The French Laundry
6640 Washington St. (Creek St.) 
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Yountville, CA 94599
707-944-2380 | Make Restaurant Reservations
Cuisine
Open
Lunch Fri.-Sun., Dinner nightlyFeatures
- View
- Romantic setting
- Private room(s)
- Reservations required
- Outdoor dining
- Parking lot
- Jackets required
Wine
Great Wine List* Click here for rating key
 There are few restaurants where dining inspires a pilgrimage. Since its opening in 1994, The French Laundry’s vortex compels zealots from around the world. Many document their odyssey here be it by snapshot or blog, relaying every detail from the hard-to-score reservation, to the journey beyond the blue door. Each bite is recalled in slo-mo detail to those who live to hear about it and sigh, anticipating their own someday passage into culinary adulthood. The wizardry unfolds inside an understated French country sanctum where nine-course prix-fixe meals are executed in Harry Potter fashion---one wonders if the perfect execution isn’t magic? A tour of the kitchen after service finds no evidence of the long hours spent toiling to create the experience---this engine is steamed clean. Timothy Hollingsworth is now the chef de cuisine. Behold the “oysters and pearls,” sabayon of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters and white sturgeon caviar. Nantucket Bay scallops “poêlées” are complemented with sunchokes, Niçoise olives, apricots, broccolini and Piment d’Espelette essence. The Marcho Farms nature-fed veal pairs with baby beets, Brussels sprouts, La Ratte potato purée, horseradish crème fraîche and sauce borscht. Desserts have included the Dark & Stormy, pineapple sorbet, spiced gingerbread and Gros Michel bananas; and the opera cake, praline “namelaka,” milk granité and coffee ice cream. The cheese cart makes a detour; instead, the cheese course is composed and presented in the same labor-intensive fashion as the rest of the meal. Servers have telepathic powers; they are intuitive, scrupulously precise and deliberately paced, allowing you to soak in the three or four hour experience that, alas, seems to vanish all too soon.
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