Want to check out the menu of one of the most respected restaurants in the world?
Have you ever taken a look at the menu from the world-famous French Laundry in Napa Valley California? I was driving past the other day and thought this would make a good post. The vegetable menu, which looks really interesting, is at the bottom. The price? If you have to ask, the prix fixe is $350 per person, not including wine and tip. It’s not difficult to spend $1000 here for a party of two if you include wine. If you want to dine on the patio, add $100 per person.
We returned for a meal on the patio in March of 2021. Was it good? Yes. Worth the money? Yes, especially for a bucket list item.
hoonan says
Actually…tip is included.
Hank says
Maybe he meant tax
Food Dude says
Yup’
Neil D says
Yes, tip is included, but if you work in these types of restaurants, you know what kind of trials and tribulations it takes to produce and serve food of this caliber, so it would be nice if you could give a little more.
Food Dude says
True, but they are also being well compensated. Assuming a 20% tip, a server should easily get $100-&120 a table
Julbee says
Yep-
Paid more for our lunch for 2 than our monthly mortgage! But so incredible. Worth every penny and would definitely go again-if we could get reservations! That alone took about a month of phone inquiries to obtain. Still have our menu btw. And the little branded clothespin that came with it.
I will NEVER forget the foie-gras ravioli. Unctous.
Dave J. says
This menu is replete with my least favorite thing about modern menus: overuse of quotation marks.
Food Dude says
It is kind of silly, especially since you don’t even see the menu until they hand it to you as you waddle out the door.
Justacook says
Yes, many quotation marks, but most people stole the ideA from the French laundry anyways….
Nancy Rommelmann says
The quotation marks are abominable, and to my eye, they are used properly only once, in “Oysters and Pearls,” because whether it is or not, they are telling us, it’s a title.
Not that titles always have quotation marks; more commonly, they are in italics. But that presents a problem on a menu where there are many foreign words, which should never be in quotes, but are more properly and commonly italicized.
I have never dined at the French Laundry and believe it is an outstanding dining experience, perhaps one of the world’s best. But the restaurant needs a copy editor. I hereby offer my services, in exchange for lunch.
Food Dude says
I think we should go there for dinner on my 60th birthday. It’s been ages!
Nancy Rommelmann says
You’re on! But not that’s not for, what, another 28 years? We gotta go sooner x
Joisey says
I always thought the excessive quotation marks were a warning that you weren’t getting the conventional version of whatever is being quoted.
Nancy Rommelmann says
I believe vendors use quotation marks because they want to stress that, say, the tomatoes they sell are “great.” They are using the quotation marks as a frame, or a pedestal. One might, if one must, do the same thing in CAPS or boldface or by underlining, and stay within punctuational bounds.
The use of quotes to denote specialness, however, is a double-misuse, as aside from the above examples, (as well as of course putting dialogue within quotes), quotation marks are used to denote sarcasm, or the thing’s opposite, as in, about someone who is dim: Oh, she’s a real “intellectual.”
“Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” (I am using quotes because I have no italic command here. Or do I, Dude?) did not become a bestseller for nothing. Bad punctuation drives me nuts, and it’s everywhere. (And don’t get me started on it’s and its. Or rather, do: the first is a contraction of it is, the second, a possessive, as in, the dog bites its tail.)
If you, too, daydream about carrying a Sharpie to surreptitiously fix others’ punctuation, check out the “Blog” of “Unncessary” quotation marks:
http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
Food Dude says
Now I’m scared to use quotation marks. Went back and forth over “Jelly Beer”. You’ll be glad to know I’ve decided to err on the side of caution.