Lautrec

This was our second visit to Lautrec (our first being 2 years ago). We once again had the wonderful Robert as our server (he's great).

The "ultimate experience" at $225/head gets you small plates of all of the dishes on the tasting menu.

We weren't quite as wowed on our second visit as we were on the first. The plate presentation is very appealing. I think I counted fried basil leaves on 2 or 3 dishes plus on a tomato jam served with the bread, so as delicious as they were, it got a little old. The eggs served on the dishes we had were cooked perfectly. I thought that the amount of food we were served with the small plates was ideal, and I left neither hungry or overstuffed.

The decor and ambiance is lovely and rich, and they had a fantastic singer who sang a great selection of classic songs while we ate. There are 2 (I think) private rooms here also.

My husband had the wine pairing and the sommelier was very knowledgeable.

The candy cart at the end of the meal is always a fun ending.

The service here is simply outstanding. Great for a special occasion or a romantic evening.

I tend to not write very long reviews, because who has time to read those? But, this one calls for a lengthy one! Like everyone else has said, Lautrec is more than eating. It is an experience. I have dined here a few times, but this past time was the most exceptional experience I have had yet. The dining portion is a prix fixe menu, set up as a series of small courses. You have the choice of a 4 course menu and an 8 course menu, each with wine and champagne pairings available.

Allergen information listed at the end of the review!

The chef often includes small palate cleansers and dishes that are not on the menu, which is a lovely touch. To start, for our amuse bouche, we had a salmon mousse terrine with caviar,  honey vinaigrette and salted parsley on top. Creamy, sweet, salty, wonderful.

Our first course was a lamb carpaccio, serviced with rosemary croutons, spring greens, shaved black truffles, and a honey vinaigrette on top of a Himalayan pink salt block. I have never had lamb carpaccio, but call me a convert. It was so tender and the perfect balance of salty and sweet.

The second course was a porchetta served on top of baby squash, confit carrot and braised mustard seed. Due to my food allergies, I was unable to eat the porchetta, so the chef prepared a lamb "lollipop" for me on top of potato puree with fava beans. Perfectly medium rare and flavorful, even with my limited options for seasoning!

The third course was a wagyu strip steak from Mashima Ranch, served with smoked corn succotash, fava beans, and a crispy potato terrine with bone marrow au jus. This was definitely my favorite course. I want to try to recreate the potato terrine at home because it was so light and crispy. The wagyu strip was, of course, cooked to perfection and melted in your mouth.

In between the last savory course and dessert, they served a mountain berry bubble tea as a palate cleanser. It is regionally made and includes blueberry, strawberry and raspberry. I actually had the hot tea version at the spa earlier that day, so it was a nice reminder of my relaxing day at Nemacolin.

For my dessert course, I chose to have the cheese plate, which included American, European and Regional selections of goat and bleu cheese, as well as a hard cheese that I cannot remember! It was served with various homemade jelly and jam, and honey. I haven't had cheese in over a year, so perhaps I'm biased, but this was the best cheese I've ever tasted. It is the first time I've truly enjoyed a cheese course for dessert.

My brother had the S'more bomb, which was a dark chocolate hollow "bomb," fllled with graham cracker creme in the middle, served with a burnt marshmallow. I wish I could have eaten this, because it looked amazing! The bomb had a little fuse on it which they lit for a playful end to the meal.

We paired our meal with Veuve Clicquot Rose champagne and opted against the additional wine pairings for each course. After the meal, they bring around a "penny candy" cart, filled with chocolate truffles, macarons, hard candies, and other small desserts. Everything was expertly made, especially the dark chocolate truffle and the chocolate macaron.

Allergen info: This is the best restaurant at which to dine if you have any food allergies. I gave my long list of allergies to the kitchen staff and chose what I wanted off of the tasting menu. They tailored the menu to me and I did not get sick. Also, they serve the BEST gluten free bread I've ever had. I didn't even have to ask for it. They automatically brought it to me, no questions asked. Call ahead and give your list to the staff or simply tell them over the phone when you make your reservation!

I ate here with my girlfriend this past weekend for dinner. We decided to come here in order to celebrate our two year anniversary and Lautrec certainly did not disappoint. We arrived a little earlier than our 6 PM and were told that the restaurant was still being set up. Due to that we walked around a bit before settling into a couch. At a few minutes after the hour we returned and we greeted by name by the maitre d'. He then led us through the center of the restaurant and around to our table.  I was sort of sad that we were not able to see more of Toulouse-Lautrec's works but I suppose that I could have gotten up to look at them.

We first met our server whenever he pushed around the champagne cart and asked it we would like to start off our evening with champagne or caviar. After we declined he did end us giving us a cocktail list and we started off our evening with some cocktails. My girlfriend had a blueberry martini which she absolutely loved while I had a drink with rye whiskey, dry vermouth and some lemon which I also enjoyed. After we received our cocktails,  we were given our personalized menus for the evening which had our last names, said happy anniversary and had the date. Going into the evening we had been planning on getting the Pre-Fixe menu which allowed you to choose 4 courses for $110 but then we noticed that the chef's 8 course tasting was only a little more at $145.  After a very little coercing, my girlfriend agreed to get the chef's tasting with me.  Before our meal started we were given a choice of breads along with dipping sauces of apricot salt, olive oil and some butter that one of our servers said was the best in the world.  The bread that was offered were house made truffle scones which were their specialties as well as an olive bread and then some cracker like bread.  I went with the scone and the cracker bread three separate times and the scones were simply amazing each time. The 8 course tasting consisted of a Chestnut Mushroom Soup, Petite Adian Lettuces, North Atlantic Monkfish Filet, Pennsylvania Raised Capon, Oregon Grass Finished Beef Strip Lon, Roquefort Papillion, Raspberry Soda to cleanse the palate and finally a peanut butter semifreddo for dessert which had some white chocolate with Happy Anniversary written on it.  All of these dishes came with many different accompaniments and all tasted really good. Some of the food I thought was a bit bland by itself but when combined with everything else on the menu tasted wonderfully. The best example of this for me was the beef strip loin which I thought was lacking until I dipped it into the carrot puree and topped it off with some veal consommé. That ended up being my girlfriends favorite dish of the evening along with the chestnut soup. My personal favorites for the evening were also the Chestnut Mushroom Soup which was decadent and rich yet earthy at the same time and also the monkfish filet which had a delightful chowder spread around it.  As a bit of a surprise, after we had finished our 8 course we were told that the candy cart would be around and that we could choose anything we liked from it. The candy cart was about 6 feet long with a glass front that rolled up and inside were about 5 different kinds of French macaroons as well as some chocolate truffle and mini cakes. On the top was true candy with different items such as smarties, nerds and Swedish fish. My girlfriend went with the pistachio macaroon and a hazelnut truffle while I ended up selecting a raspberry macaroon and some Swedish fish. These were served to us on a small silver platter and I found it sort of funny that I was eating Swedish fish at such a fine dining establishment off of a silver platter but I loved it.

I would have to say that food is only part of the experience at Lautrec as the service itself is the other half.  Overall it was phenomenal and I imagine that it is the closest I may ever come to feeling like royalty. Besides the amazing décor and luxurious setting, the wait staff does everything that it can to make your evening amazing. This includes serving the food with white gloves, bringing fresh silverware for each meal and always keeping everything refilled.  As previously mentioned I myself got bread service three separate times and at one point I almost had my water down to the end before one of our servers swooped in with some more water for me. They even went so far as to bring out a box of reading glasses that they had around just in case there was an instance where a person was not able to read the menu which happened at the table next to us. Basically they did whatever they could in order to make it a great experience.

The bottom line for me is that I would love to come back here again in the future. Everything about this place was awesome from the décor, to the food and the service with the only thing to stop me being the actual cost for it all. Of course, you get what you pay for but sometimes it can be hard to justify.