The French Laundry in Napa - What it's like to Dine at the Famous Restaurant

The French Laundry

restaurant

has three Michelin stars and has been voted the best

restaurant

in the world twice. The iconic Napa Valley experience is something that people travel from all over the world to try. Amy and I have wanted to go here for years and finally got the chance to do it in October. Here's

what

we thought about French Laundry and be sure to stick around until the end where we talk about it in more detail. It all started with the trip from Southern California to Napa Valley to celebrate our anniversary. I can't believe we get to eat here tonight.

Come on, we arrived at the restaurant about 30 minutes before our reservation so we could have time to explore the property and just relax upon arrival, we checked in and were taken to the patio where they. He served us a glass of champagne. It's a great place to wait with a nice atmosphere and a separate chair so you can sit with just your group. Additionally, there is a window that overlooks the kitchen and we encourage you to go and take a look. I spent pretty much the entire time just looking out the window and watching the chefs at work.

About 10 minutes later we were led into the restaurant and shown to our table. I'll talk a lot more about the hospitality aspect at the end of the video, but basically everyone who came to greet us with a happy anniversary and also brought a bottle of D peran from the year we got married and gave us a glass. It's little details like this that make the experience something you'll never forget. The meal started with a couple of welcome bites that weren't on the menu, the first of which was a Bago cone and the second, which was their version of a Ritz cracker.

During this time, they also came and took our orders of wine and any additional improvements we wanted. Let's do this: Our dining experience officially began with oysters and pearls, the restaurant's

famous

dish. This has been on the menu since the restaurant started and is something that never leaves before I arrive. I had no idea anything could taste as good as this. We decided to just have a glass of wine and someone came and helped us pair it with something that would be good for the entire meal and that was within our budget after the menu kept coming up and even though each of the plates was small, I I was incredibly full at the end of the meal, plus the pacing was absolutely perfect, we had a good amount of time between each of our dishes but not too long, I'm so excited it's literally like one of my favorite things, perfect, it's like a little crunch on the outside but so soft on the inside I already want more, it's funny how something like bread and butter here can be made so much better than ever before.

Another highlight for me was that I asked if this specific egg dish had it. I saw that it was on the menu for the night, the waiter told me everything and that it wasn't on the menu, but 10 minutes later it was brought to us to try. I was blown away because this is something I would never have done. It was expected that next there would be two protein dishes which you could upgrade if you were interested, we both did the quail first and then in the next dish I did the lamb ribs and Amy chose the wagu beef, it was a significant improvement.

They load up and don't push you to do this but it was an amazing piece of meat, you could cut it with a butter knife and it basically melted in your mouth, after that there was a cheese plate before moving on to the desserts, this was about 2 and 1/2 hours after the meal, although it doesn't look like it in the video, not to be outdone by the previous dishes, the dessert plate was something completely independent, so in case you were wondering if a laundromat French goes a little. It's crazy, this is the dessert plate we have and we each have our own.

I can do it. I can do it. Wow, a special gift from the chef for our anniversary. There were so many different flavors and dishes that were provided to us all at once. that you could try them together or separately and just find out which one was your favorite, of course we needed more desserts so they brought out a hand painted chocolate that we could choose one from to finish the meal after our dining experience was over they asked us. If we wanted to come in and see the kitchen, of course, why would you say no?

We were able to go in and see the chefs at work, as well as take a photo in the kitchen. It was an absolutely amazing experience, I don't think so. I need to eat for about two more weeks. Gosh, I didn't know I could be so full of little things. Let's go back to the office and tell them about this. Hello everyone, we are back. The French Laundry It's been about a week since we had that experience. We wanted to go into the office and talk to you a little bit more about it so you can decide if it's something you want to do also when I think about the French Laundry I think about the book Unreasonable Hospitality, which is amazing, if you're interested in fine dining and things well, you should definitely read it, but they say that restaurants can create magic and when I think about our experience, I definitely feel that way, yeah.

It feels so silly to say it was magical but it really was even from the moment we walked in there you expect to see Ed and serve you a really great meal but when we walked in we were like exploring the patio which was really beautiful and someone came up to us and just asked

what

our names were and he came back and said they were all registered and handed us a glass of champagne and it immediately started to feel like a completely different experience and then when we were moved to the dining room we sat down and were presented with a bottle of Don Perryon from the year we got married.

I have never tried Don Perryon in my life. I wonder when it is like this. It's ridiculous. I listened to the people. talk about it, but for them to have planned to have rdb since the year we got married, a new anniversary and how long we were celebrating it was like where am I now yeah, it was an incredibly cool experience, we're talking more about the cost. Well, later, but obviously this is an incredibly expensive dinner. You could have five amazing meals for the price of one here, but what the French Laundry meant to us and the reason it was a big deal to us is that we had traveled a lot through California because I created a blog about this state and I had always seen to French Laundry, I had always heard about it, we toured the grounds when we were in Yonville and it was one of those iconic places I never thought we would visit. we would go where we said when our kids were born we were going to go or you know when I finished my doctor we were going to go and all those things happen so we finally did it but that's why the cost was worth it for us.

We saved up to have that experience, but I would say hospitality is definitely something I think about. When I think about it, you feel like you're being escorted through a given experience like Best of all, I mean, it was something I'll never forget. Okay, back to that. What were your three favorite dishes? Because it was a nine-course tasting menu with different things they brought among them. They were like, you know, little bites and stuff like that, but of the nine dishes, which was your favorite? Yes my favorite was the scallops, they were just above and beyond.

I have never had a scallop that way and the way it was prepared was my second favorite. It was oysters and pearls, which is oysters and caviar, I had caviar another time and I enjoyed it, but this was next level, yeah, that's the iconic French Laundry dish, so every time you think of something like when you think in the dishes that were created. that restaurant um oysters and pearls is one of Thomas Keller's signatures uh that was the same for me that was my number one name I can get to his third but I didn't think it could be that good based on the picture and all that . it just seems like it doesn't seem that exciting um I mean, it's beautifully prepared and stuff, but it's like I didn't know what I was going to eat, but the first time I put it in my mouth it was almost like a religious experience.

I wanted to cry there, it was so good, so that was definitely my number one and the scalps were my number two, but what was number three for you? I decided to upgrade it to wagu steak so it was A5 grade which is the best you could eat. I probably haven't had steak in 10 years, but why not try it? It was amazing not only the taste but I didn't even have to chew that piece of meat it was so tender and delicious and all the things they made it with so I have to say that was my number three yeah no I did the update.

Amy is a lot more bougie than me, so I only had quail and that was really good. my number three as well, but yeah, to take advantage of that, let's talk about costs, so it's incredibly expensive, we're not trying to say this is something everyone should do, when we decided we were going to do it because you have to book. months in advance, I mean, we started saving probably 6 months before we decided we were even going to try to get a reservation, but for us I think it was $370 per person and you pay that when you book it, so immediately when you book it you do.

I already paid, that includes the tip completely, yes that includes the tip which includes the entire meal, unless you choose to buy wine or unless you choose to do one of the add-ons, there are only two add-ons, but one was 130 and the other was like 220, so you can do what you don't have to do, why you can pay $2,500 for a half glass or half a bottle of wine or you can spend, you know, 30 or 50 dollars, so I mean there are affordable ways. Have a glass of wine if you want to have one, but overall for two people you're looking at spending around $1,000 to eat here, so it's not a small amount of money, that's for sure.

Yes, Amy and I have traveled a lot around the world. However, Napa Valley and there are other great options if you want to have an experience a little like this, but at a more affordable price, what would you say? First, you have to go to Buan Bakery. you can have a coffee there, they have croissant and please bring me a macaroon, they are delicious and then if you want something for a real meal, I would recommend ad hoc, it's a delicious restaurant, they do a great job, also a Thomas Keller. restaurant yeah, I mean, ad hoc is probably the most comparable to French Laundry if you're looking for something that's an experience which is obviously a very small percentage of that, but it's a multi-course meal, it was created by Thomas Keller and it's not even you know. what you're going to eat before you go in, which is basically the same as at French Laundry, but it was about $60 to $70 per person when we went, so if you're looking for something that can give you that kind of variety. -Course experience in Napa that is more affordable.

Definitely check on an ad hoc basis, so if this is something you're interested in booking, then you should be on the website by the first of the month for the following month, so September 1st. They are there at 10:00 a.m. m. booking for October basically the entire month is available right at 10:00 a.m. m. obviously check the time as it could change in the future or also the date, but when we did it at 10:00 a.m. m., wow There you update, you try to choose your date and I did that in probably a minute and by the time I updated and came back everything was completely gone so it's definitely a place that has a big following where people He wants to eat. and if it's something you want to do, your best bet is to try to be there right when it opens to secure a spot especially for two people.

Two people is much harder to get because there are fewer smaller tables, so if you have four. to six, you might be able to wait a couple more minutes before booking, but definitely not for two people, so I think that's it for our French Laundry experience. If you have any questions about this, let us know in the comments. Amy wanted to show you. what they gave us for our anniversary when they left because I mean it was like the perfect icing on the cake so with all that experience they packed up little butter cookies the menus that had our names printed on them and happy anniversary and then they sent us home with a bottle of wine engraved with our anniversary and our name, like how can you top that?

That's a pretty nice way to send you home after an amazing meal like that, but yeah, I just want to say, let us know if this is something you're interested in seeing more of: There are only 12 three-Michelin star restaurants in the United States, six of them are in California so maybe we could eat and add a few more in the future or if you just want to get us back to hiking and E McDonald's uh let us know that in the comments too. Thank you very much for hanging out with us and we'll see you in the next video.