We went to the famous The French Laundry in June 2018. It had always been on my bucket list. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed and I do not think it lived up to the hype. Although there were some redeeming aspects, the experience left us wanting more.
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Booking
The French Laundry is notoriously difficult to book. The restaurant uses the platform Tock for their reservations. The French Laundry opens up reservations at 10am PST on the first day of every odd month, opening bookings two months at a time for two months in advance.
Luckily, we didn’t have to strategically book our reservation months in advance like everyone else. We had a friend looking to sell their reservations one month out, and we decided to take it. Although reservations for The French Laundry are final, the transfer of a reservation to another person is free. Thus, we paid $325 per person.
Background
Built in Yountville in the 1900s, the building that houses The French Laundry started out as a saloon, before becoming a French steam laundry in the 1920s. In 1978, the major of Yountville, Don Schmitt, and his wife Sally Schmitt renovated the steam laundry into The French Laundry restaurant as we know it today. Thomas Keller bought The French Laundry in 1994, and transformed the establishment into his flagship restaurant.
Since 2006, The French Laundry has maintained three Michelin Stars. The restaurant is also included in the list of “Best of the Best” by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, which is an exclusive list containing all the restaurants that top their annual list over their company’s history. The French Laundry, unsurprisingly, serves French cuisine with Californian influences.
Besides the reputation for world class dining, The French Laundry is also known for training cooks who eventually become famous in their field. Notable alumni include Grant Achatz from Alinea, Corey Lee of Benu, René Redzepi of Noma, and Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes, just to name a few. Thomas Keller has opened the east coast version of this restaurant in New York City, which he named Per Se.
The French Laundry Lunch
We arrived to Yountville, to the unassuming building where The French Laundry is located. Our reservation was for 12pm.
At our table, we were greeted with white cloth napkins with a cute The French Laundry branded clothespin.
The sconces hanging right above the table featured these creative laundry symbols. Very fitting for this establishment.
The tasting menu evolves constantly, as the chef loves using seasonal ingredients.
We told the restaurant beforehand that we were celebrating our anniversary. They surprised us with a complimentary flute of champagne to celebrate!
The meal started off with an amuse bouche of their famous smoked salmon cornet. It is said to be inspired by a trip to the ice cream chain, Baskin-Robbins. The smoked salmon cornet was well balanced, with texturally different components, such as the soft smoked salmon, and the crispy cornet.
Th next amuse bouche was their take on the Ritz Cracker. While surely an elevated version of the original product, it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary.
We arrive to the first course, named “Oyster and Pearls”. It contains sabayon of pearl tapioca, with Island Creek oysters and Regis Ova caviar. And like a typical caviar course, the dish was accompanied by a mother of pearl spoon.
The next dish was the “Hawaiian Hearts of Peach Palm Salad”. It contained Jacobsen Orchards blackberries, as well as toasted Marcona almonds and sunflower sprouts. It was a salad, with interesting ingredients, but it did not taste too special, was not that creative, and far from memorable. Honestly, if I had the ingredients, I could make this dish easily by myself.
We decided to pay the supplement $30 to try the “Élevages Périgord Moulard Duck Foie Gras Torchon”, which included Silverado Trail strawberries, Sicilian pistachio purée and wild sorrel. You really can’t go too wrong with foie gras torchon, and this dish was no exception. The strawberry jelly on top of the foie gras balanced nicely with the fattiness underneath. A selection of six salts served along side the dish, allowing a different experience for each bite. The flavors of this dish was well balanced, and I enjoyed this one.
“Applewood Smoked Montana Rainbow Trout” was served next. It included a pierogi, slow roasted ruby beets, horseradish infused crème fraîche and nasturtium leaves. The most memorable part of this dish was my first time eating a nasturtium leaf. Otherwise, the pierogi was disappointing, and the smoked trout was rather ordinary.
The next dish was titled “Sweet Butter Poached Stonington Main Lobster”. This came with a La Ratte potato purée, and “Pomme Maxim’s” creamy lobster broth. This dish was actually delicious. Lobsters in creamy buttery sauces is often one of our favorite courses in high end dining, and this definitely hit the mark. Lobster broth was sweet and rich, and the potato crisp on top added a lovely textural component.
The “Bread and Butter” course was served next. It was a sun-dried tomato baguette, served with buffalo milk burrata butter. The plain pain d’epi served next door at their sister restaurant, Bouchon, tasted better. While perfectly fluffy, this baguette had only a slight hint of sun-dried tomato. I think if they had made the sun-dried tomato flavor the star of the dish, it would have been much more successful. The shape of the bread did look beautiful though.
Since Eric had never tried real black truffle before, we opted for the $125 supplement of “Soft Boiled Rhode Island Red Hen Egg”. This was served with creamed quinoa, “sauce soubise”, and shaved Australian black winter truffles. Black winter truffles are the king of truffles. Despite covering the entire dish, the truffle disappointed both of us. This is not the fault of The French Laundry, just our high expectations for the overly-hyped black truffle. In the end, the dish was pretty much a poached egg served with truffles.
The “Liberty Farms Pekin Duck” was next. The duck was paired with poached blueberries, Brentwood corn, glazed turnips, and “Paloise Gastrique”. Paloise is similar to a Béarnaise Sauce, except instead of tarragon, mint is substituted. The duck skin was chewy, and nothing like the perfection that is Chinese roasted duck. I tried to appreciate it for what it is, but duck prepared in this style did not check any boxes.
The dish “Elysian Fields Farm Lamb Shank” contained Rancho Gordon pole beans, an eggplant conserva, and a summer squash and red wine-olive jus. We still laugh at this dish today for how gimmicky it was. Ground lamb forms the “lamb shank”, and it just tasted like glorified meatball on a stick. The flavor was not particularly gamey. The accompaniments were good though, and well presented.
Leading up to dessert was the “Gourgère”, which contained an Andante Dairy etude, and an Australian black winter truffle fondue. Basically, this was a gruyere stuffed pastry, sitting on a truffle puree. The pastry was cooked beautifully, and the creaminess of all the flavors led logically to the next course.
The dessert course contained a large assortment of different dishes. I felt like a kid at a candy store, or at least for me, a kid at a craft store. So many little dishes bursting with different flavors. The dessert course showcased a wide variety of pastry techniques, and was also presented elegantly.
And when we thought lunch was over, the waiter surprised us with a selection of chocolate truffles to choose from. I love chocolate truffles, so we elected to try one of each flavor.
Our final bill is shown below. We got a wine pairing which added an additional $170 to the bill. We had also ordered two additional supplementary items. Thus for the entire meal, it was around $1050 for the two of us.
After lunch, the waitstaff invited us to see The French Laundry kitchen.
Post Lunch
After lunch, we walked around their courtyard and watched lunch service slowly wrap up.
We chose a shady bench under a large tree, and we accidentally fell asleep. It was a combination of food coma, plus all the wine that we had consumed. We didn’t wake up until a hostess from The French Laundry let us know that the dinner guests were arriving soon. Oops!
Service
Compared to other high end dining, The French Laundry service has a much more relaxed attitude to it. It felt casual and less stuffy. We didn’t feel like we were being watched like a hawk, like at Odette in Singapore. Every time we went to the restroom during the meal, the waitstaff would fold the cloth napkin and put it neatly back on the table.
Whenever we go to these kinds of establishments, we like testing their attention to detail. I use the knife on my lefthand, and The French Laundry staff did not notice. In fact, there was a dish that came with a righthand specific knife, and this made it difficult to use with my lefthand.
Summary
Overall, I would not recommend The French Laundry unless it is a restaurant that you really want to mark off your bucket list. The dishes were overall not too creative, and the flavors were not innovative. There are certainly better choices when it comes to Michelin Starred restaurants.
