality or preparation of the food, but the quality of the experience. Once you get a reservation at TFL (that is, IF you can get a reservation), you have a choice of picking from the 2 daily menus (Chef’s Tasting and Tasting of Vegetables) or living large and going for the extended tasting. Since we are definitely doing our best to make this the trip of a lifetime, we went for the extended tasting. After making this decision, the staff asks if there are any types of ingredients that you really love so that they can tailor the meal to YOU. We told them about our trip around the world and asked if they could try and incorporate international flavors into our dining experience. I’m not sure if they simply failed to deliver the message, but nothing about our meal seemed tailored to us AT ALL. Don’t get me wrong, the food was well-prepared and beautifully presented; however, the overall menu seemed to be cut and pasted from menus past in an almost haphazard fashion. It was wonderful to have the chance to taste some TFL staples that we had always heard about (salmon cornets, “oysters and pearls,” salt tasting, bread and butter, “coffee and donuts,” etc.), but the rest of the dishes (especially the heavier meat courses) lacked the very creativity and passion that we flew across the country to experience. One of the biggest problems of the meal was the portion sizes (too large, too many starches) and rushed service. About half-way through the meal, I had to start eating only half of my courses in order to make it through and even then I started to feel sick to my stomach from the amount of food being placed in front of me in such a short period of time.
I must say that had it not been for the amazing waitstaff, the general manager (Nicholas Fanucci is funny, approachable and awesome) and the executive chef (Timothy Hollingsworth was super friendly, welcoming and, not to mention, pretty easy on the eyes) at TFL, we would have left feeling almost used and abused. While some guests around us chose to follow a more formal approach to their dinner, we always enjoy talking to the staff and getting a glimpse of each person’s personality instead of giving him or her the cold shoulder. The warm and welcoming demeanor of the staff was certainly the highlight of our entire night.
One of the biggest let-downs of our entire TFL experience was our interaction (or lack thereof) with its owner, Thomas Keller. One of the other tables in the dining room asked if Keller was on-site so that they could get him to sign their menus. The head waiter told them “unfortunately, Mr. Keller is not in the house this evening.” This was understandable considering Chef Keller has another successful restaurant in New York City (Per Se); however, we later learned that this was not the case. We were ushered to the back of the restaurant after our meal for a kitchen tour and there was Thomas Keller himself, standing in a little glass booth overlooking the kitchen. The executive chef was kind enough to pause between plating to take a picture with us, but Keller barely gave us a glance or a nod. This seemed slightly rude to us considering 1) we had just spent way too much money at his establishment 2) I had asked the restaurant months earlier for a picture with Keller if he was in town and 3) they were aware that we had gone out of our way to make TFL a stop on our trip (the executive chef said “Hey! I recognize you guys from your website!”) and were huge Keller fans. I totally understand if chef Keller was in no mood to greet an entire dining room of guests; however, to give us the cold shoulder when we are standing no more than 3 feet away left us with a bad aftertaste. When you have guests coming from across the country to eat at your restaurant, I do not think that a “hello” is too much to ask for, do you?
The next morning we drove back to The French Laundry with our wedding ensembles to pose for our official Wedding Of Wonders photo in front of the restaurant (although, to be honest, we talked about skipping this altogether). Once again we saw Thomas Keller there (he was sitting in the garden less than 15 feet away from where we were posing for our pictures) and he looked just as friendly as he had the night before. We considered asking him to take a photo with us, but decided against it.
Overall, our experience at The French Laundry was not the meal of a lifetime that we had hoped for. The staff did a fantastic job of making us feel as if we were being welcomed into their home, but the lack of personalized attention to detail (it would have been nice to leave with a copy of a menu listing the food we had just eaten) and seemingly generic menus selections made for a disappointing night.
