My first meal in a three-star restaurant

[AlexR]

I’m a middle-middle-class kind of guy. I love the good things in life, but am usually guided by value for money. Is the price differential between a Léoville Las Cases and a Latour, a superb premier cru Burgundy and a grand cru actually worth it? My answer to that is generally no, but I have been known to splurge in the name of science…

By the same token, although I very much enjoy going out to eat, I have always wondered if the reputation and cost of dining at a 3-star restaurant are really justified.
I had never eaten in one.

Nor did I intend to, but my spouse decided to spoil me and told me she had made a reservation at Coutanceau in La Rochelle for my birthday. In fact, the restaurant can seat a maximum of 45 people, and is booked solid for months. However, their website said that if you stayed in their new hotel, you could eat there. So, the room and the table were duly booked.

I will start by saying that, in my opinion, La Rochelle is one of the most beautiful cities in France. The small hotel, Le Grand Voile (confusing to foreigners because the word “voile” in a nautical sense is usually feminine), is of the small boutique variety. Housed in a modern building directly overlooking a small beach and the port, the restaurant is a ten minute walk from there.
We started off with the first named vineyard Champagne produced by Taittinger, Les Folies de la Marquetterie. This cost 24 euros a glass. It was a fine aperitif, fairly rich and ending quite fresh but, surprisingly, not very mineral.
We chose the six-course meal. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that Coutenceau is a seafood restaurant and seeing as this is something I rarely cook at home I was quite excited by the prospect of seeing how the specialists would handle it. Portions were small and varied, a delight to the eye as well as the palate. As befits such an establishment, there were all sorts of nibbles throughout the meal which were not on the menu. My wife guffawed loudly and somewhat unseemly when I referred to these as intercourses.
Anyway, the fish and seafood dishes were, as hoped, delicious and the sauces exquisite. The staff were plethoric and not only efficient, but amiable. There was no impression of stiffness or pretention. We stayed put and enjoyed ourselves for over three hours.

The wine list was fantastic, with prices to match. My value-for-money instincts focused on a 2016 Chablis premier cru Les Butteaux from Raveneau at 118 euros, which proved to be excellent. I’ve heard it said that this was a year in which some white Burgundies are top-heavy. But this was not so with the Chablis. I also felt that we were not doing it an injustice by drinking it at 5 years of age.
Back to the food, this was quite inventive. I took photos, but seeing as each course consisted of several parts it would be a long and probably boring to enumerate everything even if I could remember them all! I would say that everything was successful, with one exception. The dessert course consisted of a red fruit and smoked herring creation which was surprising, but good. However, it was served with a smoked fish sorbet/granité that was really just too paradoxical. That, however, is pretty much quibbling in light of everything else.

We decided to end the evening by going to have cognac and a cigar (for monsieur) at a café on the Vieux Port, feeling like a million dollars.
I am poorly placed to compare this meal to, let’s say, dinner in a two-star establishment because my familiarity with such exalted categories is limited. Suffice it to say that, like drinking a Romanée Conti or Pétrus, I am glad to have the experience under my belt even if I am in no rush to repeat it.
Cross one off the bucket list.

Best regards,
Alex R.

[JCNorthway]

Sounds lovely, Alex. And happy birthday. Great way to celebrate, including the cognac and cigar.

[AKR]

Lovely notes. A life well lived can be enjoyed twice, once in real time, and the 2nd in our memories!

[Nicklasss]

Nice report Alex, and i feel a bit like you (as you know well), great restaurants/great wines are something very nice and to try. But what i really need is a delicious pizza with a Burlotto Il Verduno Pelaverga or an unexpected great Muscadet with simple seafoods or a delicious steak with a medium dense and complex Côtes de Castillon, with family or friends.

[jckba]

Sounds like a wonderful all around experience and Raveneau Butteaux for 118€; only in France!

[dstgolf]

Alex,

Thanks for sharing and belated happy birthday. Nice to hear that France is opening up after this miserable time. I am surprised that living most of your life in France this was your first 3 star but never too late to enjoy. Glad to hear about the service not being stuffy and the food met expectations. I don't think that I could get my head around that desert either..sounds pretty gross and I'd expect few palates would find it an overly pleasing way to finish off what should be a memorable meal. The Raveneau we enjoyed a couple of bottles last year and yes very good and should have paired nicely with your seafood extravaganza. Nice to hear that you both are doing well and great to hear some people are enjoying the dining experience once again. For us sad to say that still seems like a thing of the past.

[SF Ed]

Nice! Lisa and I dined at Coutenceau in 2009 when it had two stars and didn't have a great experience. I'm glad yours was a lot better!

La Rochelle is a great place with almost no foreign tourists. I love I'le de Re as well.

My review of Coutenceau from 2009:

We were staying for a week in La Rochelle and decided we should try the top restaurant in town, the eponymous Richard et Christopher Coutanceau. My bottom line was that I enjoyed the meal but if this is two star dining then we live in a very barren culinary world.

The restaurant itself is like a trip to the 80’s. The room looks 80’s, and while on the beach is next to seafront cotton candy stands and a mini golf course. The inside isn’t tacky but not particularly refined either. The patrons were interesting as well. Just like the rest of La Rochelle and Poitou Charente, everyone but us were French, but many were dressed in t-shirts and jeans. I knew not to dress up too far but this was beyond even typical American lack of dress sensibilities. What it felt like, in a bizarre way, was Las Vegas.

On to the food. The cuisine is all about seafood, which makes sense since this is a great seafood area. And the one excellent thing about the meal was the quality of the seafood. Extremely fresh. But the attention to detail was sloppy. One dish were langoustines (prepared simply and perfectly) with a tartare of oysters and olive oil ice cream. A terrible combination that were all tasty separately, but the problem was that I had a piece of oyster shell in my oysters. That is a rookie mistake, the type of thing even I wouldn’t do.

We had a simple lobster prep with a sauce from a shell reduction and they bungled that too. The tail was overcooked and tough in places, which I ate first. I was then happy with the texture of my claw, but unhappy to find a single small piece of shell while I was chewing. Very jarring, and again shouldn’t happen.

I had a meat course of pigeon, correctly prepared but not as gamey or flavorful as I like, and Lisa had an excellent bar de ligne, again extremely simply prepared. We finished with a declination of tomato that wasn’t bad but fell flat as it didn’t have the acid or the herbing to say anything special.

If I were served this meal in a good but unheralded restaurant, I would have been happy. We had the Menu Degustation which was 95 Euros, and if the small prep mistakes weren’t made, would have been decent value given the quality of the raw ingredients. Service was superb, the requisite mix of English and French that helps us communicate optimally but still is not too condescending as we understand much more than we can speak. The wine list is well constructed, more expensive than I would like but not over the top. We went for the last bottle of 1990 Tattinger Comtes de Champange, at 240 Euros just about the same price as the 1998 on the list.

[Musigny 151]

What a nice write up for a very special meal. Thank you for sharing.

[JimHow]

Happy birthday young man, thanks for the review!

[DavidG]

Happy birthday Alex. Glad you had such a wonderful experience, and thanks for sharing.

[stefan]

Happy Birthday, Alex. Sound like you had a great celebration.

[s*d*r]

Happy b-day.

I don’t think there is any difference between a ** and a *** restaurant. Sometimes the 2-stars are better because all of them are striving hard for that third star and some 3-stars are resting on their laurels. Not to mention a 1-star can also perform at the highest level too. That said, the greatest meal of my life was at a 3-star, Jamin (Joël Robuchon) in Paris many years ago, a 12 course all-shellfish tasting menu, each dish very different from all the others. Incidentally, my greatest disappointment was also a 3-star, Georges Blanc, very good Bresse chicken but nothing spectacular and the gift shop was almost as big as the dining room.

While everyone likes value for money, even Bezos and Gates, would you enjoy the experience more if you were very wealthy?

And I’d love to see the pictures.