Back (Just) in Time for Chez Panisse

I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to drive to Monterey Bay to go to the aquarium on the day that we had reservations at Chez Panisse, my restaurant dream destination of all dream destinations. I think it’s because I like a challenge. 100 miles each way? Traffic on the 101? Risk of missing our reservation? Pah! It just gets the adrenalin pumping. Better for the appetite!

Let me first provide some context for the significance of this day. I don’t know when I heard about Chez Panisse—I think I noted that it was listed as number one in Gourmet Magazine’s top 50 places to eat in America. That piqued my interest, and I decided I should go there someday. Then I started reading about Alice Waters and her philosophies on food, and I knew I really needed to go there.

Kelly started buying me Chez Panisse cookbooks, and in the Preface to Chez Panisse Menus, Alice Waters wrote a line that brought tears to my eyes, and was subsequently framed as a gift from Kelly—and now hangs over my dining room table. It reads something like this: “Remember, your goal is to nourish and nurture the people who gather at your table. It is within this nourishing and nurturing process that I have found the greatest sense of accomplishment.”

Over the years, when I was having a bad day, I would go to chezpanisse.com and look at the weekly restaurant menu. There is one meal, served in two sittings daily, using the freshest, most sustainable local meat and produce possible. Each daily menu for the week is listed—and it’s updated every Saturday. I would read through the menu, salivate, be filled with yearning to go there, and at the same time, feel re-energized and set right.

So it’s not an understatement when I say that booking a reservation at Chez Panisse fulfills one of my life’s goals, which I have held for about the last six years.

So why did I decide to take a five hour drive as a day trip, the day that my dream would be fulfilled? I had faith. I hadn’t spent all these years waiting for this day to miss my reservation because I was stuck in traffic. So I risked getting stuck in traffic, because it just couldn’t happen like that.

While it was close, I’m happy to say it didn’t happen like that. Despite some considerable stress, we even managed to arrive early.

“Are you excited?” asked Kelly.

“Surprisingly, I’m pretty calm. I think I’ve been practicing eating at restaurants all these years just to prepare for this. I’m ready.”

And it was the easiest dining experience ever—we didn’t even have to order, since we were all getting the same set menu (for $50/person—Monday is the cheap night):

Salad of shellfish, fresh lima beans, and celery root with autumn lettuces
Quail stuffed with chard and currants; with pomegranate glaze, roasted cauliflower and stone-ground polenta
Hazelnut praline and chocolate ice cream bombe

We had some champagne to celebrate being there together, and also to toast Isaac’s new ascension to partner at his company. It was Agrapart & Fils blanc de blanc. Lovely bubbly.

Our server recommended wines to go with our meal, a surprisingly affordable French Sauvignon Blanc (Rouilly, I think, $32/bottle) that went beautifully with our seafood salad, and a less affordable Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (Evasham Wood, 2004) that I hadn’t tried at Copia the day before.

Thomas asked me later what taste points I had noted from the meal. I can’t say I had any that really stood out, although if pressed, I would have to say that the use of the leaves in the roasted cauliflower was surprisingly delicious. All I could really say was that, knowing what I know about the philosophy of the restaurant and the vision behind it, that it was exactly as beautiful a meal as I expected it would be, and it was the most natural thing in the world for us to be there talking and sharing and laughing while eating a truly nourishing and nurturing meal, served to us by happy servers, and surrounded by other tables of happy people.

While it truly did feel that natural and easy, like it wasn’t something I’d been dreaming of for years, but rather something I’d been doing every day of my life, I can’t say there weren’t times when my eyes rolled back into my head in pure pleasure.

The quail was the fattest, happiest quail I’d ever tasted. I’ve had tough, skinny little quail before—these ones were plump and tender, with a glossy sweet glaze and a nutty stuffing. The salad had scallops that just melted in my mouth, and I felt pure joy in tasting a salad of fava beans and celeriac in Berkeley in November. That’s putting seasonal ingredients in their proper place.

We shared a cheese selection before dessert that included more triple cream cheese, as well as a herbed goat cheese and a sweet-rinded sheep’s milk cheese from France. I sampled Nieport’s 1994 Colheita Tawny Port along with it, and then began moaning with every bite of cheese and sip of port. The combination gave me a small pain in my chest, not from a heart attack, but from tasting something so heart-breakingly delicious.

Now that I can say I’ve eaten at Chez Panisse, I’m not sure what will replace it as a goal to strive for, but I can say I feel whole and happy—there’s a little place in my heart that has been eased, like knowing that a friend is even more true and supportive than I ever could have hoped. Thanks again to Isaac and Alix for flying down to San Francisco to share it (speaking of true friends) and to Courtney and Thomas for being there and enjoying it as much as the rest of us.