| rev:text
| - A hard review to write as quality of food is relative to some extent but I believe that restaurants that charge this sort of price and aspire to the highest standards must be judged against those aspirations and expectations. Hence, although I did enjoy my meal very much, I can only give it 4 out of 5 stars. Mind you, I am judging it against the highest standards as I also dined at Bouley in New York, The Kitchen in Sacramento and Michael Mina and the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco on my recent vacation.
L'Atelier is next door to the Mansion, Joel Robuchon's 'main' restaurant where the prices cause even more watering of the eyes. The concept of the restaurant chain (there are Ateliers all around the world) is to dine at the bar to 'promote a more interactive experience'. There are tables available but you are definitely encouraged to dine at the bar. One advantage of this is to watch the chefs at work in the open kitchen. The odd thing is that I found the waiters not to be very keen to chat, hence nullifying the interactive experience. I was later able to engage the maitre d' in some conversation but mainly about soccer as I live in England. A lot of the time, the staff were gathered, chatting to themselves.
The decor was dark with lots of wood. Once seated, I was offered either still or sparkling water, no ice water as an option. $8 per bottle as I later discovered. I was driving and didn't drink. My request for freshly squeezed orange juice was met with a polite 'we don't do that'. This was the only top class restaurant I dined at this trip which didn't manage to rustle me up some juice. You have oranges, you have a juicer, you have arms, how hard can it be?
I opted for the $135 tasting menu. Was a bit disappointed to see that the foie gras on the internet menu had been replaced by egg though that did actually turn out to be one of the better dishes.
I suppose the main disappointment overall for me was the lack of innovation or have I been spoilt by dining at the Fat Duck in Bray (in the UK)? The other top class restaurants I dined at on this trip all produced moments during my meals that made me gasp in surprise. L'Atelier produced very well cooked food which was tasty but no 'wow' moments.
The best dishes were la caille (quail), some perfectly cooked tender pieces of meat in a lovely sweet-ish sauce (sorry I can't give you more details about it but the server didn't volunteer more clues as to its ingredients when I mentioned that I really liked the sauce) served with the famous truffle potatoes and the aforementioned eggs en cocotte. Though I had enough to eat, the portions were literally a taste in some cases - maximum of 3 mouthfuls! No amuse bouches to welcome you. Some of the dishes like the langoustine carpaccio could have done with another flavour like citrus to offset the sesame.
So, although I enjoyed the meal, l'Atelier didn't compare well for me with other places I dined in the same price bracket. Also they need to inject more interaction and life into the place if their concept is based around interaction.
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