![]() Yet The French Laundry somehow stands apart. ![]() All of these are superb eating houses, the kind of places you have life-changing, life-affirming experiences. We’ve been lucky enough to experience some of the world’s best restaurants. This is not in itself a bad thing – certainly we never felt it in any way laboured – but it is something to bear in mind if you’re not the type to sit still for hours on end.Īnd yet, and yet…in our view, these were prices worth paying for what was the most memorable, inventive, delicious, revelatory and technically accomplished meal of our lives. Our meal took a cool four hours, and we left before things had run their natural course (jet lag finally taking its toll). All this adds up to create, especially at the start of the evening, a slightly stiff and awkward atmosphere, which could be softened and not at all spoiled by the addition of some discreet music, or even filling rooms earlier on to create a bit more of a buzz.įinally, it’s long. The place feels like a small townhouse there is no music the first seating is at 5-5:30pm the service is reverentially polite. It’s also true to say that the atmosphere verges on the starchy. (Corkage, incidentally, is $75 per bottle – with a maximum of one bottle brought in for every two guests.) If you’re tempted by the likes of Château Petrus 1947, you can add another cool $13,200 on top of that. But bear in mind that this price excludes wine and other extras. Granted, the amount of courses is generous and you’ll hardly leave feeling hungry. (While service is nominally included, it’s so attentive, engaging and impeccable that you almost feel compelled to leave a tip anyway.) The prix fixe is the only menu offered and it is $270 per person, excluding tax at 14%. We’ll get the criticisms out of the way first. Which is: The French Laundry is the best restaurant in the world. It depends on the mood, the company, the timing, the alignment of the planets and any number of other factors that might collide to produce any given experience on any given occasion.īut now that the sensible disclaimer is out of the way, we can say what we really think. Much like trying to single out the best wine, the best painting or the best symphony. Katya Richardson composed and orchestrated the original score.Let’s great straight to the heart of the issue: is The French Laundry the best restaurant in the world? The editor is Nick Garnham Wright, with cinematography by Brandon Somerhalder and David Bolen. The film is directed and produced by Proudfoot. It just premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, where it received “thunderous applause and teary-eyed reactions,” according to one attendee. The Best Chef in the World is a production of Proudfoot’s Breakwater Studios. The french laundry movie#“And of course, her line in the movie is, ‘I don’t have to be the best chef in the world…’ You can ask yourself, who is the best chef in the world? Is it the one who is the most famous or the one who can charge the most? The one who has the best awards? Or is it the one who quietly and consistently feeds their community and makes it a better place?” Proudfoot acknowledges the title he chose for his film might be perceived as provocative. And that didn’t necessarily include recognition or fame or money or awards.” You should be constantly monitoring the balance between your job and your family and your friends,” the director says. “Sally was saying… the goal in life really is about people and family. Even within the stone walls of The French Laundry, the emphasis wasn’t on “turning around tables” to seat the next customers and drive profits, but on food, conversation, conviviality. Instead, what she chose was a life of balance – raising her five children while making a success of the restaurant. “She did not choose fame at all,” Proudfoot says. There’s a reason she never became as celebrated as other chefs, the film reveals. ![]() The one of Thomas Keller and the one of Sally Schmitt. “And this story really appealed to me because it’s really kind of the tale of two French Laundries.” I love stories that make you look again at something you thought you knew,” Proudfoot tells Deadline. Proudfoot, who won his Oscar earlier this year for The Queen of Basketball, about Lucy Harris, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, is drawn to stories about people whose important achievements have not been properly recognized. “It was a little bit of Heaven,” Schmitt recalls in the film. ![]() French ingredients, locally grown, in season. ![]() Thomas Keller later bought The French Laundry and brought it even greater renown, but the groundwork was laid by Sally. Schmitt and her husband Don opened The French Laundry restaurant in 1978, the revered culinary mecca in Napa Valley that became the locus of California Cuisine, along with Chez Panisse a little further south. ![]()
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