I’m sure they just happened to accidentally leave $$$$$ worth of truffles casually lying about at the exact moment the guests get to tour the kitchen.
I don’t think the French Laundry even makes the top 20 these days.
A+ trip report!
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Yep, great report!
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Great TR Wookie. Brings back lots of great memories.
Catching up, a few unsolicited comments.
Re price - they’re using the best ingredients they can find. Those oysters are flown in daily from here in Boston.
Plus labor being through the roof line cooks, prep cooks, porters, etc. I think I remember reading there’s only someone NOT there for like 2hrs a day.
The beef thing you mentioned being like foie, that is called pâtè en croûte and is one of the most technically challenging and fascinating old school Frenchy techniques you’ll find. I used to make these frequently. Like most things, very easy to make poorly (you see this often), so difficult to make well (you see this hardly ever). There’s actually a world pâtè en croûte championship in France each year. So French it hurts.
It’s exciting to see everyone’s curiosity and interest in your experience. With the shift in consumer dining habits overwhelmingly towards fast, casual, and delivery, places like TFL are kind of becoming dinosaurs.
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Juxtapose this TR with the rest of the posts on unstuck. I find French meals incredibly rich and would have trouble finishing this.
So apparently the French like to do it up on the cuisine. Are they able to charge these bigly prices at all of their super fine Parisian restaurants b/c seems like a small town comparatively to like NYC or LA. Can’t have too many Rolex stores in Peoria if you know what I mean.
Good TR, as always. I miss your double blind alcohol taste tests.
French Laundry is like an hour from SF, I think.
Based on my limited experience this is about as high as prices go. Even Le Bernadin, the semi-consensus best French restaurant in NYC, is significantly less expensive.
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Excellent trip report. Looks like it was a fantastic experience, thanks for sharing it with us. And Happy anniversary!
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Does this mean you were getting wines from the by the glass menu or was the waiter going out of his way to give you stuff normally only available by the bottle? When I’m going out for a higher end meal I always default to a bottle but I’m not going to places where stuff like a Gemstone cab is available by the glass. It’s tough to find fault in your results but did you ask or consider asking if the waiter had any suggestions for a bottle that would pair well with the meal? I’m genuinely curious what the optimal play is.
I wonder how often people traveling to Napa for the first time walk in wearing shorts and a t-shirt thinking they can get a $20 meal and have no idea what they are getting themselves into.
Since there was a question about The French Laundry’s status among the world’s best, I came across this list (which supports the position of Le Bernardin as best French in NYC), and the entries on the list from SF were priced about identically to French Laundry (325 base, presumably plus tax to take us to bout tree fiddy). I recall seeing a list with French Laundry as high as #4, but maybe that was just a while ago and it’s fallen out of favor, or maybe my memory isn’t all that great. It’s still 3 Michelin stars, ya? I did see Per Se was still in the top 120 on that list, and it doesn’t seem to be a particularly different restaurant from the French Laundry, nor that much cheaper.
Looks like French Laundry publishes their wine list, so I could look up everything. It looks like it all was truly available by the glass. The full list:
Modicum, “Schramsberg Vineyards,” Blanc de Blancs, North Coast 2015 $39
Lothar Kettern, Riesling, “Piesporter Goldtröpfchen,” Kabinett, Mosel 2017 $15
Ballot-Millot, Meursault, “Les Narvaux,” Burgundy 2015 $42
Nadia Curto, Barolo, “La Foia,” Piedmont 2015 $45
Gemstone, Cabernet Sauvignon, “Alluvial Selection,” Yountville 2016 $48
Topaz, “Special Select,” California 2005 $25
I guess that confirms that the Topaz was indeed “on the house” after having given the house its hefty due. I think we would have been poorly served by a single bottle of wine, as the first half of the meal paired really well with classic white wine flavors, and the second half of the meal paired really well with classic red wine flavors. They do have a pretty good list of half bottles, so going with a half white, half red option was something that the waiter proposed and that I briefly considered, but since he offered to do a full pairing by the glass, I rolled with that with no ragrets. I don’t think any of the wines by the glass were available as half bottles, so that may guide your choice.
FWIW, for Sunday lunch, I got an $8 burrito at a shady taqueria in the back of a shady grocery store in Calistoga where everyone but us was speaking Spanish. It was a good burrito. There’s cheap food to be had there, but there’s also a lot of really high end food (and a fair bit of overpriced crap). Also, a fair number of those folks traveling to Napa the first time and wandering around in shorts and t-shirts are nouveau riche techbro millionaires, so they’ll be just fine. You really can’t judge status by how people dress around here.
One last note. I’ve been going to Napa on an average of about annually for the last 8 years, and while I am not all that close to having visited all of the >500 wineries there, I’ve hit a pretty good number, large and small, famous and unheralded. If you want to visit wineries in Napa, Vincent Arroyo up in Calistoga is the one to visit, and it is not remotely close. Small, unpretentious, affordable, down home, just the best people working there, and incredibly good wine.
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My parents are wine people, I’ll recommend that to them for their next trip.
I’m fond of Gundlach Bunschu in Sonoma, too.
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Like Riverman said, it’s close to SF, and, like, if you go wine tasting anywhere in the Napa Valley, you should expect that an arbitrary winery you pick to visit requires advance reservations if they have a tasting room at all, and they charge a $50+ tasting fee for 4-6 one oz pours that isn’t waived unless you spend $200+ on wine from them. Land up there is at least high 6 figures if not 7 figures per acre. Basically anyone bumbling around there outside of migrant farm workers has money, because there is little to do there unless you have money.
I’m not familiar with that one. Do they do German style wines like their name would suggest? That would be pretty uncharacteristic of Sonoma, but I’m open to the idea. Or what are they known for?
Our favorite winery in Sonoma is Pezzi King, which has the best zinfandel we’ve tried from anywhere at any price.
3 star thread
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I’m definitely jelly but not in a hedonistic sense, I’m more curious about what this quality of food tastes like than I am starving for the pleasure of eating it.
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It’s a smaller, family-run place (oldest winery in CA owned by the same family, and only Buena Vista is older at all). I only know it because my brother in law’s ex grew up with their kids (who now run it)
I think they are most known for their Cab Sav, but I really enjoy their Tempranillo, which you can only get at the winery. I’m not a huge wine aficionado, so it’s hard to compare, but I’ve never hated anything I’ve tasted there.
Seems like a good choice. I thought maybe you’d be giving up a ton of value at those prices but looking through their list it looks like they charge 3-4x markup even on their midrange full bottles (top range, no markup stuff at peasant restaurants).