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🤢 2/5 - An embarrassment to fine dining
By 👻 @gdubeau, 07/31/2023 3:00 am
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By way of background I once worked under an old school Cordon Bleu trained chef. I’ve studied Larousse’ Gastronomique, Pepin’s Methode and Technique, Bocuse, etc. The thought of an Achatz restaurant recreating and interpreting Escoffier was exciting. We chose that for our 40th anniversary celebration. Wow - how disappointed can one couple get. A few things were fine. The captain and the runners we interacted with were all quite pleasant with one exception. The plating of almost all dishes was visually stunning. The caviar course (which note doesn’t actually require significant preparation besides the blini and toast points), was excellent and the two dessert courses (a bombe Ceylon and some mignardises) were also quite good suggesting a pastry chef who knows what they’re doing. All ingredients in every dish were top notch making what was done to them in the dishes described below all the more unforgivable. Every course that would have come under the chef de cuisine was somewhere between subpar for a restaurant of this nature and affirmatively bad. We started with a plate of Hors d’oeuvres that were uniformly inedibly salty. The oeuf with truffles Benedictine was curdled and somehow too truffly. The mousse had a genuine “I bet you don’t want to put this in your mouth” look, texture and aroma. The stuffed puff pastry had a filling truly indiscernible in its blandness. This is the course that is supposed to highlight the kitchen’s mastery of basic techniques; it was revealing but not in a good way. One would think it might merit inquiry from the server when every piece that was more than one bite was left unfinished, but alas, no. The next course following caviar was a purée permentier (a fresh greens soup with bulgar) which could have been quite good but again the salt level was absurd. When this went unfinished our waiter did inquire and we politely commented on the salt issue; his look belied the fact that this wasn’t the first time he had heard the comment. He promised to speak to the chef and reported back that they would do what they could. The next course, a halibut Rachel, was better ( except for the - you guessed it - very salty truffle sauce). The following, a poussin supreme (medallion of young chicken breast on brioche) was not. The anticipated highlight of the evening, a pressed duck ($75.00 upcharge) was stringy and oddly flavored (almost like an out of place use of five spice powder in Cognac reduction). Just really hard to describe how out of balance the flavors were. And yes, the sauce had at least twice the salt it needed. We opted for the mid-level wine pairing, which at that price point ($200 per person) should reveal some gems and should match the dishes flawlessly. Some were quite good, a nice cote d’ Beaune with the chicken and the Hermitage with duck. Others seemed flat and lifeless and were not well matched to their accompanying dishes. The pacing of the meal was erratic at best. The early courses dragged with plates sitting uncleared for up to ten minutes. As the meal went on, things became rushed. More than once a runner was sent to ask if we were finished when we clearly were not. The last course came literally two minutes after the prior one had been set down. Our primary server, J C, really soured our experience. He would interrupt conversations. He gave off an impression that we were interfering with his evening and treated us with an air of passive aggressiveness. Honestly no idea what we did to irritate him but by the last half of the meal , he would pour the wine and when we dared to ask a question about it were met with a monosyllabic response and an indignant flashing of the bottle toward me but not even my wife. He would then proceed directly to a table nearby, set the bottle on the table and regale them loudly with tales of the vineyard. Needless to say nothing was done to acknowledge our milestone anniversary other than from the nice hostess who seated us with a promised we’d have a memorable evening. I guess she was right on that score. Service like this can only happen where you are required to pay the gratuity before you are ever seated. We have been a fan of Mr. Achatz since Trio (a meal we still rate among the best we’ve ever had). He should not allow this to be associated with his name as it can only damage a well deserved reputation. Escoffier, a true champion of the fine dining experience and what it can be, would be rolling in his grave to have his name associated with the experience we had.
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