Française Spokane — Restaurant in Spokane

My wife and I had dinner here last night and were thoroughly impressed with the experience! From service to atmosphere to food, all around we had a 5-star experience.

We had the steak tartare as an appetizer and the filet mignon was stellar. My wife is a chef and she was very impressed by the tenderness of the meat and the subtleties in flavor - I loved the contrast in texture of the crunchy chips and the soft, juicy meat with just enough bite to it. I added a touch of salt to mine to bring out the flavor a bit more, but my wife who loves soft and subtle flavors thought it was spectacular as is! We lingered here for awhile and really took the time to enjoy this dish. Nice romantic dish for couples as it's really easy to feed each other bites of this luxurious but not too heavy appetizer. Perfect portion size. Highly recommended for sure.

After taking our time talking and sharing bites and enjoying conversation with our appetizer we ordered the dry-aged pork ribeye and WOW - we were blown away by this as well! It was smoky, savory, juicy, tender, and served with a deliciously piquant bordelaise sauce and crispy soft potatoes. We took our time here as well really enjoying the symphony of flavors. I'd recommend having a lemonade or some other tangy beverage on hand to cut through these intense and fatty flavors and refresh the palette. This was the best cut of pork I've ever tasted - definitely worth the money, as it is easily shareable for two people if you've ordered an appetizer beforehand. We decided not to finish this dish as we were so excited to try the dessert.

Lastly, we ordered the Earl Grey creme brûlée - this exceeded my expectations for sure. The custard was smooth and delicate and with just a touch of Earl Grey character, the lemon whipped cream was bright and delightful, the confit blueberries were juicy and jammy and not too sweet or squishy (I usually don't like cooked blueberries so I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed these!), and the charred sugar crust was delicate and added just enough of sweet, roasty, smoky bitterness to bring everything together. I love classic creme brûlée, but the delightful dance of flavors here was a real joy.

I can't forget to mention the service! Our server (I wish I'd caught here name) was friendly, energetic, and exceptionally skilled at reading her guests and knowing when and how to approach the table to check in on us. She made sure we had a pleasant experience, and went above and beyond to make sure we had a stellar evening! Easily one of the best service experiences I've had, and having worked in the service industry myself in the past, I know what great service should feel like.

Finally, the atmosphere. I loved the interior of this place when it was Casper Fry, and Francaise did a great job creating an elegant and sophisticated interior that elevates the dining experience. There were massive green plants all around the windows and door at the entrance, impressionist paintings on the walls, and music that was classy and set at just the right volume to make conversation a pleasure (one of my biggest frustrations is trying to talk over loud music).

Taken together, definitely a 5-star experience. Is it a little spendy? Yes. Is it authentically French? I couldn't say. But I know that my wife and I had an incredible evening and it was worth every penny. Don't skip an opportunity for a romantic dinner here, and take the time to enjoy every bite.

I don't have any photos of the food as my wife and I brought a tiny chess board and were too busy enjoying the food and conversation to...

One of the most disappointing dining experiences for the money that I have ever had. What killed the experience was the way staff acted. We came into the restaurant 2 hours before close. It was about 50% full and emptying. The staff member asked us if we had a reservation and then said "let me see what I can do" when we asked for a table. There was obviously no shortage of seating in the place. This bit of unnecessary showmanship was just an omen of what followed.

When we didn't order drinks the server stopped paying any attention to us whatsoever. As near as we could tell she only had one or two other tables (as I said, the place was mostly empty). The server also talked to my spouse like she was a 6 year old child but spoke to me in a totally normal tone of voice. It was, quite frankly, bizarre and offensive. It was a truly weird display of sexism.

I had a pork chop which was perfectly cooked (that's the best thing I can say about the experience). The food was over-salted, and I like salty food. The kitchen valued presentation over flavor and served my meal with way too little sauce. This was all fine, but not amazing. My meal was a C+, a perfect pork chop with poor accompaniments.

What made the experience so poor was my spouse's meal. She order orange duck. It was bad. Everything on her plate was obviously overcooked. The yams were black. The duck was extremely dry and obviously over done. The sauce had bitter lumps in it. The greens were salted to death--totally unappealing. Even this would just be a mediorce, if disappointing failure. But the staff really twisted the knife and made sure we would never come back and will tell friends and family not to go.

At the end of the night the server asked my spouse if she liked her meal and she said, "to be honest, it was a bit overcooked." The server replied, and I swear this is true: "have you eaten much french food?" The answer was, of course, yes she has eaten plenty of french food. The server followed up with a condescending speech about how she should have just said something. Of course, the server never visited our table during the whole meal, so when was she supposed to say something? I know everyone has an off day now and then, but that was really just a trash topper to a lousy experience. To their credit (I guess?) the house reduced our $66 bill to $60. It's better than nothing I suppose. How can an establishment be this condescending and full of itself?

Do yourself a favor...

We have dined here many times. Im sorry I can’t give 1/4 of a star. I took my wife for her birthday dinner last night. I should have known something was wrong when I called for reservations and the person answering the phone stated “we’re open for you at 7pm” That should have been a red flag for a Saturday night! We ordered a bottle of wine and that was the only thing that wasn’t bad! We ordered steamer clams and they were very small and undercooked. Chewy and really no flavor. The broth with them was terrible too. Only 2 pieces of bread accompanied this dish. My wife ordered the filet cooked medium/rare and it arrived finally to the table almost ice cold. The mashed potatoes arrived in a separate bowl and Were ice cold. I ordered the “ribeye” pork chop(pretty sure that’s a fake name) it was huge but the chop was completely surrounded by a 1/2” fat layer. Makes it look bigger than it really is. It was warm but not hot. The menu stated smashed red potatoes but they were smashed Yukon gold potatoes instead. We also order a side of sauté mushrooms. Somehow they became “airborne” between the kitchen and our table do they didn’t arrive with our food. When they did arrive they were the only item that was hot! Our waiter was so sorry and offered to have the kitchen redo my wife’s steak. We agreed and we waited what seemed like forever. The waiter checked back and informed us that her steak was still 10 more minutes away from being done. I asked our server to come up with a price for this entire abortion of a meal and we’re going to cut bait and leave to go downtown and get a real meal. We agreed on a price and asked for a check. The total of our entire meal was $163 and there is NO WAY this meal was worth even half that number. My wife’s steak arrived as we were leaving. The really sad thing was this use to be our go to restaurant and now I wouldn’t recommend this to my worse enemies. Understaffed and if you want to call the cook a “chef” that would be a stretch. The guy cooking at IHOP has better cooking skills. Never go here and we will...