-
Recent Tweets
-
@FOXTEL_Help watching The Great British Bakeoff tonight. 2/3rds in you played an ad for the same show on Lifestyle… https://t.co/Wp0HnSUcKh 12 months ago
-
@metrotrains Never arrived ? https://t.co/xGfw3zniy6 12 months ago
-
@metrotrains why no cancellation notice for the Belgrave line train to the city this morning? Notify app says good service. 12 months ago
-
-
Recent Posts
- Pirags!!!!!!
- Benu, San Francisco
- Sunday Yum Cha at Spice Temple Melbourne – 16% better than on a weekday?
- The Restaurant at Meadowood
- Bottega, Napa Valley
- Perfection Defined at The French Laundry
- Twist by Pierre Gagnaire
- Wine Went Everywhere at Bella Vedere
- EARL Canteen
- Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio
- Union Dining
- Longrain, Melbourne Style
- Dinner at David’s
- Ladro, Prahran
- Happy Time at Izakaya Den
- Noir Is The New Black
- Ezard, Glorious Ezard
- Movida, The Original And Still The Best!
- 8 Courses at Attica
- Bamboo House
Recent Comments
Categories
Blogroll
Email Subscription
Click to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.Meta
Tag Archives: thomas keller
Perfection Defined at The French Laundry
As Donny recounted here, we were extremely lucky to secure a table at the French Laundry during our short stay in Yountville CA.
When you google The French Laundry, perfection is a word that is synonymous with the numerous reviews that appear, and after our experience at this restaurant I cannot think of a better word to describe the few hours we were lucky enough to have at 6640 Washington Street.
Not only is the service polished and the quality & presentation of each dish impeccable, but each minute detail in the appearance of the restaurant has been thought about – from the wooden pegs that adorn your beautifully pressed napkin, to the prints on the softly glowing lights.
Sunday Brunch at Ad Hoc
Our beautiful, unseasonably warm sunny Sunday morning in Yountville, Napa Valley, was spent eating brunch at Thomas Keller’s casual restaurant, Ad Hoc.
It’s open for dinner 5 nights a week (Thursday to Monday), and also for brunch on Sunday. We were quite lucky that our 4 nights in the Napa Valley coincided with us being there on a Sunday as we were quite interested in the Brunch 🙂
Brunch is a funny thing – we don’t typically go out for it as Ritsy’s stomach usually gets angry if it hasn’t been sated by 8am! To counteract this, we opted to make our booking quite late (11:30am), which allowed us to get one more “breakfast” in at Bouchon Bakery (also Thomas Keller’s, and just over the road from where we were staying). This ended up working out very well considering the size and richness of the three courses of the day, which cost us $34 pp plus tax.
A Table for Two at The French Laundry
The alarm goes off – it’s 4:56am in Melbourne, two calendar months to the date that we arrive in Napa. Sleepily, we reach for our phones – three of them in total – and do a quick check that all our speed dials are getting through to The French Laundry’s answering machine.
We had done a fair bit of research into getting a booking at The French Laundry – heralded by most people as the best restaurant in the United States, and currently ranked number 32 in the world. The size of their dining room (16 tables / 60 seats), coupled with their reputation, means that getting a reservation is inherently tricky. Various blogs echoed frustrated stories of people trying for months and months to secure a 3 to 4 hour experience at Thomas Keller’s eponymous restaurant, so we were always a bit worried that our 4 day window might not be enough.