A Festive Holiday Lunch

The first Friday lunch in December we had at restaurant August was in 2023. It was a deal of deals. $60 for three courses of exceptional food with exceptional service. We didn’t make it last year, and this year I was surprised to see the price of the same deal up $15 in two years. It turned out to be only $70, which was still a big jump but slightly more palatable.

August is a gourmet restaurant and I am not a gourmet, so of three choices per course it might still be a struggle for me to be excited about a menu item. But I trust the place, the staff, and Chef Corey Thomas to deliver an experience that will please me. Always. 

I was shown to a table where Tom ate his last meal, and I asked to move to another one, citing better light. They of course obliged the request without even a quizzical look. The elegant room was decked out for the holidays, with the ever-present gigantic bouquet of fresh flowers as a room centerpiece featuring holiday colors. Large wreaths appeared in all the windows. Festive! Several staff members came immediately to the table to greet me.

And then I looked at the menu, and the dilemmas began. The first course offered four things: raw tuna, raw shrimp, a pasta and mushroom dish and the famous gnocchi.

The second course was a Irodori Wagyu strip steak for an upcharge of $15, Snapper Pontchartrain, Duck Cassoulet, and Grouper Almondine. Ths course required inquiry on my part. I feared the duck might be duck breast, which was affirmed. I’m not a Snapper fan though I prefer it to Redfish, so I skipped that choice as well. That left the Grouper, though I am lukewarm toward that one too. And I am wary about Almondine vs. Amandine.

For dessert I ordered something I never would, but I was doing the process-of-elimination thing and I had to come up with something. The Tarte a la Bouille had potential but I went with a cheese course, though there was plenty else here in this dish. 

But first the meal started with the signature Amuse. These egg custards are glamorous and they seem to start all meals here. They have perfected the art of emptying an eggshell and re-using it. Each of these delicate egg creations start with a custard and end up with a fluffy top. They are served in an ceramic egg cup with a tiny spoon. This is quite a presentation, and it is always delicious, though different each time.

The mix this day was a sweet potato custard at the base, topped with a satsuma mousse and finished with a candied pecan crumble. It was almost like a sweet and savory ombre, though not a visual one. The crumble on top was a welcome contrast to the velvet smoothness beneath it. This was very nice and even though I might not order something like this, I liked it very well.

Before the appetizer course a Foie gras Torchon appeared, and this may have been the most interesting thing at the table. This will shock anyone who reads this, but I am crazy about forcemeat in any iteration. I love pates and terrines gaantines, and sausages, but Foie gras is not something I usually eat because of the moral objection to it. Tom loved it and I like it whenever it comes my way, but I would never order it. 

This was the most interesting presentation I have ever seen of any pate.. It was surrounded by a little moat of raspberry coulis which was poured at the table, and on top of the slab of liver was a carefully-constructed set of meringue sticks standing up like the beginnings of a campfire. I have never seen meringue sticks, and I thought this was interesting. They snapped when bitten and reminded me of candied cigarettes from back in the day. The chef would not have been trying to duplicate this mid 20th century candy because he wasn’t even born then. But that’s the memory they triggered for me.

What I loved most about this ensemble was the housemade Brioche bread, which came as a double the Texas toast thickness slice of bread cut on the diagonal, and toasted perfectly with a sheen of butter. This was so appealing I wanted an entire loaf of this. It was actually beautiful bread. 

Usually I consume pate with crostini, but this soft bread was irresistible. I’m also not a fan of fruit and meat, but it worked. Very nice dish.

  For the first course I chose the Besh gnocchi, which came with truffles. I like truffles well enough, but I would tell a restaurant to leave them off mine if they were beside me to shave them. I would have preferred the regular crabmeat gnocchi without the upgrade. 

Gnocchi is apparently difficult to make, because there are a lot of bad gnocchi out there. I have had it at two places that do it well, in my view: August, and Pardo’s on the Northshore and there is a wide discrepancy in the value of even those two.

The little nuggets of pasta here are soft and plump, both in their structural integrity and in the cooking. They are, as they should be, just perfect little pasta pillows. Here they are tossed in a cream sauce with crabmeat. I have loved this dish from the very first bite long ago. I understand to make a price worth it something elevated must be present, so it was sliced black truffle. Personally, it is distracting to me.The Grouper was a disappointment because it was much firmer than I remember it from the last time I had it. The texture was not appealing here, though the sear was nice. This was served with Haricots verts, and they were crunchy. No thanks. And there were pea shoots in the vegetable ensemble. I make myself eat these for nutritive value, but that isn’t for pleasure.

The sauce was not a Meuniere, but it was a thicker brown butter with a perky zest to it. A few almonds made an appearance but by this time I was not thinking Amandine, and it wasn’t 

Cream puffs were sent out before my dessert order. These were lovely rounded balls of choux pastry, something I never eat because there is nothing to choux pastry. It’s like the inside disappears. I prefer profiteroles if I am eating choux pastry, because at least the ice cream inside is worthwhile.

But inside these cream puffs was the standard filling of a custard. They were called Neapolitan, and each of the three followed that description. One was strawberry, one vanilla, and one chocolate custard. Great for what they were.I was much more intrigued by the dessert I ordered. It was served in a shallow dish with jam on the bottom, and there were cubes of soft (but not stinky, I checked) cheese with rinds on, intermingled with strawberry pieces. Each of the cheese squares had a tiny drop of basil oil. And there was a single drop of basil oil on the Florentine. I loved the Florentine, which was not especially hard and crumbled with a bite.And I loved the cheese, even with the rind. It was aptly named as Sweet Cream and the little basil oil dot enhanced it further. Even though this dessert was certainly not my thing, and since it was arrived at by process-of-elimination, I loved this dessert too.

But what I love most about any visit to August is the visit to August. It is part of a dwindling number of restaurants in 2025 who focus on one thing above all: excellence. Excellent food. Excellent service, excellent environment. And even a non-gourmet like me can appreciate that. Very much.