Wednesday, December 1, 2010. Le Foret Serves Up Five Stars. We had an Eat Club dinner planned for Café Lynn in Mandeville tonight. But it didn't work out. A delay in getting the menu, my absence from the radio the weekend before last, the luscious distraction of Thanksgiving, and the fact that the dinner before this one was also on the North Shore depressed reservations to an unacceptable level. We'll reschedule.
This left the evening open for a dinner I've been trying to fit in for months. I dared not go to Le Foret without Mary Ann, but any time she's in town she has been either too busy or not dressed for the occasion. Now, with my earlier release from the radio show, all the planets are aligned and we're on.
After my first four meals at Le foret, it was clear that this was a five-star restaurant in every way save for the fact that it hadn't been open very long. I long ago learned that giving top ratings to even brilliant places that haven't developed momentum is a mistake.
While most people to whom I recommend Le Foret have never heard of it, I was pleased to discover that a group of eight people milling around in the bar come here two or three times a week. I don't need other people to ratify my ratings. But I am more cautious when I seem to be the only one raving about a place. (I am disturbed, for example, that MiLa hasn't caught on with more than a handful of gourmets.)
Mary Ann and I barely dodged an argument about parking. She refuses to let anyone else park her car--even when there's free valet parking, as there is at Le Foret--and will drive around the same blocks interminably looking for a curbside space. She is incomparably luckier than most people. On the other hand, the bill for parking tickets so far this year is approaching $400. (She got booted once.)
I finally persuaded her to let the valet have her precious 136,000-mile car and we went inside. It was early, and the restaurant was just getting started. But the effusive welcome for which this place is beginning to be known flowed in full force. Mary Ann was ready to relax and actually allowed a glass of Champagne to be poured. Danny Millan, the managing partner, popped the cork of a wine I didn't recognize. It had a label like that of Dom Perignon, but the shield was bigger and blue. What is that? I asked, innocently. Why, it is Dom Perignon, a special Any Warhol edition from the 2002 vintage. Sells at $150 a bottle retail. Stop! No, stop! I commanded. On the house, I was told. No! Can't do that to me! Mary Ann, for whom Dom Perignon and Codorniu are all of a piece, told me I was making a scene and to be quiet.
The Champagne was nice but very light, in the style for which Dom Perignon is famous and very much in vogue. My retro tastes prefer bigger Champagnes with a yeasty, toasty quality. Mary Ann suggested, not in so many words, that I was trying to outsnob the snobs with this.
The first amuse bouche was a cool, thick cauliflower puree, topped with Louisiana caviar. MA doesn't like caviar but loved this. Second amuse bouche was the restaurant's famous "soup, salad, and sandwich" trio of nibbles. Tonight it was pear soup with an anise-flavored mini-biscotti spanning the top of the demi-tasse; a geometrically-trimmed puck of cucumber with salmon tartare on top; and two little crackers in the shape of a rabbit, with rabbit mousse between them. I've seen this all before, but I still like it.
Mary Ann was finding the menu "too gourmet for me"--a phrase she has enunciated more than a few times. She got off to a bad start, with a French onion soup baked off with a unique variation on the traditional cheese crust. It had to surpass two favorite versions: the demi-glace-intense one in The Point restaurant on the Carnival Conquest, and the one I make with oxtails and darkly caramelized onions at home. Chef Jimmy Corwell's version here also started with oxtails (what a mouthfeel that gives!), but the cap was a soufflee of Gruyere cheese. MA had a texture problem with it. She said it was custardy. She was right, but I thought this was an interesting variation on the classic.
My starter was spectacular. Grilled quail carbonara? The quail tasted as if it had been smoked a little before being roasted. It was cut into quarters, clothed in prosciutto, and scattered between two ravioli stuffed with parmesan cheese and flowing, thick egg yolk. The carbonara aspect was fanciful, but by any name this was a great shift into second gear.
I ordered two savory courses, and Mary Ann three. Her surplus one appeared now: gnocchi, but not just gnocchi, or even just hand-made, ideally soft potato dumplings. They were encrusted with parmesan cheese and appeared to have been fried a little. Beneath them were some seriously delicious wild mushrooms and shavings of white truffle, all in a convincing broth. Trying to split this was absurd. It was just too good. We talked about getting another order and I wish we had.
The dish that showed me what I was hoping to see turned up in the entree course. I'm glad I had lamb chops last night, or I would have ordered them here (the waiter touted them highly). That would have made me miss the veal chop. I don't order veal chops often. I find most of them disappointing. Not this one. It was much bigger than I expected--steakhouse big, not gourmet restaurant size. I don't need big, but I like the juiciness that requires a thick piece of meat to appear.
I guess it wasn't too enormous for my appetite, because I finished it. How could I not? It was a superb intrinsic merit, cooked to bursting with juiciness, and napped with a jus incorporating some cooked-down root vegetables and peppercorns. A flower made of thinly-sliced potatoes covered the bone. (The menu credited Maxim's with this idea, which was more for looks than for edibility.)
Nice wine with this: Ridge Three Valleys Zinfandel, the 2008 vintage, layered in its flavors and peppery. I'd like to drink this again in five years. Zinfandels age really good really fast. Mary Ann kept accepting more Andy Warhol Dom Perignon.
Which was very good with her entree. It was a fish I haven't seen in twenty years, served in a way I've not beheld in at least that long. The turban (that's how it was curled up) of loup de mer ("sea wolf," a Mediterranean sea bass also called branzino by Italian fishermen) was the main item in a plate that also included a big sea scallop, shrimp, oysters and lobster in a powerful orange cream sauce. This is the kind of dish we saw often in restaurants of this caliber. . . let's see, that was about twenty years ago, too. What happened to dishes like this? How was something so good left behind in favor of pork belly and beef short ribs?
One dessert only for our table (MA doesn't eat desserts). Good one: coconut cake with a thick fondant icing, sent out with a ball of orange sherbet (not sorbet) and a very light caramel sauce. Very rich.
Around this time Danny Millan came over for a longer discussion. He and Mary Ann have been trying to set up a lunch for some time. He said he loved the Bon Ton, and there they will go next Monday. I did not hear either of them indicate that I was invited. Hmph.
During the summer Danny made a trip to Barcelona, where he not only dined at El Bulli--named by trendy magazines as the best restaurant in the world for several years running a few years ago--but worked there long enough that the owner of the place offered him a job. "I have too much fun in New Orleans!" Danny said.
I broached the idea of having a Le Foret Eat Club dinner soon. Danny said that the private dining rooms are largely filled during December, but that he had Friday, December 17 open. I asked him to get a menu together tout de suite, and we'd do it.
Since my last time here, the service has become more polished. The prices seem to have nudged up a little. The food is, if anything, even better than it was in my first eye-opening repasts here. They had a great wine list from day one. Le Foret is decidedly in the company of the best restaurants in town. Five stars it is.
Le Foret. CBD: 129 Camp. 504-553-6738.
