The French Laundry — Restaurant in Yountville

Both Thomas Keller and the French Laundry have been picked clean—lauded, pilloried, lauded again, damned to hell, praised to heaven.... Something must emerge from the haze of hype and hyperbole. Will that something be worth eating? That’s what I asked myself when ducking into this restaurant for the first time.

After being seated, I overheard another patron of the French Laundry complaining about the real French and their snooty ways. “There, you have to eat the way they want you to eat,” he said. “Here, I can do whatever I want.”

Can the French Laundry live up to such libertarian standards? I’m not so sure. I turned down my assigned sommelier’s suggestions and ordered a reasonably priced half-bottle. “What do you think?” I then asked, mainly as a courtesy. His eyebrows twitched in response. Later I posed a question about a non-alcoholic beverage he poured us, and he demurred. “If you don’t like it, don’t drink it.” (Here, I can do whatever I want….)

The patron was wrong. This is a restaurant about food, not freedom. No, not about food. About flavor! The French laundry is a little like a flavor-making app. It spits out ingenious dishes on demand—it MUST, given the reputation (all those stars!) and the price. The food has a deep surveillance quality, as though Thomas Keller were listening in on your secret gustatory desires in order to push them ads. Oysters and caviar? Why did no one else think of that? Actually, plenty of other people HAVE thought of it, but no one else TRADEMARKED it and turned it into a signature dish, into intellectual property. If the French Laundry were to IPO, everyone involved would become billionaires...until the investors got wind of the cost of Ossetra caviar, anyway. (“Surely the kitchen could be persuaded to use paddlefish from time to time?”)

You certainly can’t accuse the French Laundry of cheapness. Wagyu, caviar, farm-to-table produce, plenty of Lafite-Rothschild in the cellar…. Keller dangles prices over you like sets of keys in front of a bored infant. $155 will buy you a truffle mac and cheese dish that tastes exactly like paper money. Keller wants you to swallow the gold leaf, and swallow it you do. If you choke on it, however, you’re on your own. Michelin does not award stars for exemplary performance of the Heimlich.

I think about the "real" France while eating Keller's fanciful morsels, where the customer is often happily fed on a skeleton crew of one chef, one plongeur, and one waiter. But then, this is the French LAUNDRY, not a French bistro. Keller has drifted so far afield of his original inspiration that it is French in nom only—and with respect to its hedonistic ratio of macronutrients. The bread course I received was a pastry possessing more butter than flour, upon which I was invited to slather even more butter. Owsley Stanley would have been proud.

Keller once belonged to Owsley Stanley’s California, and to Alice Waters’, and perhaps even to Steve Jobs’—a land of plenty, of opportunity, of sunshine, of ostensibly meritocratic values, of boundless creativity (or maybe just drugs?). Today, he belongs to Elon Musk’s California, which is but a stone’s throw from Walt Disney’s. But this is not Keller’s fault. The state has folded in on itself like a Mad Magazine cover. What can a genius do in Toontown?

He can hitchhike to Tomorrowland, for one thing. The Laundry is full of holograms of half-remembered things that exist far, far away, if at all. The dishes have strange, pixelated frames around them. A “salad” is a small heap of vegetation. A slice of duck compressed into a cube like a sausage seems more like a box labeled “duck” than an actual duck. It prompts me to envision a future where all food is a styrofoam-like generalized nutrient substance into which highly realistic flavors are injected.

Would Keller embrace such a future, or fight it? I have a feeling Keller would fare well either way. The French Laundry's menu is already a pole's length from Soylent Green, albeit Soylent Green dipped in infinity and lit aflame.

The valedictory chocolates...

Where do I even begin with this review? For a restaurant that is 3 Michelin stars, has a waiting list, and costs about $1000 per head (before wine) it truly should be a mind blowing experience. It is FAR, FAR, FAR away from that.

OK, so first, it looks like a run down farm house, and smells like one as well. There is absolutely no ambiance in this place. I felt like I was shoved into an upstairs bedroom of someone's old house. Once we were seated, it took 5 to 10 minutes for anyone to acknowledge us (party of 4).

We were going to start our meal with a martini, or something similar. No such luck. French Kitchen does NOT have a full liquor bar, and the spirits they do have (Scotches, bourbons, etc.) are so insanely overpriced you either need Trust Fund money, or a second mortgage (think $1000 per pour).

OK, onto the wine list. I absolutely understand restaurants make their money on wine and alcohol. Great, understood. However, when you're in Napa (have probably spent days at wineries) and you understand what wine costs, it's flat out sticker shock to see these prices. The mark up on the wine is about 500% to 600% of store retail prices. It's obscene. The restaurant is already price gouging on their mediocre food, and now they want to shove salt in the wound and twist.

To make the wine even more interesting, the server opened first bottle, let us smell, then decanted. For second bottle, the sommelier brought it over, did not pour any into fresh glass to smell, proceeded to decant it, then poured wine from the new bottle, into our old glassed which at that time, still had wine in them from previous bottle. This guy is a sommelier? Was training at Applebees?

Now, onto the lackluster, drowned in salt, butter and cream food. The starter was a miniature ice cream cone looking thing, with what tasted like salmon cream cheese shoved in it. One bite was enough for me. The salad was wilted, soggy, and tasted like they loaded it up with Mayo. One bite was enough for me. One course was a seared scallop with cream and a spinach ball. The scallop was seared exactly right, but the inside was chewy. Two bites were OK. The second bite was to see if the first bite really was that bad.

We all paid extra for the meal supplement Black Truffles, and Wagyu A5. The risotto the black truffles were shaved onto was not cooked properly, so it was crunchy. One bite was enough.

The truffles were brought out in a presentation box and had that delicious, earthy smell. However, when they served them shaved table side, they used their bare hands, and they must have used truffles they had been touching repeatedly, as these smelled like sweat and urine.

The steak was decent. Not great. Wagyu A5 should be lightly seared//rare, and not covered//drenched in sauce. This was the only course I finished, and only the steak. The vegetables on the plater were slathered in sauces.

The desserts, were passable at best. They bring so many out to the table at once, that it felt like a buffest in Las Vegas, and had the same taste // quality.

I travel all over the world annually and have for 20+ years. I've stayed in some of the most amazing locations, and eaten at MANY Michelin stared restaurants (in states and internationally). Not sure how, why, or on what planet this would be considered a 3 Michelin stars restaurant. This place is on par with the Guy Fieri's debacle of a restaurant in NY...

There was no wow factor and it wasn't transporting.

The amuse bouche were not up to par in terms of presentation and delivery. I felt that they were all monotonous and there was no oomph in the flavour profile before the main course arrived. They were not complimenting introductions to the star/s of the show.

Perhaps it's the assumption. It didn't meet my expectations. Above all else, I feel like I was rushed into finishing the entire course. There was no pacing or I could probably have eventually become a little bored or there was no sort of diversion to get me entertained or that the dishes never lingered because they were never entertaining.

I thought the kitchen tour was supposedly a little gift which turned out to be boring. The kitchen atmosphere was bleak and there was not a chance to take a photo of whoever was the chef for the day. Taking a photo at the kitchen was good, but the kitchen tour was meant, or how I assumed it to be in previous Michelin-star experiences, to introduce to the man, or men/women (if they account everyone to be equally responsible for the menu). Just myself, standing there expected to make the initiative of what I intended to do.

As for my menu, it seems, because I'm dining for 1, to be a reduced version of the supposedly classic chef's tasting menu. There were certain dishes that were only served (or the same but a more elevated version) for the table for 2 and above. I completely understand where they were coming from as obviously, I'm just dining for a table for 1 but that was what I noticed. If they did that as a favour (out of the goodness of their hearts) when they actually wanted a minimum of 2 for reservations, I would rather not take it than have a reduced version of the menu. It was even funny when one of the staff said about me dining for 1 that the chef made adjustments to my menu thinking that it was made extra special as per how the staff worded it. The high pre-reservation price didn't seem to match the menu. The level of difficulty in making a reservation didn't seem to meet expectations.

The dining atmosphere was lifeless and cramped. It didn't feel luxurious. Tables were not evenly spaced. Restaurant traffic was poor that I almost tripped and hit another person in two different occasions.

I do appreciate however the service from the staff. Although, there were just too many of them in a cramped space. Everyone that day seemed to be celebrating their birthdays as the team kept going with the suprise birthday cakes and the (excessively aggressive) cake sparklers. The little nibbles and takeaway bags with their thick lifestyle magazine and restaurant booklet included were a plus. The highlight though for me was their gender-neutral, beautifully prepared, spacious toilet and the staff was already waiting to open the door for me. It provided me a safe space but it wasn't enough to earn a perfect rating.

Overall, the other European one-Michelin star restaurants appear to challenge better. Time to knock off one of their stars? Remember: service, taste, presentation,...