Quite Possibly the Best Meal of My Life

By Philip Krummrich

It must have been after the second or third forkful of the grouper with rice cake that one of us said to the other: "I don’t remember ever having a better meal." I can’t be sure now whether my wife said it first, or I did, but we’ve both said it often enough since then. When one is so profoundly moved by a gastronomic experience, it is only common decency to write about it, as a way of thanking the geniuses responsible and alerting other diners. Also, in a less noble vein, writing provides an outstanding opportunity to recall the meal in loving detail, and gloat just a little.

Any pleasure is enhanced by anticipation or surprise, and the two together form an extraordinarily potent combination, rather like prosciutto and melon or coffee and cognac. We were visiting New Orleans, so we expected to dine well, and had been musing on étoufée and beignets and oyster loaves for weeks beforehand. On the evening in question, however, we were a little tired and grumpy, beset with credit-card anxiety, baffled by the recurrent hyperboles of the restaurant guides. Not a promising frame of mind, but one that made our astonished gratitude all the sweeter when we realized that we were eating quite possibly the best meal either of us had ever enjoyed.

From all the restaurants so lavishly described in our guides, we chose Herbsaint—not quite at random, but through a process I could never reconstruct. We got there at 6:00, and were shown at once to a table in the bar. Ordinarily I would have cringed, but the bar was properly lighted, people were drinking wine, and there was no television. Marginally more relaxed already, but resolved to watch our expenses, we primly requested "just water" before reading the menu. We saw the remarkably reasonable prices; we wavered. I saw that they offered dry sherry as an aperitif, thus passing one of my tests for a restaurant with aspirations to excellence. We caved in and ordered drinks. The waitress did not ask me if I wanted my sherry "on the rocks" (shudder); she simply brought it, in a lovely glass, at the perfect temperature. My wife ordered a gin fizz. I had already progressed so far towards optimism that I agreed to taste it, a risk I would normally avoid, and I found it downright pleasant. Thus fortified, we settled down to the agreeable problem of choosing an appetizer.

I won’t go into all the alternatives we considered. With the help of the skilled and unobtrusive waitress, we chose a shrimp bisque for my wife and gnocchi with mushrooms for me. Well, I managed two spoonfuls of the bisque, and I was reminded then of how much my wife loves me. Only true love would give up even a single taste of that soup. It was roughly of the color of a sunset over the Pacific, as seen by a person holding a stem of champagne. I must resort to analogy to give any idea of the taste. Imagine opening your eyes and seeing a redwood for the first time, or Windermere. Like that, but concentrated, breathtaking at first, and then somehow, subtly, even better. And of course in your mouth.

I love my wife, so I gave her nearly half (it seemed, in my agonized greed) of my gnocchi. After one bite, I had looked at her and said: "I don’t think I could possibly deserve this." That was most imprudent, but she was generous enough not to use my admission as an excuse to snaffle the whole dish. I’ll try an analogy again: every bite gave me the kind of feeling I suppose that Mendelssohn had as he was discovering the miracle of Bach.

We had discarded our ridiculous notion of ordering a single glass of wine for each of us; as we sipped the Chappellet Chenin Blanc, we realized that it was barbarous to order a half-bottle, so we timidly asked our waitress if we could redeem ourselves by buying and drinking the other half. Before and after the appetizer, we worked our way through two baskets of crusty, delicate bread with sweet butter. We looked around, and saw the restaurant filling up, and marveled at our luck.

I can’t say that I paid much attention to the restaurant as a whole. Would you study the floor tiles and plaster with Michelangelo’s David looming over you? As I reflect on the experience, I recall what Vincent Price wrote about La Pyramide, at one time considered the best restaurant in the world: "In some restaurants the crockery clatters. In the Pyramide, so help me, it seems to have a musical tinkle." We never heard a single unpleasant sound the whole time we were in that crowded room: no braying laughs, dropped silverware, bellowed anecdotes. I’ve been in louder libraries. Or perhaps we diverted our hearing nerves to the support of our staggered taste buds.

We both ordered the special, grouper with rice cake. You might argue that we should have tried two different dishes, but you didn’t taste the sauce on that grouper. When one is reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, one almost forgets that he also wrote plays; just so, after one bite, we forgot that there had been other main courses on offer.

We finished every trace of the fish and rice cakes and vegetables and sauce, and drained our wineglasses. My wife looked at me, anguish perturbing the utter satisfaction in her eyes, and groaned: "I can’t manage dessert!" A calamity, to be sure. I knew from prior occasions that she would somehow be able to eat half of mine. I love my wife, and I was comfortably full, but I wanted that Crème Brulée.

Fortunately, however, the sheer beauty of that dining experience had mellowed me to such an extent that I sipped my coffee and actually beamed as she pirated one spoonful after another of the smoothest, sweetest Crème Brulée I have ever felt or tasted.

Two more tests before the evening went into the hall of fame. I read the bill, and didn’t even raise an eyebrow. I rose to my feet, and my stomach did not send up any grouchy complaints, as it is wont to do when full of merely rich foods and unwilling to be shaken about. I do believe that the very air was uncommonly fruity and light as we drifted through it back to our hotel.

We may never get back to that restaurant: we live a long way from New Orleans, and our travels ordinarily take us in other directions. Another night we might have a little splinter of bad luck: a loudmouth at the next table, a distracted waiter or waitress. Worthy Homer might nod just for an instant in the kitchen, and send out a sauce that was merely superb. It is conceivable—though only just—that we may have a better meal one day. All I know is that one evening in New Orleans we had quite possibly the best meal of our lives at a restaurant called Herbsaint. We are profoundly grateful, and (I fear) insufferably pleased with ourselves.