L'Auberge Chez Francois — Restaurant in Travilah

2024 update: After 32 years, L' Auberge Chez Francois continues to be my favorite restaurant in the world. If you have a special occasion to celebrate or THE romantic dinner or just an amazing multi-course dinner experience with excellent, well trained service, L' Auberge Chez Francois is in a class by itself.

Service is always excellent, and dinner was phenomenal as always.

For outside dining, they have a huge tent with fans in the ceiling corners. Plenty of fresh air. Plastic walls can be pulled in case of rain. The tables outside and inside are spaced apart to allow for privacy and safety when dining.

You can walk to see their gardens. They grow many tomato plants for their tomato salad and gazpacho, squash, cucumber 🥒, beans, and herbs. The gazpacho and tomato salad feature fresh tomatoes from the garden!

We love the cottage cheese spread and garlic bread with the House Aperitif, champagne, Chambord and a raspberry. The unique flavors wake up my taste buds to say, "We have arrived at L'Auberge. Prepare to have fun!" My husband also enjoys the beer with the orange liquor.

Dinner is Prix-fixe or you order your appetizer, salad, entree, dessert and everything is included.

We love the garlic bread and cottage cheese spread. The other bread and butter is delicious as well.

A soup course - it was split pea soup without it being green. Previously, it was tomato bisque.

Appetizers over various dinners that we have enjoyed: Trio de Saumons - Norwegian salmon, house made rillettes, smoked, salmon roe, capers. None of the salmon tasted fishy or too salmony. It had two toasted triangles and the salmon came with thin slices of red onion, capers and a cucumber salad. I have gotten this twice at least. Special appetizer not on the menu: Tuna Tartar martini - if you love tuna tartar, this will make you so happy! Fresh, a heaping of tiny cubes perfectly seasoned. Just perfect for the summer. Waygu beef cheeks in sherry base, looked like a stew. The beef were so soft and tender that truly melted in your mouth. Onion soup - my husband used to not like onion soup until he had it here. It is delicious and the recipe is available online. Roquefort cheese tarts with caramelized applies, cinnamon and Calvados is one my favorite appetizers. It can be a bit filling. Warm asparagus on Virginia country ham, cheese medley, quail egg. In 2024, it looked smaller but still was good.

La Salade de l'Auberge or Mixed green salad with garlic crouton or garden fresh tomato salad.

Fruit sorbet to cleanse the palette course. Sorbet - orange this year. So good! Passion fruit in 2023 - slightly fruity, slightly sweet and a gentle tart taste. Love it!

This year, I got the Papa Ernest which has half a lobster tail, and medallions of beef, lamb, and veal. I normally get the Le Homard du Maine or Maine lobster with jumbo lump crabmeat, citrus, Sauternes sauce. My husband gets the steak (such as the Beef Tornados) or wild Maine halibut. We also enjoy the Chateaubriand de l'Auberge (for two) which is the roasted beef tenderloin, baby vegetables, Bernaise, truffle sauce.

Our favorite dessert is the scoop of vanilla ice cream with the dark chocolate tart. I normally ask for the tart To Go, and the ice cream for the restaurant. It keeps the wonderful L' Auberge experience lasting one more night for a wonderful dessert. I also love the three sorbets or ice cream in a Tulip shell crisp cookie. The soufflés are also lovely - chocolate, Grand Marnier - you will need to order these when you order your dinner

Chocolate truffles before the bill

My tips are: make reservations eat very lightly that day or skip lunch If you wear high heels and do not want to walk on gravel, have your driver drop you off at the front door since the parking lot is gravel there is one handicap accessible bathroom on the main level near the wine otherwise the are several bathrooms down the stairs next to the bar and down past...

I would give it 3.5 stars if possible, but not 4, and most certainly not 5. Anyone giving this 5 stars should proceed immediately to New Orleans, New York, or San Fran to see what 5-star can be.

My biggest gripe with L'Auberge Chez Francois, like many DC-area restaurants, is the service. There are certainly the right number of staff members (most places that aspire to be this nice are under-staffed these days), so I was encouraged when I walked in and saw the place abuzz with employees. We were welcomed in by the staff, but the welcome feels... inauthentic. The smiles, if they are there, are truly forced. There is certainly an air of "do you rate" about the entry sequence, which is unnecessary given the overall performance of this place. Once seated, service was professional and knowledgeable but entirely mechanical. The warmth of the decor is not matched by a warm staff member. If L'Auberge would transfer a bit of its "I'm a very serious French place" energy into "I really want my guest to feel special" energy, it could upgrade its charm 10x. If I had to use one word for the entire experience it would be "TRANSACTIONAL."

L'Auberge's strengths are a great setting and fairly well-executed and appropriate decor for a French restaurant. The menu is truly classic French which I respect. Further, they grow many ingredients in an on-site garden - also very cool. Unfortunately, that's as far as the razzle-dazzle goes. Upon closer inspection the decor is dated and lacks originality. Our pre-fixe menu options were considerable but also lack any sense of the unique DNA of this place (if there is any). The dishes were good but not memorable. I ordered beef Wellington and it was well prepared, but the side veg was quite uninspired. Would almost be better to serve without it. My wife ordered veal scallopini and it was fair, not above average. At this price point, these things should stand out and be memorable. My wife and I are long-time hospitality veterans and I can say with absolute confidence that at least 4 plates that came to the table had "died in the window" - were sitting under a warming lamp so long as to have over-cooked the meal.

We had the pleasure of dining in Paris in 2022, and this place would be considered, at best, an average restaurant in Paris and would certainly not command this price point. Simply whisking that across the pond into a rich neighborhood in Virginia is not enough. More care should be taken in the details of the cuisine. That is easier to address than the personality-depressed service that plagues many local restaurants. PLEASE - risk a little of yourself and tell me a story of why you're in the restaurant business. For me, being in hospitality is about sharing yourself with others and enjoying a little "get to know you" with your guests. Human connection is the basis of good hospitality and as of this weekend, L'Auberge Chez Francois has squarely...

At L'Auberge Chez Francois you could blindfold yourself, throw a few darts at the menu, and whatever you land on would wind up being one of the best meals you've had in a long time, possibly ever. The food is just that good. If you walk around the outside of the restaurant you'll notice how deep their commitment to using fresh ingredients goes -- many of the vegetables are actually grown on site. I didn't ask about it, but I'd be willing to bet that the things they can't grow themselves are sourced locally.

When I went here, it was with my family and we ordered off the luncheon menu. I've posted some pics of everyone's dishes so you can get an idea of the variety of food that's available, but I can only review the food that I ate personally. I'm going to review each item that I ordered, trying to be as detailed and descriptive as possible. Normally I wouldn't write so much, but every single dish that I had was a knockout in it's own unique way and I think this review deserves to cover each one in detail.

My appetizer was the Wagyu Beef, which comes in a cute red miniature pot. It's a stew that includes chunks of wagyu beef, as well as vegetables. The broth was very flavorful. Stews can easily be too salty but this one had just enough salt without becoming overbearing. The consistency of the broth was thicker than average too, almost more comparable to gravy than soup. The beef itself was incredibly soft and tender, to the point where it was easily falling apart in my mouth. Even the fat was tender and delectable, and gave the dish a bit of sweetness to contrast with the salt.

Next up was the house salad. It was topped with shredded beets, a piece of bread, and what tasted to me like vinegar-based dressing.

The main course was beef tenderloin with vegetables served with a cream sauce on the side. The vegetables were excellent and the carrots had a subtle sweetness that made them outstanding. The beef in the entree was firmer than the Wagyu in the appetizer, but still extremely tender. The cream sauce was rich, with a slightly sweet flavor to it.

For dessert, I had a raspberry souffle. The bread was delicate, with a perfectly spongy texture, and it was sprinkled in a dusting of confectioners' sugar. The raspberry syrup balanced tartness and sweetness to great effect.

To go along with the souffle, I had a cappuccino. It was foamy, just strong enough, and had some pleasant nutty overtones.

This was a great meal from start to finish. The only real downside is the price, but if you have a special occasion coming up, or just want to splurge and have an amazing dining experience,...