Creating the perfect meal is nearly impossible. Like opera, the most complex of the arts, something almost always goes wrong. Carmy gets locked in the walk-in freezer on opening night. Richie dumps a plate of pasta on a celebrity guest. Donna Barzatto creeps out Natalie while she’s in labor with Danny’s baby. Everyone loves The Bear, the true-to-life fictional TV drama about creating a fine dining restaurant with all its loose ends and tangled relationships.
I know how hard it is to deliver the perfect meal. I’m no Carmy, but in the 80s and 90s I owned, managed and made all the pasta for Piccolo, our small Italian bistro in Sun Valley. I loved it. And, it’s enormously satisfying to feed people – especially people who love food – but with all the moving pieces it’s hard to pull off a superior dining experience with grace and style.
Thomas Keller is a master chef/restauranteur in Yountville, California (and makes a guest appearance on The Bear). Before we left home for our annual trip to the Bay Area, M and I decided to go for the big Napa Valley splurge–dinner at Keller’s The French Laundry. What the hell; we’d rather eat well than save.
On an earlier bike trip to Napa we peeked through the window at the famous 3-starred Michelin restaurant. This time we wanted to see it from the inside, but we weren’t naïve. It’s almost impossible to get a reservation. We did our best but, alas, the window for reservations opened at 10 a.m. on a Monday, but we weren’t able to connect until 10:20 and by then everything was booked for the next 60 days. Back to the drawing board with new enthusiasm and motivation.
Having decided on a big splurge and been denied at The Laundry, we were even more determined to treat ourselves. There are dozens of high quality restaurants in the Napa Valley. We had tried several on earlier trips including Mustard’s, Tra Vigne, and Auberge du Soleil, but there was another Keller option—his one-star Bouchon Bistro just a block away from his flagship. It’s not exactly settling when the alternative also has a Michelin star.
Cutting to the chase…we took Lyft to Bouchon, so we weren’t worried about drinking and driving, and checked in with the hostess. The table in the far corner of this photo is where she seated us. A perfect place to watch everything and everyone.
Bouchon is a bistro. Hard surfaces. Tables close together. Mirrors. Noisy. Waiters. Busboys and more than one sommelier. Done right it’s magical. Like the Swiss-movement inside the steel case of a Rolex Submariner everything moves synchronously. Bouchon was like that.
I think Bouchon is unique among fine dining restaurants in that it offers carafe wine chosen by the sommelier as an alternative to its more expensive list of bottled wines. We liked the idea and opted in. We chose the Napa Valley grenache, a Rhone-style red that was light and full-flavored. When we asked, Braulio, our waiter, told us it was from Three Clicks, a winery that sells only to restaurants or online. Now we’re getting into the weeds, but that’s the way it is. Everything at Bouchon is handpicked and special.
When it came to ordering food it was easy. M wanted steak frites. Classic French bistro. She remembers how delicious the pan-seared flatiron steak with caramelized shallots and crispy, thin, fries were during our Paris days. But, I’d been waiting a long time to test Julia Child’s recommendation that the best way to assess a French restaurant’s quality is to order poulet roti—plain old roast chicken. So I did.
But, fine dining is more than just an entrée. Our food preferences are different but M and I are adventurous eaters. Her choice for the first course was a simple laitue, lightly dressed butter lettuce, but I wanted something out of the ordinary and chose the chilled corn soup with herbs and thinly sliced shallots. (see right).
Second course. Bingo. Julia nailed it. My roast chicken was brined and astonishingly moist with crispy skin surrounded by a sweet corn, mushroom, bacon lardons and Dijon jus, and M’s steak was so tender she cut it with her table knife.
But the perfect restaurant experience is more than the food, service or ambience. In my experience it’s also the serendipitous surprises that make it memorable—and ours came in conversation with the group at the next table. I don’t normally talk to strangers in a restaurant, but M talks to everyone. And, she usually finds interesting people. That was resoundingly true at Bouchon that night.
As we were finishing our entrées one of the women at the table next to ours leaned over and asked how we got the best table in the house. Were we important or just lucky? She told us that her tablemates wanted to know more about us. She said they had been talking about us since we sat down, because they liked the way we were engaged with each other. She wanted to know how long we had been married. She was surprised when we told her it was only 14 years but nonplussed when we told her we had known each other for 75.
We were curious about them too and learned that she and two of her tablemates were chefs who were in Napa to film an episode of Guy Fieri’s Tournament of Champions Top Chef competition. Her name is Antonia Lofaso and she has three acclaimed restaurants in Los Angeles including Scopa in Venice, CA.
We finished dinner with an espresso and split a lemon tart—the perfect palate cleanser. And finally…when we asked Braulio, our waiter, for the check he noticed the Navy wings on my ID bracelet and asked if I was military. I answered, “Once upon a time,” and when he returned the check included a $35 “military discount” bringing the total, with tip, to just under $200.
No question…everything about the Bouchon experience was memorable. The Swiss-movement operated flawlessly, and though we would gladly have paid the going rate of $390 per person at The French Laundry we ended up having “perfect” meal with the same chef for less than a quarter of the cost. We Lyft-ed back to the hotel and slept like babies.
Carmy is out of the walk-in now and just picked up another Emmy. We can’t wait for Season 4 next fall, but in the meantime we’re looking forward to Food Network’s Tournament of Champions and hoping Antonia walks off with Top Chef honors. Sante’.
Our swing through Napa knocked it out of the park. Thanks, Chef…
That’s should be your next career Jack: RR (Restaurant Reviewer)!
Auberg is one of our all time favorites. So glad you had this lovely experience. We will need to check this out
Jack,
Love reading this post—great telling of your experience at the restaurant.
Nice write-up, as always.
I have never been to either of Keller’s restaurants in Yountville. My nephew and his wife made a day trip to the Napa Valley while paying us a visit from Hong Kong (he is a pilot for Cathay Pacific) and wanted to eat at the French Laundry. I couldn’t help but laugh. Good luck getting in with no reservations. They ended up walking in to the Bouchon next door and got a table for lunch. I think they said it was just OK. Pricey for sure, especially just for lunch. Still, I would like to take my wife there and give it a try sometime on a special occasion. It’s on the to-do list but is fairly low in the pecking order.
By the way, my daughter lived in Venice for a coupe of years. She liked the Italian restaurant Scopa that you mentioned.