Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars
Bonjour mes amies! I had the distinct pleasure of dining at Le Pressoir d’Argent, Gordon Ramsey’s two Michelin star restaurant in Bordeaux, France, with six of my closest friends. It was an absolutely wonderful gastronomic experience and I am supremely lucky that so many people could share it with me.
The restaurant is located on the second floor of the Hotel Intercontinental and the man at the front desk showed us to a little alcove which contained the elevator that led us up to the restaurant. We were greeted immediately by a young woman with close cropped black hair and an inviting smile and shown to our seats. Our party having taken two cabs and ours arriving first, we selfishly arranged ourselves with our backs to the wall so that we may observe the goings on in the restaurant. I love watching restaurants operate. Good restaurants move in a motion that resembles a dance and Le Pressoir d’Argent moves like a waltz. The women all have short pixie style hair or pulled up into a severe bun and are dressed elegantly, but conservatively, and the men all have short hair and suits which match the conservative style of the women. The people bringing the food from the kitchen wear black gloves and stiffly walk the meals to the tables as others swoop in to distribute the courses to the table.
Le Pressoir d’Argent is know most of all for its lobster and the decor reflects that. The walls are adorned with sea shells and pictures that are almost x-rays showing close ups of various crustaceans are strategically placed around the restaurant. There was almost a Little Mermaid “Under the Sea” feel to it and given its heavily seafood menu, some of us could be heard singing “Les Poissons” from time to time. Les Poissons, les poissons, how I love les poissons! Yeah, we’re all class. My only complaint about the ambiance was the room was entirely too warm, which led to us guzzling 70 Euros worth of water. Ah, Europe and your non-free water! Given how much we spent for the meal, 10 Euros a piece for water isn’t a big deal, but you’d expect better temperature control for an exclusive restaurant like this. This is the only reason why I am not giving a five star rating. Everything else was phenomenal.
All seven of us had the six course tasting menu. The menu was provided to us in both French and English due to my very French sounding name, which was a very nice touch. I also partook of the wine pairing which was done blind. They would serve the wine with the course and the sommelier would come by at the end of the course and let you guess what it was. I got one right. Go me!
I started the meal with a fancy drink whose name I cannot recall, but it was delightful and refreshing and served with a sturdy paper straw.
As expected in restaurants of the quality of Le Pressoir, we were treated to a few tiny delectable before the official menu started. I should really take notes because I don’t remember what they were either. The highlight was the almost sushi style tidbit with roe on top, but the skewer of meat served along side it was also wonderful.
We were also treated to a delightful salad of some sort before finally getting to the tasting menu. It was creamy and basily and almost too beautiful to eat.
Finally, we get to the tasting menu! First dish was Bazas beef tartar in oyster cream with Aquitaine caviar and sorrel. It was served on a bed of salt in a glass covered dish and smoke trickled out of the salt when the cover was lifted. Both Bazas and Aquitaine are the locations of where the beef and caviar, respectively, were sourced. It was served with a white wine that paired perfectly with it. I am not much of a white wine fan, but this trip to Bordeaux opened my palette to whites like none before have. The problem with a blind tasting and my inexperience with white wines is my not remembering which wines paired with which dishes and sadly, the picture I took of the bottles is a bit blurry. I am only slightly sure that this was a Chablis. I would gladly drink this wine alone.
The second course was Saint-Jean-du-Luz spider crab served under avocado with pomelo, coriander, radishes, and a citrus dressing. Pomelo is a kind of citrus fruit. This was probably the most beautiful of the dishes and with the most subtle of flavors. I’m pretty sure this was served with a Riesling. I am not a fan of Rieslings and this one was no exception, but it did pair wonderfully with the dressing which cut the sweetness of the wine which is my primary complaint about Rieslings.
Course three was wild turbot baked in seaweed with razor clams, cockles, bigorneau, Swiss chard, and fregola. Bigorneau are sea snails and fregola is a tiny pasta. This was also served on a covered glass dish with poofs of smoke when uncovered. Goodness was this delicious! So many wonderful flavors that mixed together so well! It was served with a white wine that I do not recall at all what it was, but notice that they served it in a red wine glass typically used for Bordeaux wines. I have only been served whites in a red glass twice and I always forget to ask why. I suspect it is because they are younger wines that, like reds often need to, require a bit more aeration than usual.
Course four was my favorite, not for the food itself, though that was spectacular, but the star of this course was the wine. This one I distinctly remember not only because it was the only red but because I guessed it right! Ok, I guessed the region right. Everything else I got wrong. It was a Bordeaux. It was bold and complex and I wish I could drink the entire bottle and would die happy if it was the only wine I ever drank again. When asked how old I thought the wine was, I guessed ten years, maybe fifteen, knowing that if he was asking, it must be fairly old. It was a 1993! This excellent wine was paired with roasted Pyrenees veal in organic cereal ragout and a side of wild mushrooms and turnip. This was excellent veal and well worth raving about, but I cannot stop thinking about the wine.
And now for a slow intermission from the meal for cheese! Oh cheese, I love you so! We let our helpful server choose a nice selection of cheeses for us. I was too busy drooling all over myself to remember to take a picture of the cheese cart and too eager to dig in to the cheese plate to remember to take a picture of the pristine plate, though I did remember half way in. I can’t recall the names of all the cheeses of which we partook, but I have fond memories of the Stilton blue cheese, the Camembert, and an Epoisses that was made differently that your normal Epoisses, and this wonderful hard cheese which was probably my favorite, but I don’t at all recall the name.
The intermission continued with a surprise tour of the kitchen where we got to meet the head chef and the pastry chef. I have never done this before and it was quite cool to watch the well oiled (I assume with olive oil) machine of the kitchen humming on all cylinders. We were a large group and quite in the way so our visit was short, but enjoyable.
Course five was a perfectly pleasant palette cleanser of fennel sorbet in a green apple and mint emulsion. It was a welcome respite from the heaviness of the cheese and the veal. Fluffy and full of flavor. I did not get a wine with the sorbet and I feel cheated. Ok, not really, but it would have been really interesting to see what they chose to pair with it.
It was at this point that the sommelier came out with the wines I had partaken of so far. He talked of the wines with passion and I pretended to understand him. I should have asked for him to stage the bottles in the order they were served, but was not thinking of it at the time. Maybe they were in reverse order? If that’s true the Chablis was in the red wine glass and the first white wine shall forever be lost to the blurry photos. I highly recommend that you go out right now and buy yourself a bottle of the 1993 Chateau d’Armailhac and share it with those you love best.
And now for the final course! Or is it? Dun dun duuuuuuun! Course six was a delightful desert of fig leaf parfait, juniper leather, roasted figs, and verjus. Verjus is the juice of unripe grapes. I have no idea what juniper leather is. It was served with a sweet almost pruny wine that I never did get the name of because we were quickly approaching hour four of our meal and the rest of my party was starting to get cranky and would soon need to be tucked in to bed. It was the perfect ending dessert course to a perfect meal.
But wait, there’s more! This was really my meal. Everyone enjoyed it, but no one would have been there if not for me. It was also relatively close to my birthday, give or take a few weeks, so everybody’s favorite vacation planner decided to tell them that it was my birthday. Le Pressoir d’Argent treated me with this stupendous birthday treat:
Look how excitingly beautiful that is! Candle and all. And all fancy and such! At that point, I was wondering how all of us were going to be able to eat this giant cake boat covered in chocolate with a solitary half ball of ice cream sitting all lonely in the bow. Alas, the only edible part of the concoction was the ice cream. The rest was just for show and inedible. Beautifully inedible. The ice cream was delish. We also got some desertlettes, which you can kind of see in the boat picture there, but at this point of the meal I was so full that they didn’t make much of an impression.
The warmth of the restaurant was a small mar in an otherwise wonderful experience. The service was superb and the food was phenomenal. Le Pressoir d’Argent has charm that is equal to the charm of the city of Bordeaux itself. I am happy I was able to partake of both and to share them with a table full of some of my favorite people.