The Future of The French Laundry

As much as it pains me to type these words, I feel that I have to say it:   The French Laundry appears to be slipping.   Now, I should note at the outset that I am not ready to declare just yet that the restaurant has lost its claim to being the best in the region.
Furthermore, I would still recommend that those who have never been to The French Laundry make a point of trying to experience it at least once if possible.   But that said, I have reluctantly come to conclude that as the years have gone on, the restaurant has lost some of its focus, its attention to detail, its "finesse."   And at the same time, a small group of contenders – including the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Manresa, and Gary Danko – have continued a steady upward march, to the point where they are now well within striking distance of the Bay Area’s most famous dining establishment.

My first meal at The French Laundry in April 2000, without exaggeration, changed my entire gastronomical worldview.   Never before had I tasted such refined flavors and brilliant combinations, never before had I seen such amazingly constructed and intricate presentations, and never before had I experienced such impeccable service.   Simply put, Chef/Owner Thomas Keller revealed things that I – despite having previously dined at the Bay Area’s finest restaurants – never even imagined could be achieved with food or with food service.   Every element of that first visit reached perfection, and I left the building awestruck at what I had just experienced.

My next several dinners at the restaurant brought more of the same, as Keller continued to raise the bar even higher.   Time and again, he left me shaking my head in wonder at his ability to create taste sensations like no other.   He prepared food items that I normally dislike in ways that made me love them.   He took a humble ingredient such as the parsnip, and worked delicately to isolate, distill down, and concentrate the essence of the vegetable into a single explosive bite.   He paired food items that previously seemed to have no affinity for one another, and demonstrated why the combination made all the sense in the world.   Indeed, what Keller provided was nothing short of an education - about the flavor, the texture, and the potential of the very foods that I had been eating my entire life.   And the service was spectacular – gracious, courteous, accommodating, anticipatory, and knowledgeable.    Keller was – in my book – a genius, and The French Laundry was the paragon of restaurants, light years ahead of its closest competitors.

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The first less-than-stellar experience I had at The French Laundry was in January 2003.   The food remained at the same magnificent level as on earlier visits, but the graceful service – described as “balletic” by some – was clearly lacking.   Waiters were presenting and clearing dishes from random directions, refilling wine glasses by reaching across the front of guests, and thrusting baskets of fresh white truffles uncomfortably close to diners’ faces.   One obviously-new waiter even stood tableside for what seemed to be an eternity, faithfully moving one spoon over another in an attempt to form a quenelle of a nearly liquid cheese – apparently hoping that persistence might magically cause it to come into existence.   My next visit a few months later found the service to be similarly substandard.

Over the course of the ensuing two years, I told myself that the service issues that I had experienced were probably attributable to Keller’s plan – already underway at the time – to open Per Se, his multi-million dollar New York counterpart to The French Laundry.   Certainly Keller and his staff were a bit distracted, I figured, and once both restaurants were up and running at full steam, The French Laundry would naturally return to its inimitable form.   Well, my opportunity to test that theory finally arrived when two friends and I recently made the journey up to The French Laundry for dinner – my first meal there since Per Se opened in early 2004.

Much to my disappointment, the service was once again less than impressive.   As described more fully in a companion post, waiters repeatedly reached across guests, failed to describe courses fully and accurately, and neglected to monitor and ensure proper wine levels throughout the course of the meal.   Furthermore, the menu itself seemed to be a notch below what it once was.   Sure, there were several courses that were just as spectacular as anything Keller has ever created; but for the first time in memory, there were some courses that were not. And that, to me, was profoundly disappointing – in a way that is difficult even to describe.

So, what conclusions, if any, can be drawn?   Well, one thing I can no longer deny is that over the course of three consecutive visits, The French Laundry has exhibited service that has consistently been below excellent.   Is it downright bad, or rude, or offensive in some manner?   Of course not.   Is it still well above the service that the vast majority of our local restaurants provide?   Certainly.   But is it anywhere near what The French Laundry itself once offered – what Keller demonstrated could be achieved with the right mix of talented people, attention to detail, and a passionate commitment to excellence?   Absolutely not.

The quality of the food, meanwhile, has not fallen off quite as precipitously.   Yet, my recent meal at the restaurant included several dishes that – as described in the companion post – fell somewhere short of greatness.
Again, the food obviously was not bland, bad or inedible, and a meal at The French Laundry is still a special experience when compared to the overwhelming majority of restaurants in town.   But does the entire menu – from top to bottom – still reflect the brilliant conception, the meticulous focus on presentation, and the astonishing effects that each and every dish did three, four, or five years ago?   Unfortunately, no.

Now, one might argue that some of my comments – or perhaps even all of them – are merely nitpicking.   Maybe I’m just expecting too much, some might say.   To that, however, I have two responses.

First, it is important to keep in mind that I am not measuring the restaurant against some abstract, unattainable level of perfection that I invented in my head.   Rather, I am measuring it against the standard that The French Laundry itself previously set.   If that benchmark was attainable before, why shouldn’t I expect the restaurant to attain it now?

Second, and more fundamentally, when I am asked to pay $175 for a meal before the cost of alcohol is added in, when a 19% gratuity is automatically imposed regardless of party size, when a group of three walks out the door of a restaurant a grand total of $1000 poorer, I have no qualms about demanding absolute perfection.   To put it plainly, The French Laundry’s prices today exceed those of its competitors by a long shot; it’s only fair to expect its food and service to do the same.

And therein lies one of the basic problems that The French Laundry faces.   Over the past five years, the cost of Keller’s tasting menu has risen dramatically – from $105 per person to $175 (a 67% increase).   With inflation of that magnitude, diners have a right to expect that the quality of the experience will be at least the same as it was before, if not even higher.   And they certainly wouldn’t expect quality to decline as prices skyrocket.   Yet, as described above, that is precisely what has happened.

While all of this is unfolding at The French Laundry, of course, the rest of the market is not standing still.   There are certain chefs in the Bay Area – most notably Ron Siegel, David Kinch, and Gary Danko – who have steadily continued to invent, improve and refine, and who are doing some amazing things at their respective restaurants.
And importantly, each of these chefs is charging considerably less than Keller:   Siegel’s menu (9 courses) is $115, Kinch’s menu (10 courses) is $98, and Danko’s menu (5 courses) is $79.   As these gentlemen move closer to producing a menu that is just as good as Keller’s current one – and Siegel and Kinch, in particular, are very close – how much longer will diners be willing to pay The French Laundry’s prices?

In the end, I do not for a moment believe that Thomas Keller has lost his touch, that his extraordinary talent has somehow diminished over time, or that other chefs have managed to surpass him in creativity or ability.   To the contrary, I still hold Keller in the highest possible regard, both for the education that he has provided as to what is possible and for his phenomenal talent and vision.   No, what I fear is that the dizzying heights that The French Laundry once hit on a regular basis were reached only because Keller devoted every last ounce of his passion and obsession to that singular pursuit – energies that are now distributed and diluted across a mini-empire that includes two top-tier restaurants on opposite ends of the country.   And as long as that situation continues, I suspect that The French Laundry will not be able to reclaim its past glory.

But I cannot even begin to tell you how fervently I hope I am wrong.