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Monday, July 27, 2009
Dreamy lunch in a treehouse at Chez Panisse
Halfway through our road trip from Portland to San Diego, we passed through the Bay Area on Saturday. A month before, I’d made reservations at Chez Panisse Cafe, the lunchtime version of Alice Waters’ famed Berkeley restaurant. Thing is, Chez Panisse isn’t so much a restaurant as an institution.
Waters opened the place in 1971, at the forefront of what we now know as the Slow Food movement. Seasonal dishes showcase the ingredients, not fancy chef magic. If I wanted that, I would have stayed up the road in Yountville and dropped a few weeks’ worth of day care at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. Both Panisse and Laundry are among the top restaurants in the U.S., but my mission on this trip is to do it on the cheap. Clearly, a pizza purchased across the street from Panisse at Cheeseboard would have saved us some cash, but being a food writer who’s never eaten at Chez Panisse is like being an arts writer who’s never strolled through the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
So we opted for lunch at Cafe at Chez Panisse, which has been open above the main dining room since 1980. Unlike dinner, which is always a three or four course, fixed-price meal ($75 per person, not including wine), lunch is a la carte. My friend Emily, who went to college up the hill from Chez Panisse, came up to the Bay Area from Los Angeles to join us.
(When I made reservations a month ago — you have to call exactly a month ahead to get a seat at the cafe, two months for dinner — I made them for four, hoping I could convince a friend or two to join us. Emily flew up from L.A. for lunch. Chez Panisse has that effect on people.)
We weren’t disappointed.
First off, we sat among the trees in a small room off to the side of the main dining room upstairs. Surrounded by green leaves, we ordered courses of fragrant salads, solid entrees and ended with a delicate blackberry ice cream and cobbler. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but I’ll note that I didn’t get a photo of my favorite dish, which — to my surprise — ended up being the cheapest: A frisee with green beans with anchovy, garlic and egg ($9) that our fourth dining companion, Kyle, ordered.
Blue Heron Farm Little Gems lettuce with smoked Alaskan salmon, creme fraiche and tarragon ($11)
Terra Firma tomato and fennel salad with anise hyssop ($10)
Liberty Farm duck confit with sweet peppers, kale and almond salsa ($22)
Californian sea bass with romano beans, beets, roasted potatoes and aioli ($23)
Grilled James Ranch lamb leg with spinach, fried new onions and olive relish ($22)
Peach and blackberry cobbler with blackberry ice cream ($9.75)
We spent more than $200 for the four of us (including a bottle of wine), but it was well worth it for the experience. Friendly, not-too-formal service, memorable food in a spectacular setting.
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