There are three menus daily. Each is $210 (as of 2006) including service. One is a prix fixe menu; the second is a tasting menu, and the third is a vegetable tasting menu. Tasting menus consist of between five and eleven dishes, often with some optional courses (for example white truffles, foie gras or Wagyu beef) for about $30 more. Unadvertised but available by arrangement is a special tasting menu with approximately twenty courses at about $400. Thomas Keller’s per se in New York shares a similar menu and pricing structure.
The food is mainly contemporary American with French influences, often based upon American food concepts and phrases but prepared according to high French culinary preparations, but draws upon the entire planet for inspiration. Most of the dishes are culinarily extravagant and dramatically presented. The dishes are served in either seven or nine courses. While ingredients such as 100-year-old balsamic vinegar are sourced world wide, Thomas Keller is also a champion of local family owned producers of exquisite quality produce, meats and other ingredients, including produce from the French Laundry’s garden across the street. Thomas Keller’s philosophy is a diversity and progression of small dishes with a variety of tastes and aesthetics (similar to kaiseki cuisine). An extended meal can stretch to as long as six hours, with a break suggested midway to relax in the French Laundry’s garden.
Dishes are typically innovative and laborious to prepare, with many bearing whimsical names. Signatures dishes include Oysters and Pearls (oyster and caviar served on warm savory pearl tapioca custard), Surf and Turf (lobster tail with sauteed foie gras), Peas and Carrots (lobster knuckle meat wrapped in a pancake with carrot and butter emulsion sauce and pea shoots), Coffee and Doughnuts (miniature fried doughnuts with a small demitasse of espresso), and Yabba-Dabba-Doo (bone-in beef ribeye with crispy potatoes and prunes).

6640 Washington Street
Yountville, CA 94599

Telephone: 707.944.2380
Website: http://www.frenchlaundry.com
Cost: 83 USD per person
Hours: Lunch: Friday - Sunday: 11:00am - 1:00pm Dinner: Monday - Sunday: 5:30pm - 9:00pm

Tips:

If you are at all squemish about gourmet food (foie gras, for example) order the all vegetarian tasting menu.

Type: Dining
Tags: dining Fine laundry French Napa Valley