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| - Have you ever been to Graze, looked at the fancy restaurant across the hall, and thought to yourself, "Someday..."? Well, someday finally came for me. My fianceé made us Valentine's reservations, and we balled out.
I hate dressing up, but I put on a button down so that I wasn't the only person wearing gym clothes at such a fancy place and walked over to the place. That still wasn't enough though; most of the men were wearing suits or blazers. It was super quiet; there were only about 6 or 7 tables, so there was not enough conversation to drown out the soft piano music. The near silence, dim lighting, and candlelit tables with white tablecloth made it feel very intimate.
The host checked us in, took our coats, and held the seat for my fianceé. We were immediately served bite-sized goat cheese and herb pastries, and they were delicious. Our server introduced himself and talked about the food and wine selection then gave us time to think of our order. If I had to pick something to complain about, I feel that he took a little too long to come back and take our order, but it was fine.
Although the a la carte menu has some delicious-sounding offerings, we ordered the 7 course tasting experience because we came here to ball.
Their 7 course tasting dinner changes a lot, so describing the food probably won't do you much good. The food started to come out at a nice pace once we ordered. They started us off with a bite-sized amuse bouche that was some kind of apple terrine and some bread and butter. After that, we had 2 appetizers, 3 main courses, 2 dessert courses, and a few tiny sweet treats after it was all said and done. All of them were creative and delicious, and the server was great at describing them and answering our questions about them.
Some of my favorites were the smoke and egg, squab, and white chocolate mouse. The smoke and egg was a glass with a quail egg, some caviar, and hickory smoke trapped in the glass with a thin layer of crispy brioche and steak tartar. It was like eating a fancy lox bagel. The squab (which is just a fancy and less unappetizing word for pigeon) was delightfully gamy and tender. It was my first time trying pigeon, and now I'm kind of obsessed. The white chocolate mouse was thick with a thin layer of crispy, buttery wafer crust served with grapefruit mousse and pomelo curd. The tart and bitter grapefruit and pomelo flavors were nicely mellowed out by the sweet, smooth, and slightly salty white chocolate mousse.
This was an awesome and unforgettable dinner, but it was also $125 a person, so I won't be doing that again any time soon. If you're a Madison foodie with money to burn, put L'Etoile on your bucket list.
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