I started feeling starstruck before we even hit the Yountville border. I don't think I even blinked between the side street parking spot and the back door of a historical house.
I could barely pronounce my own name when the hostess asked, and my feet never felt the ground as we floated to a stair-side 4-top set with napkins clipped in iconic clothespins.
I ordered a glass of not-quite-cabernet from Chateauneuf du-Pape - I'm still old world over new. I swirled it in a glass the size of my face, and as it breathed its last, I took the first breath I could remember that day.
The amuse bouche came shortly after the wine, a unicorn-horn Cornet of fresh tuna tartare over lemon creme fraiche. I've never met a cone I didn't like, and this one continues the trend. Meaty tuna springs to life with a zest of lemon, and the creme fraiche fills every airy corner to make the tuna linger and melt. A bourgeois Gougere is to follow, and it is impossibly flaky and thin as it launches forth a geyser of melted gruyere.
The first course commences, and it is every bit the meal that I dreamed it would be. A stew-like take on sabayon is the Oysters and Pearls, centered around an Island Creek oyster poached so soft and sweet that even the belly no longer tastes of briny deep. The tapioca pearls stay softly firm as the white sturgeon caviar punctuates the creamy broth.
Royal Kaluga Caviar is worth the upgrade, a generous goblet of bubble-bursts, luxurious silk on the tongue. The lobster gelee is smooth and sweet, and each small shred conveys the flavor of an entire Maine lobster in suspended animation.
Selections of the sea turn toward the land, as the Slow Roasted Garden Squash showcases Keller's green thumb. Here he plucks out the very soul of ripe, roasted squares of eggplant, pepper, and squash. Their flavors are full, earthy and pure, as they sing the sweet songs of summer. They are somewhat blunted, however, by a bed of chickpea "hummus," an unfortunate slurry of salt.
The Elevages Perigord Moulard Duck Foie Gras "Torchon" is quite the upgrade from a half-hearted hummus. The foie is a rotund liver-butter, and it melts in decadent fat.
Sweet highlights savory atop a crusty brioche, which accompanies the tarter plums, toasted pecans, crisp belgian endive, and woodsy black winter truffle coulis. Together they are a refreshment to interrupt the mouthfuls of butter.
It is details like the petals of assorted salt that make French Laundry the stuff of legends. Each salt highlights the foie gras at the slightest different angle, but I would have held off, had I known how much salt was to come.
It becomes apparent that the highlighting of vegetables is a rare occurrence in the meat-heavy meal. The Wild Scottish Sea Trout "Chaud-Froid" features a dense slice of salmon trout, a thick, pressed patty that tastes half-raw, half-soft, and pleasantly half-smoked. The crisp cucumbers bloom with delicate flowers, a much-needed palate cleanser from foie gras fat and salty trout.
The Charcoal Grilled Alaskan King Crab sits its throne, a leg-log of the sweetest of the sea. But its steamed preparation leaves it so heavy, a texture channeling pulled-pork-like texture, lost at sea. The bean and sweet pepper stew is murky and as salty as a sip of seawater, and the basil emulsion, however impressive, fails to save this supersaturated solution.
The food seems salted for a much older palate, and the crab and Devil's Gulch Ranch Rabbit "Porchetta" are where it really shows. Even a poultry-like rabbit turns to pork in a thick shroud, and the more delicate "other white meat" disappears when the salt turns it to bacon. I would have liked to taste the airy, mountainous potato puree a little bit more, but the starch doesn't stand a chance against the overpowering salty, gravy mess.
Keller may be the Jiro Ono of the veg, but it's not so easy to see his skill and range on the non-vegetarian tasting menu. It seems that the main meats leave no room to appreciate the finer features of things fresh from the earth. The "Peas and Carrots" leaves little room for peas and carrots, a lightly-steamed orange log and a few little leaves don't count. The Japanese wagyu is seared crispy, an unfortunate medium well with a center more gray than pink. The wagyu gets a bit dry here, and the "sauce bordelaise" is so heavy it drowns.
The wagyu is not worth a single penny of the upgrade fee, and there's no need to upsize when the Herb Roasted Elysian Fields Farm Lamb is the most perfect lamb. Just the slice will suffice, no need for the bitter black mission fig jam abutting the baby beets. Each bit of rare-red lamb is gamey yet gentle, well-rounded and robust, oozing a bold, bloody juice.
By now, eating even the greatest lamb I've ever had, has turned into a chore. The portions are just too much, and even the token male was struggling long before we got to the Meadow Creek Dairy "Grayson." "Pain perdu" is French for lost bread, an aptly-named cheesy French toast here. The nuances of delicate fondue on an impossibly, perfectly flaky, entire-stick-of-butter brioche is lost on my salt-assaulted palate by now. The sweet, skinless garden tomatoes and sharp shards of romaine were a welcome break, however brief.
Dessert is a godsend, switching from savory, over-salted solids to creamy and sweet, but it starts to feel like an atonement as the table is weighed down by dish after dish. There are more desserts than courses on the menu, and they deserve more description than "Assortment of Desserts" to capture the bounty.
I am beyond satiated by the sumptuous meal, but this is not the good kind of full. I eye the dessert spread with trepidation, uncertain how I will stomach it all. But the Pretzel Ice Cream is easy, a lightly-salted pretzel with a refreshing splash of sour sop puree. It puts my stomach on reset, a purifying ninth course to wash away the sinful eight.
The Chocolate Torte goes right back to decadent, a heavy solid of dark decadence on a marsala wine pop tart that might as well be a cracker.
The Strawberry Tart brings back the light with its olive-oil-cake consistency and barely-there sour cream panna cotta. It finishes with a whimsical sugar lattice, a melted fruit roll-up only for adults.
I ordered the Espresso so bitter could balance the sweet.
But there is no need for coffee once you have their Cappuccino Semi-Fredo, a sorta-brew in milky ice cream form.
Neon Raspberry Vanilla Macarons infuse fruit into a crisp shell, a textbook iteration of a classic pastry of mastery.
A small bowl of light Cherries from the garden bring back the fresh, earthy theme, with a tiny tidbit of tart.
Take bites of those cherries between the Brioche Beignets lest you get dragged down by the sugar and the grease.
The Cocoa Macadamia Nuts catch me off guard. The nuts are savory, but they are unexpectedly large, their sheer size occupies much of the brown ball. Size matters, as the nib shell shatters with a bitter contrast to revitalize a palate minced by meat.
We welcome the check at this point. We are sweaty and sluggish and stuffed that at the end of a meal at what once was the best restaurant on earth feels like only relief. Only a box of artisan truffles stand between us and the door, but a creamy chocolate Pistachio drives me nuts and a luxurious burst of Green Tea Passionfruit keeps me in my seat.
It seems there was one menu of only meat and another for just the vegetables, but the dichotomy needn't be so clear. The portions were huge, and the pacing was off. The meal started heavy and progressed from heavy-heavy to heavier, until there was no place to go. Usually, that's when dessert comes to the rescue, but there were two more courses after the rabbit sank like a rock.
Turns out Yountville no longer has the most Michelin stars per capita, and I feel that this meal foreshadows an imminent fall from grace. A French Laundry lunch will always be a dream-come-true, but the way it is now, this dream needn't come true more than once.
