From the earliest days of the French Laundry, you knew to expect a very fine meal as soon as you walked through its signature blue door. What you didn’t see coming were the jokes.
When Thomas Keller opened the restaurant in 1994, fancy food in America was in transition, moving away from its staid, snooty and stiffly French past, toward a locally focused ethos and a looser vibe. Like so many other diners, I made a pilgrimage to Yountville, Calif., to experience what the New York Times critic Ruth Reichl hailed as “the most exciting place to eat in the United States.”
At my first bite of a dish called “oysters and pearls,” I laughed out loud. Who spoons caviar on top of humble tapioca? It was more than daring, it was madness. But it worked — the soft pop of caviar atop bouncy tapioca pearls and plump oysters, all surrounded by sabayon as light and briny as ocean foam. Not only was it one of the most delicious things I’d ever tasted, but its knowing poke at the “haute” in haute cuisine displayed a sense of humor both sophisticated and sly.
And that was just the first of nine courses in a meal so exhilarating and fresh that more than 20 years and countless tasting menus later I can still remember every bite. The silky wobble of the truffle custard as I scooped it with a potato chip from a translucent eggshell. The supple snap of the butter-poached lobster with leeks and beets. The delicate crunch of the salmon tartare cornets, like tiny ice cream cones. Culinary wit and edible puns informed dishes from the “tongue in cheek” (braised beef cheeks and veal tongue with horseradish cream) to the trompe l’oeil “coffee” (actually semifreddo) and real doughnuts for dessert.
Mr. Keller brought this precision and sense of fun — as well as much of the French Laundry menu — to New York City when he opened Per Se to glowing reviews in 2004. At the entrance was an oversize blue door, a nod to the one at the French Laundry, except that it didn’t open. Well-heeled diners were left tugging at the knob until, magically, glass panels on the side opened to admit them. The wizard will see you now.
It’s been 30 years since the French Laundry’s blue door first opened, and 20 years since the one at Per Se didn’t. So it seemed a good time to check on how the magic has held up — to step through, and around, the blue doors again.
In that time, Mr. Keller has become one of the best-known and most revered chefs in the world, even inspiring a character (and making an appearance) on “The Bear.” He’s mentored some of the top culinary talents of our time (René Redzepi, Grant Achatz, Jonathan Benno, Eric Ziebold, Corey Lee and more). “The French Laundry Cookbook,” which has sold more than a million copies, has influenced legions of other chefs and many ambitious home cooks, too.
But at Mr. Keller’s two most ambitious restaurants, there have been signs over the last several years that the food, as well as the jokes, have grown tired.
In 2016, the Times restaurant critic Pete Wells demoted Per Se from four stars to two, noting, among other disappointments, that a mushroom bouillon was “as appealing as bong water” and that the service seemed little better. In 2022, the San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho wrote a review asking whether the French Laundry was worth the splurge. The answer was no — a sentiment echoed widely, though not universally, in online forums and social media.
And over the years, the splurge has gotten splurgier. In 2004, the tasting menus at the restaurants cost $150 per person (about $255 in today’s dollars). Both now charge $390 (service included). That’s before wine, the price of which can hit figures higher than the vintage. Yet the two places remain solidly booked, and there’s even a thriving black market for French Laundry reservations.
So what’s the draw? Have Mr. Keller’s restaurants recovered their poise, or is there something else driving up bookings and prices?
I started at Per Se, in the flashy mall called the Shops at Columbus Circle. After we were ushered by the suavest staff imaginable into a beige-and-navy dining room that felt as impersonally plush as an executive conference room, our meal commenced with the salmon cornet, followed by “oysters and pearls” and the truffled custard.
But something was out of whack. The tuile holding the salmon was as thick and nubby as an oatmeal cookie, the custard was grainy, and the oyster dish had the gloppy texture of the tapioca pudding served at my great-aunt’s nursing home.
The evening continued in that gummy, starchy vein. Several dishes verged on cloying, starved of any acid counterbalance. A chestnut terrine was pasty and bland, incongruously topped by crunchy bits of celery, as if trying to distract from the missing tang of the sherry vinaigrette it supposedly came with.
Foie gras, a $45 supplement, was better — the liver plump, rosy and lush — but its garland of candied cranberry and pureéd yams would have been more at home on a Thanksgiving pie. Blood orange mousseline, shiny and sweet as lemon curd, did no favors to the beautifully seared fillet of lubina (a type of sea bass) it pooled next to. Instead of Mr. Keller’s brilliant butter-poached lobster, we got two wee langoustines topped with a damp crust of grated brussels sprouts that promptly, with flawless comic timing, slid off like loose toupees.
There were bright spots, including a lightly smoked poussin delicately sauced with a tart charred Meyer lemon jus (acidity at last!). And the pastry kitchen nailed the desserts, which were uniformly terrific from the first bite of sticky-bun ice cream wrapped in a gossamer sheath of milk tuile, to the perfectly executed “coffee and doughnuts” offered at the end.
Throughout, the genial and attentive servers anticipated my every desire, swapping warm bread for any that had cooled, slipping extra bonbons into bags to take home. I’ve never felt more seen (and indeed I was spotted immediately as a restaurant critic, so everyone may not get the same level of service).
A few weeks later at the vine-covered French Laundry in the Napa Valley, with Mr. Keller himself on the premises, the night went far better. The staff presiding over those understated dining rooms pampered my party, going to great lengths to make us feel special. (They might even saber you a bottle of Champagne in the bucolic garden.) The “oysters and pearls,” the salmon cornet and the truffled custard were all as sublime as I remembered from long ago, even if no longer surprising.
The rest of the meal was a four-hour marathon of 11 fussy courses, plus a deluge of canapés, bonbons and desserts. (I was told by a chef who used to work for Mr. Keller that the more V.I.P. you are, the more off-menu treats they send out.)
Two particularly brilliant dishes grabbed my attention. A burnished piece of seared skate was served with a saffron emulsion that tasted like the essence of bouillabaisse — buoyant, oceanic and herbal. And the stunning “salade rouge,” a masterly mosaic of roasted beets, pomegranate seeds and an olive-oil panna cotta, was nearly as thrilling as that long-ago bite of “oysters and pearls,” though more virtuosic than funny.
Apart from a spongy baton of king crab and some mushy, truffle-topped cauliflower croquettes in a gooey white sauce (both restaurants seem to be in their Starch Era), the other courses were solid. A pristine Nantucket scallop crudo was doused with caviar and dotted with buttery avocado mousse. A disk of nicely pink lamb, and some crisp-skinned smoked squab were both accompanied by pleasant sauces of indistinct character.
As fine dining, it was tediously, if inconsistently, fine. But I doubt I’ll be thinking of it in 25 years, or 25 days, simply because it feels as if the focus has shifted from the food to the vibe.
And the vibe has come full circle, back to the staid, snooty ambience these restaurants thumbed their noses at. In the airless dining room at Per Se, the tables overlooking Central Park were filled with couples spending big for special occasions and deal makers who come to flex their expense accounts. The quaint dining spaces at the French Laundry seemed mostly populated by bucket-listers and gastro-tourists — the same crowd as at Per Se, just on vacation. Phones glowed as the diners I witnessed snapped more photos of themselves at their hard-to-get table than of the food on their plates. No one giggled.
Both of Mr. Keller’s places — like many other restaurants on the World’s 50 Best/three Michelin-starred global eating circuit — seem stuck in a bubble of complacency that formed in their early years. Is it possible that the price point at these places has nudged out those who once came for the food in favor of those who come for the pampering and the cultural capital? But Mr. Keller’s food is no longer exceptional in a dining landscape that he is largely responsible for creating.
The chefs he’s mentored over the years have spread out, applying the discipline, passion and wit they picked up in his kitchens to their own cooking, often in accessible and unpretentious local restaurants like Henrietta Red in Nashville, Camélia in Los Angeles and Thai Diner in New York City. You don’t have to take a plane or a mortgage to experience Mr. Keller’s legacy in its full artistic glory. There’s probably a Keller alum near you, making diners laugh out loud with delight.
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