On the spurrrrr of the moment, I got a last minute reservation at French Laundry in Napa which is definitely worth its 3 Michelin stars. First, Napa valley is gorgeous, with its hills of green and brown tones. Second, seeing the chefs from the restaurant running across the street to their big garden to get some chives or one more vegetable wets your appetite.

The welcoming was perfect - no chi chi but still, you realize you are in a classy place. Perfect table at the corner. The service throughout was very kind, respectful of our conversation, discrete… The rhythm at which the 10 courses were served was perfect. I thought that by arriving at 11am, we would be done by 1.30pm but we left our table at 3.30! 4 hours for lunch seemed very reasonable…

2 menus, the chef’s tasting menu and the tasting of vegetables (which is not a vegetarian menu!). We all went for the Chef’s choice.

Caulifower panna cotta (very light mousse of cauliflower with sturgeon caviar on top)

Choice between the foie gras au torchon and a salad of Hawaiian hearts of peach palm. I went for the latter to try the famous technique of compression - in this case a watermelon pulverized to make almost a mousse. It was good but not spectacular. it came with petals of flowers and a light mint sauce.

Choice between a red snapper fillet (with hen-of-the-wood mushrooms, golden corn, romaine lettuce and tarragon creme fraiche) and an octopus from the sea of Japan. I went for this last one, thinking that the usually chewy octopus would be great here. Bingo! It was firm but tender too. The secret? The octopus is vacuum-packed and poached this way to have a perfectly constant cooking temperature. It’s then poached. It came with fennel, nicoise olives, sweet peppers in a spectacular saffron-orange broth

Then came the Maine lobster tail poached in butter (forget any medical check-up the next day, it goes without saying), with a red-beet essence and melting leeks. This was also decorated with lightly cut slices of potato, fried together in the shape of a sun - beautiful.

We then moved to meats with a choice between duck and Kuroge beef (which is fattier than Kobe beef!). We all went for the duck which was slightly too firm but surrounded with peanuts, kaffir lime sauce, Tokyo turnips and broccolinis, it was very good.

Came then the selle d’agneau and my favorite sweetbreads. The lamb was perfectly cooked and savory without being too strong in taste. The sweetbread (singular) was minuscule but worth every second. It came with artichokes, peas, heirloom carrots and black truffle jus.

We then moved to cheese with a very nice Manchester from Vermont, accompanied by some eggplant confit, San Marzano tomato compote and a sweet garlic emulsion

And we were still not done! For desserts, we started with a yogurt sherbet (a “Petit Suisse” 1000 times better), covering an oatmeal sable, and surrounded by an apricot reduction. We continued with a chocolate gateau. The gateau itself was excellent, with hazelnut sorbet and caramelized banana. The whole thing was decorated with two flowers made of chocolate - not worth having. The chocolate had very little taste. It was not cheap quality but more likely it had lost its personality during the preparation. We finished with mignardises, more chocolates (curry and oil, peanut butter - very light actually, praline, vanilla, burnt caramel)

We had a 1997 Chateau Beauregard (Graves) until the duck and then went on to a 1988 Lafite. Life was good. Back to you, Houston.

The macchiato was our best help to get back into town. All water bottles were included, so was the service. It was an unbelievable experience, a treat, worth every penny.