November 29 2018
Yountville, CA
The original title of this bucket list item was actually a lot more specific ” Eat at the French Laundry.” And for those of you that are not familiar with either the French Laundry or Thomas Keller, I wasn’t either. Sure, I had heard of a restaurant called the French Laundry when I was in college, campus was only an hour away from Yountville after all. But who would put laundry in the title of their restaurant, laundry in the name meant it could not be that nice, right? I was SO wrong and have since tried to eat my words. So I put French Laundry on my bucket list.
Since 2007, the Michelin Guide has awarded The French Laundry their highest rating of three stars, making Chef Thomas Keller the only American-born chef to have two three-starred Michelin restaurants. The James Beard Foundation gave The French Laundry the highly coveted “Outstanding Restaurant Award” and awarded Chef Thomas Keller “Outstanding Restaurateur” in 2007. Since 2007, the restaurant has been the recipient of the Wine Spectator Grand Award.
So now that you have that droplet of information, back to the list. In order to eat at the French Laundry you need to have some crazy luck of the draw situation. Reservations are scarce and you get sent to a wait list. So when Tim and I planned a trip to San Francisco for my 27th birthday, the moment we had dates (early October) I signed us up for the wait list EVERY night we would be in the SF area (2 months in advance). Weeks later still no word about our position on this infamous wait list, Tim mentioned he has other restaurants in Yountville, why don’t we go to one of them? Which then introduced us to ad hoc +addendum, and minutes later we had a reservation. Then I changed my list from a very specific restaurant by a specific Chef, to a broad goal to eat at just one of that same Chef’s restaurants.
We got to SF safely; Day 1 reunited me with my all time favorite cupcake (Pink Champagne from Sift Dessert Bar), took us to a warriors game (#26), and a killer night’s sleep in downtown SF. Day 2 started off as normal as it could have been, brunch that proved that my eyes were bigger than my stomach (pictured below) and a nap because we shared a pitcher of mimosas. Then I got a phone call.
“Hi is this Breanne?” Yes. “This is the French Laundry calling, we had a cancellation for tomorrow evening for dinner at 8pm, are you still available to join us?” um, can you give me one moment? OH MY GOODNESS, was this real? I woke Tim up, we talked it through. We didn’t come prepared, we would have to buy appropriate formal attire and it was a LOT of money for dinner. Like $300-$400 a person for dinner a lot of money. BUT it is THE French Laundry. When are we going to get to do this again? What if you don’t like what is on the menu that night. She is still on the phone waiting for our answer… Hi, apologies for the delay. No, unfortunately we won’t be able to make it up there tomorrow night. Thank you so much for calling.
We had made our decision (which shocks people that know us ), we had to pass on a dinner (on my birthday) this time. We were already going to eat at another one of his restaurants (which is much more affordable) and that was enough for this trip. I will forever pack a separate suitcase with formal wear so that next time in the event I am in SF and happen to get a call about a cancellation I will be able to say YES.
Two days and a couple wine tastings later (#12), we finally made our stop in Yountville, and sat down to eat dinner at Thomas Keller’s ad hoc + addendum restaurant. Our four-course family-style menu (changes daily) is below and my only regret is that I had too much wine at the tastings before this dinner.
We were seated and a short couple of minutes they bring out the first course; a family style bowl of the Sunchoke soup, and if you’ve never heard of a Sunchoke before, I certainly had not, check out this link here! I ate my serving and basically clean plate clubbed the remaining soup in the family style bowl, it was some of the best soup I’ve tasted. I used to blame the amount of wine I had at the tastings prior to this dinner for the lack of photos I managed to get for this bucket list item. I took zero photos in the restaurant, not a single photo of any of our courses, but you could also look at it from the perspective that the company and the food took my breath away that evening, and that is the narrative I want to go with. We got to take the menu home, which is the only reason I got a picture of it (the following morning). The remaining courses were equally as delicious, which resulted in us asking for the dessert to go, we couldn’t stomach another bite.
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