The most reasonable Thomas Keller restaurant that I’ve been to is in New York (Time Warner building, Columbus Circle) Bouchon Bakery and Cafe’. The food was even better than I remember from 9 years ago. Last year for his birthday, we took him to Ad Hoc. If that was my only experience of a Thomas Keller tasting menu, I’d be disappointed. The next night at FL, we had a similar experience to Sharon’s (this is before the remodel) – small, crowded room with one LOUD table. Who had a dinner meeting at the table next to us at Ad Hoc? TK himself. We took a shot at getting a table at Ad Hoc and the French Laundry. That fall Hubby and I had an event in San Francisco and we added a couple of nights in Yountville to the trip. The kitchen kept sending out food until they couldn’t eat anymore. The servers said the kitchen told them they’d thrown down the gauntlet and had never seen such empty plates come back to the kitchen. The 3 boys finished every morsel of food and drop of sauce on everyone’s plate. If you know adolescent men, they eat VOLUMES of food. It was an over the top, fantastic experience the “kids” still talk about today. Hubby and I took all five of our then adolescent kids to the New York FL sister Per Se for my 50th birthday. There is a corkage fee of $150 per 750ml bottle with a limit of one bottle for every two guests at the table. If you do end up going, bring your own wine to save some serious dollars! Guests are allowed to bring any wine that are not represented on their wine list. We still prefer Redd 10 times more at less than 20% of the cost (Redd a restaurant down the street from French Laundry) or Restaurant Gary Danko in San Francisco near Fisherman’s Wharf.īut if you want to experience French Laundry at least once like we did, give Platinum Concierge a call, they will help you get in! Otherwise, call them exactly two months ahead of your desired date, you just might get lucky with a reservation! We had an incredible weekend hanging with our friends, wine tasting and fine dining, without kids in tow! Life is good! But we won’t do it again. Yes the ingredient all came from their own garden, but there are plenty farm-to-table restaurants in Napa Valley, in fact farm-to-table is the theme here!Īt the end of the day, we are happy that we had a wonderful night at French Laundry. And picking a wine from an iPad without a real sommelier to navigate the extensive wine list? That is disappointing and almost unacceptable! We were also surprised how noisy it was where we sat, and disappointed that we could hardly hear our servers when they presented each course. While we know there is no valet parking, it is odd for restaurant of this kind of fame. But was the meal really worth $1,000 for two? Sadly we don’t think so. Our dinner lasted almost four hours, at a wonderful pace as we would expect from a restaurant with this price level. The price included taxes, but not alcohol! Too bad the Platinum card does not earn extra points for dining, nor can you redeem Membership Rewards points for the dinner. But the rep agreed to call me back the next day to follow up, and he did! He was able to put us down for 7pm reservation, and a day later our card was charged $1700+ for a table for four. Since I was waiting for hear back from another couple to see if they wanted to join us on this exclusive dining opportunity, I didn’t put our name on the list as it would become nonrefundable once Amex confirms our table. We ran into a little difficulty as I did not have my Platinum card with me. So when I got an email from American Express while I was vacationing in Maui this summer, I called the Platinum Concierge almost immediately! We have friends taking two days off during the week just to dine here on a Wednesday night, the only reservation they were able to get after months of being on the waitlist. The waitlist was supposedly almost six-month long. I have heard how hard it was to get a reservation at French Laundry.
But my husband and I are foodies, so we always knew we want to visit French Laundry, the acclaimed Thomas Keller restaurant in Yountville, just two hours from where we live. Getting a reservation at French Laundry through Amexįirst let me put in a disclaimer - we don’t normally dine like this, though we had many expensive meals over the years. Last weekend, my husband and I had our most expensive dinner ever, and it cost over $1,000! Yes it was at the famous Michelin three-star French Laundry in Napa Valley.
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