An amazing lunch at Per Se

WINE TALK
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This past Saturday, a quartet of wine & food lovers (myself among them) hopped the Amtrak into Manhattan to enjoy the food at Thomas Keller’s East coast place. Quite simply one of the best meals I’ve ever had - over the five hours we spent there, we had something close to 20 courses, with the highlights being almost too numerous to mention. If I can figure out how to post a photo, I’ll do so later, as one of our foursome took some great pictures of the food as it was served.

In terms of the wine, after “warming up” with a couple glasses of bubbly, we started in with two Burgundies at opposite ends of their respective drinking plateaus, the 1986 DRC La Tache and the 2001 Dujac Clos de la Roche. The La Tache had one of those classic, mature Burg noses, with underbrush and a hint of barnyard framing seductive cherry fruit. A 95 point nose! Unfortunately, the wine is on the decline at this juncture, so it doesn’t follow through on the palate after that nose has tempted you, but this was still very nice to drink, and if you have any in the cellar, I would definitely recommend pulling a cork soon to ensure that you are okay with where this wine is currently, as unless it’s been stored in a very cold cellar, I personally woudn’t wait on this much longer.

The Dujac was almost the antithesis of the La Tache, a strapping youngster of a wine that displays little secondary development on the nose but is full throttle on the palate. If you like them young & tannic, this wine is already fun to drink, but I’ll bet that in another decade it will be a stunner.

We then moved on to what ended up being the main event, the 1986 Lafite. This wine was decanted when we arrived, and it’s really hitting on all cylinders right now, with that graphite, black fruits and an almost ferrous minerality on the nose, and a very elegant & persistent presence on the palate. One could say that the wine is still young, and capable of much in the way of future development, but with proper aeration/decanting it is also quite nice today. Unfortunately, the wine we had intended to follow this up with, the 1997 Chave Hermitage, was incorrect in some way, showing a pinched profile on the palate and a lot more acidity than fruit - not discernibly corked, but something was not quite right. We quickly made a gametime decision to open another bottle of the '86 Lafite, and while this one was also quite nice, it was not as impressive as the first bottle, wherther due to a lack of decanting or plain old bottle variation, I couldn’t say.

We finally closed out the day with a couple glasses of dessert wine, and then headed back to Penn Station for the trek back home. Truly a singular dining experience, and one that I hope to have the opportunity to partake in again in the future. [welldone.gif]

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Bob, awesome! My wife and I had lunch at Per Se two years back and the meal was near perfection. Wines like the ones you all enjoyed would have put it over the top. As it was, we left quite happy! Thanks for sharing your experience.

-Michael

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Hey, how come I wasn’t invited!
Nice beverages. pepsi

RT

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Nice to see you’ve moved beyond over oaked Barolo, Bob. [cheers.gif]

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Rich, I think Dave made a qualitative decision re: the guest list, and unfortunately, you did not make the cut. [wink.gif] Although I gather you have already sat at Dave’s table, and this was my inaugural (and hopefully not last) experience in doing so.

Brad, I volunteered to bring a '90 Bric del Fiasc, but for some reason the other diners opted for my Lafite. [stirthepothal.gif]

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Yeah, Yeah, lumber and some more lumber but what about the LUNCH?

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Nice Bob. What about the lunch?

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You know, I’ve got some great pictures that Al Chaby took, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to get them here headbang .

In terms of “highlights”, and in no particular order:

  • Our last entree was a Cote de veau paired with the sweetbreads - awesome!
  • Early on , we had Keller’s signature “oysters & pearls” appetizer
  • Another entree was a great poussin, the breast sliced and served over potato and onions, and the dark meat folded in little ravioli and served with mushrooms as a side flirtysmile
  • a spectacular “duo” of terrine/foie gras, including a terrine called “quail in a jar” that was served with 100 year old balsamic
  • a deconstructed chicken wing that I again had a very cool picture of [swearing.gif]

We also had courses with wagyu beef cheeks, turbot, sayori, scallops, lobster and seas urchin, plus soup to start and three or four dessert courses - I started losing count at some point [wink.gif] .

All in, as I said in my first post, one of the best meals I’ve ever had the pleasure of committing gluttony on!