As usual, I informed the restaurant that there would be some vegetarians in our party and I specified that it meant no meat or fish.
 | |
| le château |
As we were seated we were asked again whether fish would be acceptable. A short discussion followed about what could be prepared for the vegetarians. This is never a good sign in my opinion. When I go to a restaurant of this kind, it is to taste the cuisine of the chef and not the recommandations of the maître d'. I feel that the chef should be able to create dishes for the diners. In any case we were able to order our dinner.
After a set of four amuse-bouche, delicate but a bit subdued, the vegetarians had a vegetable medley and a mixed salad as a starter, while I had scallops on artichoke 'risotto' with shavings of white truffle. My dish was excellent, while my wife found the starter not daring enough. The fall vegetables were overpowered by the mushrooms and the tiny ginger and beet ravioli were too shy and lost among the other green.
The vegetarian main courses were the artichoke 'risotto' I had as part of my starter and angel hair pasta with white truffle and a parmesan sauce. My son loved this dish, regretting only the minute size of the portion.
My main was a most classic fall French haute cuisine dish: lièvre à la royale. It was a miracle, possibly even better than the same perfect dish I had a few years back in Paris at Senderens.
As desserts we had a chocolate tart, a pistachio soufflé and a tarte sablée.
My wife had the soufflé, served with a quenelle of lemon ice cream or sorbet that unfortunately was too strong and grainy in texture.
While I would definitely recommend this restaurant for meat-eaters I felt that the chef was not inspired by vegetarian cuisine.
The staff of the restaurant was friendly and efficient, but the perfect clockwork of service I expect from this kind of establishment did now always work seamlessy.
web site: http://www.lescrayeres.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment