La Voile is a breathtaking restaurant from when you first pull up to the venue. It’s at the stunning La Réserve hotel and overlooks the ocean in a beautiful space with a garden area and tables that are very spaced out all with an ocean view.
I’m going to split the review in two parts because they tell slightly different stories: first the food and then the service.
In terms of the food, the freshness of ingredients shines through in every dish and whoever is making the sauces in that kitchen deserves all their flowers. They couldn’t accommodate my lobster/crab allergy on the tasting menu (even with advance notice) so we shifted to a la carte. They began with the amuse bouche that were three pastry-based bites of various creams, light vegetables, and gelees. Nothing very interesting there, which was a bit of a trend throughout the night with the small side dishes / bites they served with the courses. Many courses were served with a small dumpling or tart or pasta on the side that never ended up being good so I’d rather focus on the actual dishes.
Following these bites, they served a pre-appetizer of grilled mackerel in a the most velvety mustard sauce over tomatoes, mushroom, parsley, and chives. Made me completely forget about the small bites to start, really incredible and was our introduction to the immaculate sauces throughout the night. For our first real course, we started with the “Tomato” and “Mushroom” appetizers. The tomato was a roasted coeur de boeuf tomato with burrata ice cream, stracciatella tartlet, and green zebra sauce. Hard to put into words how good this was. One of the most shocking and delicious dishes I’ve ever had with the warmth of the fresh tomato and coldness of the burrata ice cream playing off each other while brought together with the freshness of the sauce made from zebra tomatoes. The mushroom was pan fried on a tart with spinach and truffle ravioli and pecorino spaghetti in broth. This dish would stand among the best starters pretty much anywhere and was memorable even though it didn’t match how much of a showstopper the tomato truly was. The bread service was also iconic and kept coming throughout the night to soak up all the delicious sauces.
On main course, I went with the roast saddle of lamb & sweetbreads served with all parts of the lamb (even used in the sauce) and a stuffed pepper. Different textures of lamb, all perfectly cooked, with a flavorful, yet restrained sauce. Hard to complain. My friend had the chicken and lobster dish chef with mascarpone raviolis chef is most famous for that my friend raved about as well (but he did prefer the lamb). We also split a John Dory fish with zucchini flower and verbena sour sauce that was very light and so soft, great technical cook. Pre dessert was this light ice cream with a lot of basil notes. Beautiful plating and perfect transition from savory meal to desserts. We then split the chocolate dessert that came recommended by the team as our only dessert. This was Mayan red chocolate, crispy gavotte (like the crispy little crepe cookies), whisky, and roasted vanilla. Hands down best chocolate dessert I’ve ever had and top 5 dessert I’ve ever had while not being the biggest chocolate person. Creamy, crunchy, sweet, salty, just everything good. Ended with the petit fours small dessert bites that were very good too. They sent us off with these madeleines to enjoy the next morning to wrap things up.
Will keep this second part shorter, as the food clearly shined more and these are all small nits I’d point out in service. For a 2 star of this stature in this ambience, I’d expected everything service-wise to be a bit tighter and with more love. The sommelier didn’t speak much English which was surprising given lots of international clientele, but it was a bit tough when he just described wines as “very good” shortly and didn’t really provide much else. I will say the wine was still delicious and the cocktails were also extremely clean and on point. Had a ridiculous Peanut Butter cocktail that I still think about. The staff was a bit cold to start and warmed up a bit through the night, but definitely a bit of stuffiness here. Even the description of the dishes was often mumbled or didn’t seem to be delivered with that much care. They also clearly were going for the precision of many top restaurants where the servers all deliver dishes at the same time and pour sauces together, but they mistimed it every time. Would look to each other to time correctly but never actually in complete sync. This lack of being in sync came through again when there was a loud crash in the kitchen with some stuff breaking to which some of the service staff just laughed without going to help. All stuff that is fixable and not the biggest deal but figured I’d point out given the standard of service at other comparable restaurants. Overall though, the food and view alone make this restaurant worth the trip. A meal I definitely will never forget.
by PlanktonFantastic672