Lespinasse (Closed)

[Wilfrid]

At least we weren't asked to wear name-tags. Happens at some dinners, I gather.

What did you think of service? I thought it was adequate, but again the price tag makes you look for stellar.

[tommy]

Nick, you are going to be really bad about this dinner, aren't you?  Not that you're wrong.

I haven't even started on the nametags with the first names of the service staff. Right up to the Sommelier and Maitre'D.

Nametags?!? Sheesh!

Nick

Good evening. My name is Tool, and i'll be your server this evening. Can I start the table off with some Pelligrino or Evian.

[Mao]

I have eaten there twice in the past year. I had not eaten there prior to this year, however. Both trips I walked away wondering what all the hype was about, and both times I did tasting menus. The first trip was a vegetarian tasting menu that was utterly bland and uninteresteding and actually bad at times. Second and more recent trip was the regular tasting menu which I sampled in October, but was still from the Summer, never a good sign that things are so out of season. I picked a great Pinot Noir the second meal that saved it from being a total disaster. For refrence I have been on a bender recently with a meal at Daniel on Friday, and I got to sample the white truflle tasting menu at Ducasse last night, which was 80% great-2 of the 5 dishes sampled were among the best dishes I have sampled in the last 6 months. The food at Daniel was also excellent, thoiugh not in the same league as the peaks of my trip last night at Ducasse. I don't even think my two meals Lespinasse belongs on the same page as the two other restuarants just mentined.

[cabrales]

I got to sample the white truflle tasting menu at Ducasse last night, which was 80% great-2 of the 5 dishes sampled were among the best dishes I have sampled in the last 6 months.

Mao -- When you have a chance, could you discuss the amount and quality of white truffles provided, and the thickness of the shaving? What did you drink with the white truffle tasting menu? (Breach #3)

[ngatti]

At least we weren't asked to wear name-tags.  Happens at some dinners, I gather.  

What did you think of service?  I thought it was adequate, but again the price tag makes you look for stellar.

Perfunctory. With some lapses. One of them gross.

When a member of our party leaves table (and I'm not sure of the time frame here), why wasn't that entire course returned to the kitchen? Instead it was served in her abscense and the cloche put only on that person's dish, while the rest of us stare at our food waiting for her to return and our food to get cold.

Reminded me of the earnest and serious dining room service one finds at a very good culinary school. It was polite, but one couldn't help but get the sense that it was a slow night and we were keeping people from other things. Was i the only one?

Slight but present IMO

Nick

[tommy]

I got to sample the white truflle tasting menu at Ducasse last night, which was 80% great-2 of the 5 dishes sampled were among the best dishes I have sampled in the last 6 months.

Mao -- When you have a chance, could you discuss the amount and quality of white truffles provided, and the thickness of the shaving? What did you drink with the white truffle tasting menu? (Breach #3)

cabby, if you really don't want to break your rules, you could just PM the person, no? that might be a good way of having your cake and eating it too, as they say.

[Wilfrid]

I am about to star a separate thread on New York's top restaurants in general, which might be a good place to talk about Daniel and ADNY.

Yes, Nick, right about the single cloche. Did they expect us all to start eating while she was gone?

[Simon Majumdar]

It has been over a year since I was there and that time we had the tasting menu with the wine flight ( cost c $300 per person )

My recollection was that the fish and seafood dishes were far superior to the meat dishes. In fact the meat dishes were over salted.

All that being said, it was one of the better tasting menus I have had and one dish, a rabbit and lobster dish in a gerwurtz reduction was exceptional. Perhaps one of the best dishes I have ever eaten

i had been considering a return for my next visit, but perhaps not.

S

[cabrales]

When a member of our party leaves table (and I'm not sure of the time frame here), why wasn't that entire course returned to the kitchen?  Instead it was served in her abscense and the cloche put only on that person's dish, while the rest of us stare at our food waiting for her to return and our food to get cold.

Nick -- On that point, for me at least, the diners could not have complained about the food being cold. It was incumbent upon the diners to collectively determine whether they wanted to adhere to formal etiquette and wait, or to adopt the practical solution of starting before the absent diner's return.

As for your indication of a return of the dish to the kitchen, what were you hoping would occur after the return (e.g., placement of the food in a way to preserve its temperature; cooking of the dish from scratch for the table)? (Breach #4)

[ajay]

I've had the same menu with wine pours (and the addition of cheese, which I mistakenly thought was included), and was as dissappointed as you gentlmen were. [THey also refuse to comp my cocktail], but I did enjoy chatting with the new sommelier--Danielle, the skilled and beautiful protege of Joseph Nase (sp?) has departed, much to my chagrin.

Overall, I felt the restaurant was ungenerous (the lack of an amuse bouche, or cheese course in the menu) and when I requested white truffles be added to the egg dish with cepes, the shavings were niggardly in the extreme [note a $30 supplement was charged for this addition]--the second time i have experienced such an occurence at Lespinasse, which leads me to conclude that despite my previous fondness for Delouvrier's cooking, and the high quality of the truffles they receive at Lespinasse, that it is not a suitable venue for sampling white truffles.

I will post more detailed impressions on the menu later--I felt that the scallop with caviar, the lobster and the first game course (served with foie gras and wrapped in a cabbage leaf) was wildly successful but the menu trailed off significantly.

I've been meaning to write to the management about the meal, but haven't gotten around to it as yet.

[Wilfrid]

The point is, Cabby, that if you are going to put a cloche on one plate, you may as well put a cloche on every plate. To do otherwise suggests it is fair to assume that we will rudely eat our dishes before the return of the absentee. And it is not as if they didn't have enough staff or cloches to perform the trick. We should have asked, perhaps, but it only slowly dawned on me what a silly position we were in.

[ngatti]

6) Canard Colvert – Pomme Dauphine – Choux Rouge – Truffe Noir

"Mallard Duck, Sauce Cornas, Pomme Dauphine, Red Cabbage and Black Truffle

Cabby, this was the dish in question.

As a member of our party was missing, this dish should never have reached table. The complaint is that the food became cold because of the improper way this part of our meal was handled.

At this level, one expects, indeed hopes that if the dishes were ruined by the delay in service, that there would be no question of refiring them. from scratch if need be. There was not a single element of the plate that would stress the kitchen were this to be done. Indeed, at this point we may have been the only table left.

The duck breast was very rare even after the carry up as we waited for the lady to return. Reheating shouldn't have ruined this. The choux paste around the potato wasn't crisp to begin with, so that shouldn't be a problem and the cabbage...well... they could always have opened another jar of Rokeach.

The truffle? Had all the flavor of a slice of Davy's garnishing paste.

Time for some prozac, see ya later.

Nick

[Wilfrid]

Back to the culinary details. Either the pigeon breast or the duck breast, which are merged in my memory, was almost impossible to cut with the knife supplied. The meat was not tough, although one diner reasonably assumed it was; it's simply that when such meat is cooked rare, it has a dense, springy texture which is not unpleasant but requires a serrated-edge knife to be appreciated properly. They could have broken out the Laguiole, surely.

The potato Dauphione which Nick mentioned was a sad, doughy thing, and the red cabbage just not as good as I can cook myself.

I thought the artichoke puree under the pigeon was quite pleasant.

[tommy]

i spent 8 dollars on spaghetti and meatballs from the local pizza joint and had a better meal.

[ngatti]

i spent 8 dollars on spaghetti and meatballs from the local pizza joint and had a better meal.     

You should have bought a Lotto ticket.

Nick

[Wilfrid]

Oh, please rub it in. I saved money by the simple expedient of barring my Beloved's entrance to the restaurant and packing her off home in a taxi.

My math tells me that the wine pourings must have cost around $90. Champagne, a white, three reds and a Sauternes. That's actually not bad value. I thought the pours were sufficiently generous, and recall one or two top-ups.

[ngatti]

Agree about the wine, Wilfred.

Re the Duck dish, I think that most agree that it was the most ill-concieved of the lot. That dmaned cabbage. Goes under the category "What was he thinking?"

Nick

[ivan]

The timing of this quite disturbing and eye-opening thread is interesting in light of the recent debates about some members being at a disadvantage in threads dealing with high-end restaurant meals. Is this thread designed to make the people who can't casually afford biweekly $400 per head dinners feel better? Because it's working.

[tommy]

ah. got it now.

[ngatti]

The timing of this quite disturbing and eye-opening thread is interesting in light of the recent debates about some members being at a disadvantage in threads dealing with high-end restaurant meals. Is this thread designed to make the people who can't casually afford biweekly $400 per head dinners feel better? Because it's working.

Perhaps twice a year Ivan, twice a year. Maybe three times. At the most. The money is carefully saved. the restaurants, carefully selected and the dinner carefully planned.

Which should go a long way towrds making people understand why my knickers are in such a twist.

Nick

[ivan]

Perhaps twice a year Ivan, twice a year.  Maybe three times.  At the most.  The money is carefully saved.  the restaurants, carefully selected and the dinner carefully planned.

Which should go a long way towrds making people understand why my knickers are in such a twist.

Nick, I assumed exactly that. My remark was hyperbolic for comedic effect. Seriously, this thread you started is nothing less than a public service. Also, I offer my condolences.

[ngatti]

2) Oeuf en Cocotte - Cepes

"Egg 'en cocotte' with cepes"

Here is another dish where I think most of us agreed. I think this and the partridge were the most successful dishes on the menu.

A very gently coddled egg was set in a bath of mushroom foam. I seem to recall a few chunks of cepe. The egg yolk was just warm (a good thing). The textures were striking. the warm gooey yolk and the light foam were very pleasant together. I agree that the smell referenced more truffle oil than truffle.

One thing that I noted was the strong mushroom flavor. Not truffle or cepes, but mushroom (the prosaic "champignon blancs"). It reminded me of over reduced mushroom soup. Its strength was such that I noticed an almost chemical artificial edge to the mushroom flavor.

Now I'm being overly nit-picky here. I enjoyed the dish. technically and logistically, I thopught it the most difficult for the kitchen to pull off. Warm coddled eggs under a lid. displaying the yolk at a "just so" level of doneness to a table of five was something where many things could have gone wrong, yet none did.

Thoughts?

Nick

[Nockerl]

2) Oeuf en Cocotte - Cepes

"Egg 'en cocotte' with cepes"

Here is another dish where I think most of us agreed. I think this and the partridge were the most successful dishes on the menu.

A very gently coddled egg was set in a bath of mushroom foam. I seem to recall a few chunks of cepe. The egg yolk was just warm (a good thing). The textures were striking. the warm gooey yolk and the light foam were very pleasant together. I agree that the smell referenced more truffle oil than truffle.

One thing that I noted was the strong mushroom flavor. Not truffle or cepes, but mushroom (the prosaic "champignon blancs"). It reminded me of over reduced mushroom soup. Its strength was such that I noticed an almost chemical artificial edge to the mushroom flavor.

Now I'm being overly nit-picky here. I enjoyed the dish. technically and logistically, I thopught it the most difficult for the kitchen to pull off. Warm coddled eggs under a lid. displaying the yolk at a "just so" level of doneness to a table of five was something where many things could have gone wrong, yet none did.

Thoughts?

Nick

i agree that the scent referenced more truffle oil than white truffle. As for a almost chemical taste, i disagree. What I did get was an intense mushroom flavor, cepes way in the back but possibly specials, reduced to within an inch of their lives up front. By far this, the most simple of the dishes was probably the most well executed and flavorful. I agree that the partridge was a close second in flavor, the foie gras in my bundle was a shade underdone imparting a slightly raw liver tone.

The pigeon was the dish that required something more than a butter knife. Was the cutlery choice a vain nod to the kitchen's supposed mastery? Thankfully, all were skilled enough not to shoot the poor bird across the large round table possibly removing the eye of a fellow diner. The bright spot of the pigeon course was definitely the almost "risotto" like celeriac studded with a perfect brunoise and perfume of black truffle. In this instance the side definitely overpowered and out performed the main.

Don't get me started on the duck. There are jars of red cabbage in the supermarket that I would rather have eaten. And at the risk of heresy, the wafer of black truffle adorning the cabbage was less flavorful than a communion host.

As Wilfrid pointed out the tepid langoustine seemed tired after a long swim over from Brittany. It was mealy and dry resting atop a puree of artichoke and fennel that, in my opinion, was a muddy ball of confusion.

Dessert was ok but at this level and these prices a little imagination and plain old execution would have been appreciated. The white chocolate disks sandwiched around a hazelnut mousse were one dimenional. Either all hazel nut or all white chocolate, no balance, or melding of flavors.

The warm chocolate cake was amatuerish with an overly crisp exterior. The chocolate ice cream and chocolate mousse were adequate at best.

And I concur that the service was less than stellar and at this level almost amatuerish. When Nick inquired into the possibility of adding a cheese course the head waiter simply stated that we've already put the cheeses away. A few minutes later he did offer to bring a plate of cheese over to the table but by then the damage had been done and Nick politely and graciously declined.

Service (overall actually) left me with a somewhat sour taste. As we were getting ready to depart I asked one of our servers for a list of the wines poured for us (regrettably none of us had taken notes). The server declined but promised to get the list to me the next day and took my card. Needless to say it's now been 2 days and I somehow think that list will never materialize......

That's my rant

[Nockerl]

1) Petoncles de Nova Scotia sur Coquille – Jus Citron – Huile D’Olive, Caviar Beluga “Petrossian”

"Nova Scotia Scallop in the shell with lemon, olive oil and Beluga Caviar"

A dish whose WOW factor would be better appreciated by serving it as an hors doeuvre at a high end Bar Mitzvah.

Nick

now now, that's not kosher.

[Wilfrid]

My goodness, I missed the comment about the cheese. The appropriate answer might have been "Well, fucking well get the cheeses out again."