Michel Richard Citronelle

I loved my dining experience at Citronelle. From the appetizers (Arugula, Proscuitto and ?? to the Halibut to my flourless torte, the meal was well paced, well timed, and delicious. My waiter was very knowledgeable about the wine cellar, and provided wonderful guidance. Citronelle does suffer from it's below ground floor setting, and I had a hard time getting past the feeling of being in the basement, and it's a shame that the ambiance suffers. If Citronelle could relocate to a different setting, I'm sure the reservation line would double.

The evening at Citronelle was a series of disappointments. The kitchen, in misguided attempts to be creative and clever, seemed to have completely lost touch with complementary tastes and textures. The result was a slow motion fifty car pileup of a meal. An appetizer of civiche turned out to be a greenish horseradish sauce served over medallions of salmon and tuna. While the fish looked wonderful and were well presented, they were completely overwhelmed by the horseradish, which also served to cover any subtle flavors is the sauce. Foi gras ;two ways ; did not mean hot and cold, as one might imagine. Instead, it meant hot and pureed. A note to the kitchen: Foi gras, pureed and served in a shot class with a bit of froth on top is not foi gras. It’s a goose liver milk shake. While that may be a creative use of leftovers from the night before, foisting such a thing upon customers paying Citronelle prices is a gesture of contempt by the chef. Finally there was the main course, a salmon fillet served with a red wine sauce dense and rich enough to complement a porterhouse steak. Once again, any flavor the poor fish might have had was lost in the sauce. Common sense would suggest a lighter touch when dealing with fish, even one as brawny as salmon. Sad to say, common sense seems to have abandoned the Chef at Citronelle, who seems to prefer spectacular failures to modest success. When confronted by such a meal at a restaurant like Citronelle, the temptation is to think that the problem must be with me and not what 's coming out of the kitchen. After all, why would the well-heeled patrons at the other tables passively dole out vast sums of money to eat there if Citronelle 's food was not a match for its exquisite reputation? That, I suspect, may be where the problem lies. With its hefty reputation, Citronelle has stopped hearing the sort of complaints that let them know when they 've missed the mark. Some tastes don 't go together. Some textures don 't play well with others. When a restaurant believes itself immune to these basic truths, it has taken the first step on the path to culinary oblivion.