[San Antonio] Le Reve

[zephyrus]

Just got home back here in ATX after an amazing meal at Le Reve. While it was probably the first truly three star(michelin) meal I have had it really was spectacular. Since I am but a wee lad and this is the first time I have ever tried to write about a restaurant experience and i have had a bit too much wine hopefully ya'll will all be able to bear with me....(my mother was kind enough to treat me to the chefs tasting menu but alas i was not intelligent enough to bring a notebook in which to make notes...also i will add more detailed comments about the dishes in the morning...)

The Amuse:

a tiny serving of gazpacho, perfectly smooth with a great balance of tomato and garlic flavors...

First Course:

an oyster with wasabi, some form of noodle( if i remember correctly) and iranian caviar...the oyster was i believe lightly poached in white wine

Second Course:

artichoke heart soup with shrimp and coarsely ground nuts

Third Course:

yellowfin tuna and haraki(?) served like sushi with an applemango side

Fourth Course:

a Fois Gros club, by far the greatest dish i have ever had...fois gras lightly seared served on toasted bread with caramelized onions and duck mousse...absofuckinlutly unbelievable...

Fifth Course:

Lobster in a sour yet somehow sweet sauce..again by far the best lobster i have had

Sixth Course:

beef tournade(sp?) with shallot and balsamic reduction(i think), perfectly prepared asparagus and mashed potatos

Seventh Course:

raw milk cheeses, all of whose named escape me

eighth:

chocolate carrot cake with ice cream...this part was really a bit fuzzy as all the glasses of wine as well as a few cocktails before going had taken effect..

the more i think, i do believe i will call the restaurant on the morrow and ask if they can clarify a few items on the menu so this post will be a bit more complete...if nothing else i do reccomend a meal here any time you can, as it was truly wonderful...

p.s. tommy lee jones and the screenplay writer for amores perros were seated next to us....pretty damn cool if you as me

[Dave the Cook]

Thanks for a great post, Zephyrus. The foie club does sound amazing.

If I undestand correctly, you drank all the wine.

But maybe you could remember some details about it?

[Jaymes]

Just got home back here in ATX...

ATX?

The post was really wonderful, and I will without a doubt try to go to that restaurant someday soon and recreate your meal.

But back home in ATX? You're from Atbasar, Kazakhstan?

[claire797]

Thanks for the review!

Le Reve is on my San Antonio list.

[zephyrus]

ATX..Austin, Texas...just a bit of slang

casey...

p.s. i am trying to compile a list of the wines from the meal

[ballast_regime]

The "best restaurant in Texas," according to Texas Monthly, but my vote would go to Boulevard Bistrot (Houston), York Street (Dallas), or Wink (Austin). Thanks for the review.

Much peace,

Ian Lowe

ballast/regime

[frankj]

zephyrus, you're better than I. I had just a six course meal at a French restaurant and had to purge before leaving.

I'd vote for Le Reve as best in Texas. I've been to Boulevard Bistro and Wink and while both are fine, I don't put them in the same league.

Friend of mine loves Le Reve because you can organize your own courses and have as many desserts as you want. Had a five course meal with three of them desserts.

[ballast_regime]

Frankj:

I tend to judge restaurants according to their own criteria. I.e., fast food deserves different criteria than higher end places, etc. La Reve doesn't deliver compared to high-end restaurants in bigger cities, and I consider it to be a bad approximation of truly great high-end institutions. That's why I'd rather eat at a place that serves up food as good what I expect.

Much peace,

IML

b/r

[BigboyDan]

"ballast_regime Posted on Jul 28 2003, 12:51 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frankj:

I tend to judge restaurants according to their own criteria. I.e., fast food deserves different criteria than higher end places, etc. La Reve doesn't deliver compared to high-end restaurants in bigger cities, and I consider it to be a bad approximation of truly great high-end institutions. That's why I'd rather eat at a place that serves up food as good what I expect.

Much peace,

IML

b/r "

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dude,

Analysis 101: you contradict yourself in the same post. Your expectations are your problems. Any particular restaurant IS in whatever city it IS in. Compare restaurants in San Antonio with other San Antonio restaurants. There are NO high-end restaurants in Texas, when compared with, say, Paris France.... ever eat tacos in Paris?

Edited August 5, 2003 by BigboyDan (log)

[Kent Wang]

The New York Times raves over Le Reve.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/dining/2...&pagewanted=all

[greensNbeans]

The New York Times raves over Le Reve.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/dining/2...&pagewanted=all

←

wow, what a great article! Congrats to Andrew. I heard only wonderful things about his restaurant.

[tupac17616]

The New York Times raves over Le Reve.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/dining/2...&pagewanted=all

Along with his recent James Beard Award nomination, it's great to see chef Weissman getting some more national recognition. He definitely deserves it. No question it is the best restaurant in the city. Maybe the state.

[Mike C. Miller]

Come on guys, it's not just the New York Times raving -- it's Johnny Apple. He's not a food journalist, he's the real thing. He's only started covering food since he retired from the political beat.

If you want to find out more about him, you need to read the late Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, and Timothy Crouse's The Boy's on the Bus. Both books well worth reading apart from the light that they shed on the distinguished career of Mr. Apple, by the way.

[Bill Miller]

We just decided to find outwhat all the excitement was about. Anybody have any comments or suggestions? The wine list looks good and so reasonable. We will probably order from the menu.

[tupac17616]

We just decided to find outwhat all the excitement was about.  Anybody have any comments or suggestions?  The wine list looks good and so reasonable. We will probably order from the menu.

I'm sure you'll have a great meal. Le Reve is by far my favorite restaurant in San Antonio. It puts many other "fine dining" options in SA (and the rest of Texas, for that matter) to shame. Nothing particularly exciting or innovative about the cuisine. But certainly delicious in my experience.

[Kent Wang]

How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? I've heard something like a week?

[Bill Miller]

How far in advance do you need to make a reservation? I've heard something like a week?

←

I made reservations for Thursday this AM--Friday was full.

[FoodMan]

My wife and I really want to give it a try next time we are visiting her sister in SA.

Bill, please report back about your experience here.

[Bill Miller]

My wife and I really want to give it a try next time we are visiting her sister in SA.

Bill, please report back about your experience here.

←

I'll make notes--we're excited.

[Bill Miller]

Thursday, Sept. 21

We had a wonderful experience at Le Reve. I told Jane I thought it was just below Gramercy Tavern--she thought just above. Sat morning in the paper Ruth Reichel broke the tie.

I started with a wild mushroom risotto with Brie de Nangis and hazlenuts. Great taste and perfect crunch. Rich. Jane had New England Lobster and roasted Yukon gold potato galette. Full of lobster and full of flavor.

I followed with escabeche of skate, butter lettuce, tomato salad with olive oil and anchovy dressing. My first experience with skate was a hit. Very gourmet. Jane had haricot vert salad with Spanish Marcona almonds (very different and very good!), creme fraiche, basil and chives. Just the right serving size.

Throughout the meal we were treated to little surprises--here we were served a ruby red grapefruit sorbet with vermouth--different and tart. I will copy this!!

I completed the meal with a New York strip "aromatized in garlic and thyme",with roasted bone marrow and parsley crostini. The beef was rich with herb and the marrow was buttery and a terrific compliment to the beef. Jane had the tournado of beef, "sauce grand-mere", pearl onions, lardons, button mushrooms and beef jus. I liked hers better than mine!! Both were very, very tender.

We started the meal with a glass of young Groth sauvignon blanc from Napa and finished the meal with a bottle of silky smooth, mouth filling '03 Caymus Cabernet. Very enjoyable, though young. The wine was about 50% over retail and and the three course meal goes for $80. Cheese and desert add $10. each. We chose the a la carte menu as we rarely do dessert and were too full for cheese....the tasting menu was $100--$150 with wine.

Plan to spend three hours in a wonderful culinary bubble--only 12 tables--easier to get a reservation on weeknites. Four stars.

[FoodMan]

Sounds like a definite must try experience. Thank you so much for sharing. I cannot wait to give it a try next time we're up there.

[FoodMan]

It's been a long time since I first heard about Le Reve and was -honestly- surprised that such a highly regarded fine dining establishment is in San Antonio, on the Riverwalk no less! Finally, this past Friday we had dinner there, a leisurely wonderful dinner. We were driving from Houston, my wife and I, to spend some the weekend with her sister who recently graduated from law school and finished the bar exam and to meet some friends the day after for a wine tasting dinner to celebrate her accomplishments. For the first time ever, we were going to San Antonio with NO kids. So, after more than 2 years of delay we could finally make a reservation at Le Reve.

Since my wife and I were driving from Houston on Friday after work, I wanted the latest possible res time. This turns out to be 8PM and not a minute later. Maureen, the chef's wife I believe, explained repeatedly that they cannot take anything later than that because it will be a "relaxed" and slow meal that will be as long as 3 hours. She was not kidding . We skipped lunch and left to the lovely city of SA a bit earlier than 5 (like 3:30 LOL) and by 7:45 two lovely ladies and myself were dressed to impress (well, they looked really good, I just made sure I have a jacket on) and walked in to the unassuming and very small Le Reve. We were greeted by name by the hostess, Mrs. Chef, and shown to our table.

Le Reve is tiny and once inside you will forget that you are on SA's Riverwalk, that touristy stretch of mediocre-at-best restaurants. Le Reve is calm, relaxed, with no more than 10 tables in the dining room. The small kitchen is pretty much in the same room, and separated from the dining room by a high pass and a half wall that served as a wine rack. We could see all of the restaurant, including the kitchen, from our table (or any table really). We could see the Chef and his 3 cooks, yes that’s all, just THREE, quietly working on tonight’s plates. With a kitchen so open and so close to the dining room it was baffling to me how calm the restaurant was. Not much noise, not much heat and no “cooking” smells. I will get to the food in a minute, I am just trying to convey my amazement at how Chef Weissman works and how efficiently he utilizes this tiny space to turn out world class fine food.

On to the food. The Menu is divided into the prix fix 8 item (plus other goodies) menu and the a la cart menu from which the diners can select 3, 4 or 5 course dinners. Being our first time there, we opted for the 8-course chef’s tasting menu. The a la cart menu had some really interesting stuff as well (sweetbreads and pork belly come to mind), but we wanted to leave it to the chef and see what we get this time around. This was a bit vague, since they had no descriptions for any of the courses, so a copy of the menu would’ve been useless to me now. We asked about most of the dishes to figure out what was what. The 8 course no-substitution menu (I know because I asked—I really wanted that pork belly on my version of the tasting) simply went like this:

Tortellini

Onion Tart

Foie Gras

Prawn

Fish

Beef

Cheese

Dessert

The first course, the tortellini was filled with creamy chicken liver. It was one of the best dishes of the evening and from the get go we were pleased that the menu had no descriptions of any of the dishes. A tortellino filled with liver would’ve been an almost spontaneous no-no for the ladies. In all it’s luscious delicate glory the tortellino was divine and my sister in law could not believe it was filled with chicken liver. It had a faint livery taste but it was expertly made and all three of us wanted a plateful!

The onion tart was filled with caramelized onions and goat cheese and was as good as it gets. It was sweet a bit salty and slightly tangy.

The Foie Gras was served with a caramelized apple piece and a sweet sauce. Cooked simply and perfectly the fatty liver tasted fantastic. I did prefer if the sauce had more of a sour element to it. As it is, it was a bit too sweet for my taste.

The prawns were another highlight. Two large ones, expertly fried and served with a mango slaw. This was another dish that I could eat a whole bucket of. Once again, I was amazed at how they could make fried foods in this kitchen, right next to us and we could detect no frying smell.

Our fish was monkfish, pan seared and served on top of two purees, a potato one and a deep green pea one. Delicious, moist and very simply sauced.

I think this was when we got a small scoop of sorbet to cleanse our palate. It was a grapefruit and vermouth sorbet. Tasty and refreshing.

The beef dish was certainly my least favorite of the night. Not because it was poorly executed or bad. It consisted of a tournedo of beef with roasted root vegetables. I am not a big fan of beef filet, no matter how good it is cooked and this was cooked perfectly to medium rare. Also the whole dish screamed autumn to me, so it felt bit out of place on this menu and during summer. BTW, this was the dish that I was trying to substitute the pork belly dish for . To some it might seem a bit rigid of the chef not to substitute any dish on the tasting menu (unless one is allergic), but it really makes sense at a place this small, this lightly staffed and where everything is cooked a la minute. Our waiter had explained that the chef portions everything ahead of time for the tasting menu smaller than the a la cart, so it would be very disrupting to allow diners to substitute and having to re-portion items from the a la cart menu.

The cheese plate had two cheeses (do not ask me to remember the names, but both sounded Spanish…maybe even from Mexico) one mild and the other softer and slightly stinky goats cheese. Both were delicious with the accompanying marcona almond, dried apricot and honey comb.

Our dessert was a simple hazelnut chocolate tart with caramel ice cream. Very good tart, sort of like Nutella on steroids. It was deeply chocoloaty with a lot of hazelnut flavor all in a crispy crumbly crust. Then the chef sends out mini-crème brulees to our table. Each is creamy, eggy with a brittle caramel layer and no more than 3 spoonfuls. So, we finish those as well. Right after we finished this and were enjoying our coffee –and very full- we get another platter of miniature desserts! This had a chocolate truffle, chocolate chip cookie, a couple of other cookies, a flan and a tuille. We did what we could and tasted them all, but no way we were going to finish them off.

Throughout the evening we were continuously offered a selection of freshly baked breads. These included a foccaccia, parker house rolls, peppercorn rolls, cheese bread and baguette. All were piping hot and tasty. We had to pace ourselves and make sure not to fill up on them along with the two kinds of butter on offer.

We chose not to get the accompanying wine tasting (which was pretty steeply priced) and instead relied on the proficient and friendly sommelier to select a couple of bottles for us that complemented the meal.

Service was exactly what you would expect from a starred establishment. It was friendly but unobtrusive. Our waiter(s), sommelier and hostess were courteous, knowledgeable and very efficient. The whole staff made us feel welcome and relaxed, a real, class act.

The meal took about 2.5 hours from start to finish. Again, this is probably a bit slower than other restaurants for 8 courses, but with everything cooked on the spot and a small staff it makes sense. In no way did we feel neglected or bored though. The food just takes some time to prepare. We were pretty much the only table left after paying our bill, so we shook hands with the Chef, thanked him for a great meal and chatted a bit about his recent vacation. It was a perfect evening and a memorable meal. I would love to go back and try the choose-what-you want 5 course dinner next time. With enough people we can probably taste the whole menu that way

Edited August 20, 2008 by FoodMan (log)

[tupac17616]

Elie, thanks for the write-up. I'm as surprised to read something about San Antonio on eGullet as you were to hear about Le Reve being here! Funny that you just there on Friday. I have not been in over three years now (loved it at the time), so I decided to try my luck at getting a table this past Saturday to give my younger brother a nice send-off before he left for college the next day. Chef Wiessman and co. were on vacation until the night you had dinner, I think, and are only serving on Fridays and Saturdays during August. I tried calling to reserve while they were on vacation, but the voicemail box was full . So I checked Saturday to see if they had any cancellations, and even walked in personally to double-check/beg. Maureen, in a very nice and smiling way, basically told me "Sorry, buddy, you're out of luck" . Ended up having dinner at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, at Dough Pizzeria, which, I have to say, has become my favorite restaurant in the city right now.

Glad you enjoyed your meal, FoodMan. And please, let me know when you plan to come back to SA to tackle the whole menu at Le Reve. I'm definitely game!

[FoodMan]

I had the same problem when trying to make my reservation (them being on vacation, mailbox full,...), but wouldn't you know, their online reservation system was working fine on their website. So, I filled out the online form, clicked submit and hoped for the best. Maureen called me a few days later to confirm...and to change my res time from 9 to 8 PM .

[tupac17616]

Smart man. I should have thought of that!