But here you go….. My Fleur De Lys review that was far far too long to fit in yelp.
It’s 5.45am. About to land face down on the deck.. but these thoughts should go here before they leave to nowhere.
My first thought is the music, and I am simply waxing here. I DJ, and I live in SF. A tight knit community, sometimes you hear some of your friend’s tracks here and there, but I am always astonished to hear Lorin out and about. He is such a mild mannered, thoughtful, fun guy…. And so normal. So when I am at Post Ranch and he comes on Muzak, or I am at a restaurant like Fleur… I sort of have to sit on my hands and bite my lip because I FREAK out. I love hearing Bassnectar…. Love it. And to hear it randomly like that always gives me the oozing joy that our community has been worthwhile and pervasive.
However, the track was an outro downtempo sparkly mellow glitch thing, and it was in conjunction with a number of other ambient/downtempo tracks. I have a residency where I DJ downtempo, and note I have moved from it in the last years to traditional funk, soul breaks, and even afrobeat and hip hop… because somewhere along the line this new and cutting edge filter of music turned into the new elevator sound…. Inoffensive, non tactile sounds of wallpaper and background noise. It is sad to me that some innovative and interesting sounds of a decade ago now seem like the new Yanni or wavy jazz like Kenny G. Electronic music is simply a filter of other genres, so I guess we are filtering AM gold and 103.7 KKSF through electronica now.
So downtempo producers…. Get on it. It’s boring now. Like the review… moving on.
This is not a small ticket meal, nor is this an every month (let alone two fiscal quarters) event. A gentle blog about this sort of experience hardly does it justice, as well as does not help to dampen the sticker shock.
I have heard this about the SF location… that the price is simply outrageous, and however good the food is, it cannot be justified. I would completely agree, and do…. But we found the chefs tasting menu at $94 for 6 courses to be friendly, albeit that included amuse bouche and petit fours.
You will be paying nearly $200 a head. I have said time and time again… if you walk out of a meal concerned in *any* way about the bill, there is something wrong with the event overall. This teetered precariously on the brink of this sort of experience…. The cost had me slipping off the cliff with one foot’s panicked shuffling grasping onto the crumbling hillside. My lovely date, however, always seems to calm my fumbling at the brink. So it is that I walk out of this meal as satisfied as I have been in years, with a $9 Double Espresso stuck in my craw, and an uninspired cheese plate. Other than that….. a phenomenal experience.
The space was fantastic. You are assaulted with a mural of white roses that bleed into pink, and the stunning art piece may, if I can be salacious for a moment, resemble vulva. Sorry, it is what I saw. 60 foot ceilings with surprisingly well conceived lighting, and elegant drapes floor to ceiling that could easily be negotiated and altered to open or close spaces. There is a private banquet/booth area that seems very cozy, and was assumedly for people like us that prefer not to be seen due to the problem this causes… when people see us it turns into a zoo and photos and all that. It is embarrassing, and normal people don’t want their experience altered simply because people like us are there (this is a joke people). Honestly, they must be reserved for the fame and glorious, because the bride and groom that were sat by the door had a less romantic table than us, so they must be something special. If you reserve, ask for it because it would be a phenomenal private and sexy affair. The only thing we noted at the end of the meal is how frustrating it is, and has been for me in the past, designing around the bulky, ugly coding requirements. The bleating red exit sign ½ way up the wall was aesthetically nightmarish, yet sadly required.
Speaking of coding:
From a hotel design perspective, something did bother me, and this is more for the management than the reader…. Subtle difficulties arise when trying to pair the experience with a slight lack of awareness… such as the two completely different handles on the bathroom door. Both are relevant to fire code sure, but you have two doors less than a couple feet apart (both in the same field of vision); one with a Toledo style handle that is a ½â€, one with a grenada style at 1â€. This is silly stuff so that fire hoses don’t get caught, and frankly in this area I would be surprised if coding suggested you needed ½’. Whatever the case… MAKE IT CONSISTENT. The problem is at this level, with such high end service and flawless food, there is room for people to become aware of errors. Your attention to detail has to be that much more intense In this case, it wasn’t. Having helped to design and build hotels, maybe it was just me.
Service is… slightly green. You could tell these employees had been trained in fine dining tableside service style, however were just as interested in becoming buddies and being quite real. This made for a better experience in my mind, because the service was consummate while any slight errors were made up for by a friendly, earnest staff. However, you could note inconsistencies between tables as they would shoot us a smile in regards to an awkward experience with guests at another table. As much as I like being the in table, it does mark for inconsistency. However, they worked incredibly well together, and we always felt attended to, without being doted on. Another aspect of service I really enjoyed was the backwaiting and support each server got. We never were quite sure who are main server was, and it absolutely did not matter.
Our sommelier was hiding a slight Wyoming country drawl with knowledgeable and deft knowledge on the wine list. Opting not to go for the $45,000 dollar bottle, we told her generally what we wanted, at what price range (I suggested that was garish to say, and she said it is impossible to help you without knowing the price… she was a very *real* and enthusiastic wine lover, as compared to a contemptuous wine snob. In the end, she said she was frustrated when people did not offer a range because it is so ambiguous and vague without it). We got a very nice white zin. Haha… no no. A young and sassy Bordeaux. It was a fine and appropriate companion for dinner, but nothing that lingered on the palette.
The pastry chef seemed to be an experimenter. The petit four were interesting, such as the pear marshmallow, but I didn’t feel the bread service was refined… too many choices without any one stand out loaf. The pretzel roll seemed to be a coney island novelty, and I suggest it is whisked away from the menu. It didn’t fit.
Our courses were fantastic, and somehow Lauren was able to beat me with her selections each time.
I got the ahi tartare, eponymous starter, so often boring. It was a fantastic take on it, the ahi fresh and flavor incredibly subtle, helped along by a chiffonade or micro julienne of cucumbers. The flavours were so FRESH… incredibly subtle, but coalesced perfectly. Very balanced, and really a stunning reimagining of this boring dish I am nearly hanging up on. If this hadn’t been interesting or a new take, I am quite sure I would have been done with Ahi poke style apps for a long time coming. I am already there, had low expectations, and was very pleased.
Lauren’s sweet onion soup (with duck ragout and black truffle) was, perhaps, one of the best onion soup creations that I have ever had. The sweetness, earth, and floral aspects (read: the good parts) of the Onion lingered on your palette, while the bitter or astringent aspects melted away.
The second course was phenomenal, and I admit mine might have beat hers out this round, but her overall meal won the match. She had scallops, which I thought were a bit overcooked. I had an INCREDIBLE potato veal ravioli dish…. melted in my mouth.
3rd course I had the duck, while Lauren had the filet mignon. The portion sizes for this entrée were incredibly inconsistent… with the filet looking like a mountain of meat, while the duck was minimal and sparse. The presentation of the entire meal was stunning, from china patterns to the way the chefs blended the food onto the plate out of the patterns. It was incredibly well done, and an interesting style of presentation that was playful, symmetrical, and gorgeous. It never ceased in pleasing us, and making us giggle with a little loving, excited hand squeeze. The duck was a little dry, but fine. I am, however, not sure if I have seen a more perfectly cooked filet. It was incredible.
Dessert involved an upcharge off the prix fixe with a cheese plate, as well as a chocolate soufflé with chocolate sauce. The cheese plate I touched on somewhere back in the reams of electronic paper that is this review…. It was uninspired. It might have been that I was very full, but I hardly touched it. I sampled them all, and they were complex and quite good… but generally not as interesting or thoughtful as I hoped.
The problem there is that I *wasn’t* hungry, but I was quite capable of throwing back the soufflé in lieu of that. So I would assume that is either a comment on the cheese plate, or more likely a comment on the soufflé.
As for the soufflé?
I know it is just a soufflé. It is simple, and if you haven’t tried making one in your own kitchen spend a Sunday afternoon having fun and experimenting. It is a blast, not too hard, and you can do ANYTHING with soufflés. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Trust me… it is a good time! Go experiment! I made a breakfast cheese and bacon one once. Seriously…. They are easy and can go in every direction.
However this was without question one of the finest soufflés I have ever had. Sometimes the chocolate is so perversely sweet it feels like hershey’s, and other times so flavourless it feels like the baker forgot sugar. This was so well balanced, and after a meal like we had, not overtly rich. The sauce brought out enough of the chocolate flavor that the soufflé itself was able to stand alone as a delicious cocoa confection. It also had risen to perfection, and was timed incredibly well. Like… perfectly.
Of course it was at this point the hand press decaf for my lady came out, and my simple double shot of espresso followed….. at $9. I have a contention about that…. The coffee is to buffer the night ahead from this rich and gluttonous meal we had just consumed. It is more of a courtesy to a well rounded dining experience than a necessary or expected aspect of dining. What I am saying is that this should exist for the guest like a well priced wine list, or should be a complimentary aspect of the evening. I don’t mind a fair charge for a coffee at the end of the meal, but when you are dropping $400 I am not quite sure a $9 espresso feels fair or gracious. It was actually disappointing that something that petty got us talking about the price of the meal, etc…. and as we walked out of the door it was a simple espresso at the end of the meal that rang in our heads and caused consternation, instead of the entire majestic and astonishing experience that preceded that.
And it is with consternation that I give the entire experience 4 stars. Simply, I feel it is 3. Just fine. But the dining experience is unreal, the food is divine. The simple fact is that this is one of those “best meals in the world”, and you simply shouldn’t walk away talking about an overpriced espresso.
3 stars in my heart that I cannot bear to give. 4 will do nicely.