Almost everyone I ever worked for and everyone I ever respected in the US worked here. When I started at Alinea a decade and a half ago, all I heard and everything that was socially pressured into me were the knock down lessons from places like TFL and the like. I’m older now, I don’t work in restaurants anymore and haven’t for some time now yet the respect and admiration for the French Laundry that was beat into me hasn’t left. It is an indelible part of American fine dining history and one of, if not the most important restaurants in US history.
Today’s meal was excellent, particularly the sauce work, and they were incredibly generous with the courses & wine – letting me truly experience the full breadth and expression of what the restaurant has to offer despite my relative youth and thinner budget. Service today was also great and its little wonder why so many of the best FOH captains in the country can trace their roots back to the standards set here and at other legendary institutions.
Wine was great, shout out to /u/greenyuzu – took their advice on the Aligote after asking an friend who said the 2022 was his favourite white wine ever instead of the Huet/LdH double header I would’ve done instead and really really enjoyed it. It was a beautiful wine – I started with it chilled and it showed zippy n mineral heavy w some light, structured green notes and some light fruit on the finish but as I let it aerate a bit the green notes really developed in an awesome way so after confirming with the somm I tabled it to see how it’d develop which was the right call. They also let me try some beautiful kabinett Riesling and tokaji throughout the meal – both of which were excellent.
I didn’t take notes on the meal, I focused more on the experience since I was solo and just having fun. Here’s the broad strokes from what I remember:
1. Classic openings bites of the historic cornet, today was a king salmon tartare alongside the standard crème fraiche, sole chive (more a fun aside for myself but I’ve heard people bitch about having to do these for this specific dish since I was twelve lmao so it’s always funny to see them) and sesame cornet. Alongside it was a black truffle cream cheese cracker and chicken sausage bite, both of which were great – seasoned well yet fairly light as openers
2. Oysters and pearls followed, this is always excellent. It always reminds me of what I thought an American Chawan (that dish will come later though) would be – creamy, silky sabayon & tapioca tinged with a restrained oceanic salinity from the oysters and caviar
3. Summer melon segments topped by a watermelon soup, nice and mildly refreshing
4. Bantam egg custard with black truffle ragout and potato crisp, very nice – savoury but not heavy and the custard was cooked properly. My favourite bites we’re admittedly the ones with the ragout but the custard itself was delicious too
5. Several variety of heirloom tomatoes with a sauce of ajo blanco and shiso gel, quite nice – I love brandywines and sungolds – both showed nicely here but was impressed by the indigos as well
6. Hokkaido sea scallop tataki with a brokaw avacado mousse, cucumber gazpacho and blue masa chips. The bites with every part of the dish combined were my favourite but the scallop was cooked nicely overall
7. Loup de mer atop a super hydrated basmati pilaf with a vaudovan sauce. The preserved lemon segments weren’t to my taste so I took them off but loup de mer is one of my favourite common Western fish along rouget et saint pierre. Sauce work was excellent – the vaudovan sauce delivered good flavour while being airy and had a beautiful nappe
8. Black truffle macaroni, I saw the components and instantly thought Frenchon’s stuffed macaroni candele and wanted to try it. Thanks to the kitchens generosity they let me try this and another course to fully experience the menu. I thought this was really enjoyable – the pasta is cooked perfectly and the Australian truffle is incredibly aromatic – a far cry from the product that typically shows up at even similiar restaurants this time of year. Generous shavings allow for the dish to fully incorporate the truffle in every bite and I really loved how this was with the aligoté that had developed nicely by this point in the meal. The bread course actually came out here to sop up the remaining sauce which was pretty great
9. A nicely roasted Liberty farms pekin duck with a beautiful wild honey gastrique, endive puree and black plum tartlet. Excellent cook on the duck and the “gastrique” was also very well done, lightly zippy with some nice body
10. Elysian Fields lamb, blood sausage, hummus, preserved eggplant and sauce pimeton. I loved everything besides the hummus. Another great sauce but was very impressed by the blood sausage as well
11. Thanks again to the generosity of the team, I was able to try the Miyazaki wagyu course with a squash blossom farci, grilled squash and a sausage segment. The wagyu itself was nice! Definitely more lean / meaty which is good to lean into for a portion this large and the thyme jus was quite good with it. Loved the fleur de courgette farci and grilled courgette as well
12. Cheese course of machengo with mortadella and olive loaf. Cheese was solid and I loved the mortadella. I’ll be real here – I fucked up getting lunch at Charter Oak before this, CO was good but I would’ve rather filled up here if I knew
13. Dessert setup – rose geranium ice cream with pistachio granola, fig leaf crémeux & brown butter tuile with figs, macaron, chocolate financier and the classic coffee & donuts. I alas was done by now so had a few bites and packed what I could
14. Mignardise, lot of cute bon bons that I packed up
I am so thankful to the generosity of the team today, I really appreciate getting to try everything that I did – I will skip lunch next time. I really enjoyed my time here. It’s been a while since I was back just given I don’t have a car (I take public transportation to a lot of these destination spots when I go solo) but I just flat out had a good time so I’ll come back soon.
3 Comments
Almost everyone I ever worked for and everyone I ever respected in the US worked here. When I started at Alinea a decade and a half ago, all I heard and everything that was socially pressured into me were the knock down lessons from places like TFL and the like. I’m older now, I don’t work in restaurants anymore and haven’t for some time now yet the respect and admiration for the French Laundry that was beat into me hasn’t left. It is an indelible part of American fine dining history and one of, if not the most important restaurants in US history.
Today’s meal was excellent, particularly the sauce work, and they were incredibly generous with the courses & wine – letting me truly experience the full breadth and expression of what the restaurant has to offer despite my relative youth and thinner budget. Service today was also great and its little wonder why so many of the best FOH captains in the country can trace their roots back to the standards set here and at other legendary institutions.
Wine was great, shout out to /u/greenyuzu – took their advice on the Aligote after asking an friend who said the 2022 was his favourite white wine ever instead of the Huet/LdH double header I would’ve done instead and really really enjoyed it. It was a beautiful wine – I started with it chilled and it showed zippy n mineral heavy w some light, structured green notes and some light fruit on the finish but as I let it aerate a bit the green notes really developed in an awesome way so after confirming with the somm I tabled it to see how it’d develop which was the right call. They also let me try some beautiful kabinett Riesling and tokaji throughout the meal – both of which were excellent.
I didn’t take notes on the meal, I focused more on the experience since I was solo and just having fun. Here’s the broad strokes from what I remember:
1. Classic openings bites of the historic cornet, today was a king salmon tartare alongside the standard crème fraiche, sole chive (more a fun aside for myself but I’ve heard people bitch about having to do these for this specific dish since I was twelve lmao so it’s always funny to see them) and sesame cornet. Alongside it was a black truffle cream cheese cracker and chicken sausage bite, both of which were great – seasoned well yet fairly light as openers
2. Oysters and pearls followed, this is always excellent. It always reminds me of what I thought an American Chawan (that dish will come later though) would be – creamy, silky sabayon & tapioca tinged with a restrained oceanic salinity from the oysters and caviar
3. Summer melon segments topped by a watermelon soup, nice and mildly refreshing
4. Bantam egg custard with black truffle ragout and potato crisp, very nice – savoury but not heavy and the custard was cooked properly. My favourite bites we’re admittedly the ones with the ragout but the custard itself was delicious too
5. Several variety of heirloom tomatoes with a sauce of ajo blanco and shiso gel, quite nice – I love brandywines and sungolds – both showed nicely here but was impressed by the indigos as well
6. Hokkaido sea scallop tataki with a brokaw avacado mousse, cucumber gazpacho and blue masa chips. The bites with every part of the dish combined were my favourite but the scallop was cooked nicely overall
7. Loup de mer atop a super hydrated basmati pilaf with a vaudovan sauce. The preserved lemon segments weren’t to my taste so I took them off but loup de mer is one of my favourite common Western fish along rouget et saint pierre. Sauce work was excellent – the vaudovan sauce delivered good flavour while being airy and had a beautiful nappe
8. Black truffle macaroni, I saw the components and instantly thought Frenchon’s stuffed macaroni candele and wanted to try it. Thanks to the kitchens generosity they let me try this and another course to fully experience the menu. I thought this was really enjoyable – the pasta is cooked perfectly and the Australian truffle is incredibly aromatic – a far cry from the product that typically shows up at even similiar restaurants this time of year. Generous shavings allow for the dish to fully incorporate the truffle in every bite and I really loved how this was with the aligoté that had developed nicely by this point in the meal. The bread course actually came out here to sop up the remaining sauce which was pretty great
9. A nicely roasted Liberty farms pekin duck with a beautiful wild honey gastrique, endive puree and black plum tartlet. Excellent cook on the duck and the “gastrique” was also very well done, lightly zippy with some nice body
10. Elysian Fields lamb, blood sausage, hummus, preserved eggplant and sauce pimeton. I loved everything besides the hummus. Another great sauce but was very impressed by the blood sausage as well
11. Thanks again to the generosity of the team, I was able to try the Miyazaki wagyu course with a squash blossom farci, grilled squash and a sausage segment. The wagyu itself was nice! Definitely more lean / meaty which is good to lean into for a portion this large and the thyme jus was quite good with it. Loved the fleur de courgette farci and grilled courgette as well
12. Cheese course of machengo with mortadella and olive loaf. Cheese was solid and I loved the mortadella. I’ll be real here – I fucked up getting lunch at Charter Oak before this, CO was good but I would’ve rather filled up here if I knew
13. Dessert setup – rose geranium ice cream with pistachio granola, fig leaf crémeux & brown butter tuile with figs, macaron, chocolate financier and the classic coffee & donuts. I alas was done by now so had a few bites and packed what I could
14. Mignardise, lot of cute bon bons that I packed up
I am so thankful to the generosity of the team today, I really appreciate getting to try everything that I did – I will skip lunch next time. I really enjoyed my time here. It’s been a while since I was back just given I don’t have a car (I take public transportation to a lot of these destination spots when I go solo) but I just flat out had a good time so I’ll come back soon.
Love an aligote 👏
automatic upvote for my fellow solo diner