Visiting Alice's Temple

For those of us of a certain age, and "into food," the title above will provoke an immediate response: I'm talking about Chez Panisse, the restaurant Alice Waters opened in the 70s, which revolutionized the way we eat. It is difficult to imagine this if you are under, say 30, but there was a time where "salad" in a restaurant, regardless of the level of sophistication, was a wedge of iceberg lettuce, with thick French dresing on it. There were no baby greens, there was no vinaigrette. There weren't a LOT of things that we now take for granted. Like decent bread. Or fresh vegetables. And so on, and so forth. Ms. Waters had come back to the United States from a trip to France, her taste buds revolutionized, and she asked a simple question "why can't we do that here?" Answering it has taken more than 30 years, and answering it goes on.

I will confess that the first time we went to Chez Panisse, we didn't "get it." We ate downstairs, which is a fixed menu: you eat what they serve, period. You can find out what they are serving the week of your meal, but since you need to make a reservation a month ahead of time, this can be a problem. Suppose, for example, you don't eat pork, and the main dish that night is a pork roast? They will try to accommodate these things, but this restaurant is not very flexible. I don't know how vegetarians do there, but I'm told they do go. When we went, we had no idea what we were getting into, and actually left feeling like "is that all there is?" And we left hungry.

What we found, as we did research, was that when you eat at Chez Panisse, you DO have to carry the history: local, fresh, organic, sustainable. If it isn't available locally, or if it isn't something unique and fresh to somewhere not , it isn't served. So, for example, in spring , you will get strawberries and cherries, you will not get apples or pears. Conversely, in the fall, you will get figs and pears, but no apricots.

I oversimplify, but you see the idea. And now, this sort of dining is fairly common. But Alice got there first. And Chez Panisse still does it better than anyone else.

I mentioned the downstairs restaurant. There is also an upstairs, called the Cafe, where we've gone ever since. In Annalena's opinion, this is the place to go. The menu changes every day, although there are some constants. The garden salad, for example, is always there, as is a salad with baked goat cheese (yup. It started here folks). There is always fresh fruit offered as a dessert. There's a soup, but beyond that, you have to be there to see what there is. I think that the menu is decided in the morning, after the deliveries come in. There is some planning. For example, last night there was a huge bowl of apricots on a counter, but no apricots on the menu. The host told me they were ripening for service today. And that's how it works.

So, how about the food? Well, let me wait one more minute to talk about some other issues. This isn't a fancy place, at all. And the tables are a little cramped. Service can be slow, or it can be wonderful. For example, one time we were there with an infirm friend. He couldn't see very well, and he walked with a cane. The hostess came over and said to me "I just want you to see your table to see if you like it." As we walked, she whispered to me "please pay attention to the floor. There's a slight incline here, your friend may have trouble." Discrete, and classy. So, too the waiter that time who, when he saw that our friend was having trouble getting his salad to his mouth came over and said "I love that salad too, sir, but I love it more with bread. See if you like it my way." And put our friend's hand on the bread, and saved the day.

Yes, we tipped well that time. There are other times, on the other hand, where service is slow, or poor. Last night it wasn't poor, but it was slow. COuldn't figure out why, but people were cancelling things because they took too long to get to them.

Foodwise, we have had meals that have been more than perfect. Sometimes not. Last night, it wasn't perfect. We should have gone with instincts here, but we didn't.

The menu last night had nine appetizers on it, six entrees. All of the appetizers looked, well, appetizing, and we should have made our meal of these. We didn't. Instead, Guy had a salad of beets, avocados, and frisee, with grapefruit vinaigrette. It was, in fact , textbook good. Beets cooked perfectly, ripe avocados, just enough grapefruit. Annalena had a plate of humus, "spicy" carrot salad, and flatbread. The humus was lovely, the carrots not spicy but good, and the flatbread nice and crispy. Both presentations were stunning. Both left us wanting more.

You can leave hungry if you don't order carefully, because portions are very "European." So we had a mid course of green garlic souffle with spring vegetable ragout. This is the kind of dish that NO ONE comes close to Chez Panisse in presenting. Gorgeous, quivering eggs and cheese, with a "mess" of fava beans, peas, turnips, and artichokes. Each vegetable had been cooked individually. Try that at home. The souffle, perfect, but the kind of dish you can make at home (and should: the recipe is available in the Cafe cookbook), and never get in a restaurant.

Main courses: Guy had a braised chicken leg with asparagus, celery root puree and morels. I was surprised to see celery root, but hey, there it was, and creamy good. The chicken seemed rather expensive, but there were so many morels on the plate that we couldn't finish them. My dish was spaghetti with local clams, peas, saffron and marjoram. Someone had a very heavy hand with the marjoram. I happen to like this taste, but if you don't, you would have sent this back. I didn't know that there was saffron in the dish until I looked at the menu on the way home: the marjoram was too overpowering for the delicate saffron. But the clams were superb.

Dessert: rhubarb cobbler for Guy, and strawberry red wine sherbet with strawberries and a cookie. I was hard pressed to taste the red wine, but the sherbet was delicious. Cobbler was a revelation. They got the rhubarb just right, not too tart, not too sweet. Vanilla ice cream and a biscuit made it great.

At the end: coffee for Guy, and one of the reasons I LOVE THIS PLACE: tissane for me. Tissane is "just" boiled water, with fresh herbs in it. Mint and lemon verbena last night. A glass pot comes out, nice and heavy, showing the beautiful fresh herbs in it. A Moroccan tea glass is used to serve it. Now, this simple elegance is something that any restaurant can do, and few of them bother with. That's one of the things that sets this place apart.

All in all, a really solid evening here. IF we didn't know better, we might reconsider this one, next time around. But there are many people who say that if they could eat at only one restaurant, this is the one that they'd pick. You should go. Make your reservation as far ahead as you can, (they take them a month ahead), and be ready to be surprised. Then go home and cook the dishes. You can. That's the point.