Pierre Gagnaire (Pt 3)

And then the meal started coming. Now, THIS was a meal. It was well paced and beautifully presented. The service was impeccable, and almost invisible. Every last detail was well thought out – from how gently the chargers were placed together when removed from the table, to getting new linen napkins about half way through the meal. The wine glasses never came close to being dry, and yet they were never over filled. The Meursault is best if drunk only slightly chilled, so they let it sit on the table for a while, but as it got too warm they placed it in an ice bucket for about 20 minutes.

Chef Gagnaire came by the table to introduce himself. He is a tall, light haired fellow who is younger than I thought he would be (you can see his photo on their website that I linked to below). It was nice to see that the Chef still shows up at the kitchen.

Perhaps because Chef was there, the food was great. As you can see with the linked menu (below) we stated with Shrimp and Squash Blossoms, in a wonderful buttery sauce. The shrimps were small and done perfectly. The squash blossoms were stuffed with hazel nuts (filberts).

Next we had frog legs. But what frog legs! First, there was the painting of the bottom of the bowl with squid ink. Then cabbage soup and sweet cream sauce was poured on top, Brussels Sprout leaves and the braised Frog Legs (Poullette style) gently lowered into the bowl. The combination of the sweet cream, the savory ink, and the earthy frog legs was unbeatable. Combined with a sip of the Mearsault, it was tremendous.

It is hard to describe how good the service really was. The number of plates and pieces of silver we went through was amazing. The number of servers who worked the table was also impressive. And the team work that the table crew had was also surprising. At one point the wine captain delivered one of our courses, as I am sure one of the other waiters was busy. Now, we don’t know if there was fussing going on behind the scenes, but they hid it from us.

After the frogs, we had grilled hake, and crispy cod tripe. Sounds bad – tastes great. I guess texture is always important in food. In this case the flavor and texture combined to make a nice combination.

The oyster course was next. Raw oysters in a spider crab bouillon. It was covered with spinach and caramelized celery, and then draped with transparent ravioli. And transparent it was! It was perfectly clear.

Pan fired wild mushrooms (cèpes) in a beet reduction with spring onions, cucumber, and raisons were next.

There is more, but I want to post this for now. We are off on our morning walk.