The French Laundry

It didn’t take long to figure out my approach to writing about our dinner at The French Laundry on Thursday. I’m not Ruth Reichl, so I can’t review it and call it “the most exciting place to eat in the United States.” Frankly, I can’t review it at all. But I can give you a few personal impressions.

It’s been almost 11 years since Reichl wrote that review in the Times, and The French Laundry is still one of the most exciting places to eat in the country, and it’s still one of the best.

What is “exciting?” The French Laundry has been open since 1994, and almost since the beginning, meals have opened with “Pearls and Oysters.” The excitement that one feels about this dish isn’t that it has arrived at the table (we knew it would), but that the dish is technically perfect and that it tastes absolutely delicious. So, if you think about “exciting” as the resulting impression of the marriage of technical perfection and delicious food, then The French Laundry is an exciting place.

In limited career as a diner, this is how I’ve come to see French cooking: there is invention, but the focus is on the elevation of ingredients.

At the hands of Keller and his chefs, foie gras en terrine is creamy perfection. The salad of compressed watermelon confused us because we couldn’t relate the technique of compressing the watermelon to a clearly identifiable result. However, it was delicious, with Hawaiian Hearts of Peach Palm adding a floral hint to the flavors of watermelon and radish. The Confit de Coeur de Veau was clean and delicate, a little like the most refined pastrami you’ve ever tasted; the frog’s legs, suprisingly sweet and tender.

The experience of eating there is also exciting because nearly every party in the dining room is there to celebrate; there are few jaded diners or awkward family get-togethers. So the atmosphere is one of delight and the staff respond accordingly, stopping to share the stories of the restaurant and the food, adding their own personal touches.

There was a time when I thought that a dinner at The French Laundry would be the end of a food journey, the equivalent of reaching the top of K2. But it’s also the beginning. Great food is the result of fine, fresh ingredients and excellent technique, among other things. Experiencing the technical expertise of one of the finest kitchens in the US resets one’s palate for other experiences to come, and increases one’s enjoyment of the next meal. Even if you’ve just climbed the tallest peak, the mountain next door may be just as thrilling.

And that’s why, 24 hours after our dinner at The French Laundry, we could be dazzled by Meadowood in St. Helena. Here’s a restaurant with two Michelin stars, and a young chef (Christopher Kostow) who has been at the helm for only six months. The tasting menu there was stunning, and the slow-cooked tenderloin was the most amazing beef I’ve ever eaten.

The French Laundry dinner provides a new context for the meal we had at Alinea in June, 2007, and Manresa last August, and several dinners at Coi. It will be a reference for us as we dine in the future.