Welcome to Talk to Tom, the dining-advice column that aims to point you toward good meals, steer you from the dross and solve your pressing restaurant queries. Look for a fresh Q&A every Thursday in this space.
Questions and comments can be submitted to TalkToTom@washingtonsun.com. Submissions may be edited for length and clarity.
We are dying to know what your opinion is of Thompson Restaurants taking over L’Auberge Chez François, the local institution known for its impressive fine dining and impeccable service in Great Falls.
It was time for a change, says Jacques Haeringer, who turns 77 next month and has been with the family-run dining destination since 1976. While he says L’Auberge Chez Francois had its “best year ever last year,” he welcomed the idea of a restaurant company with deep pockets taking over the production, which employs almost 100 staff members and includes the more relaxed Jacques’ Brasserie downstairs. Just as important, the veteran chef says owner Warren Thompson, whose dining portfolio is largely casual and mid-market, is committed to keeping the Alsatian menu and the ambiance that generations of customers have come to expect. The deal, finalized in late August, keeps Haeringer on as a consultant to maintain standards.
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Yours truly trusts but also verifies, so I booked dinner at L’Auberge Chez Francois this past Sunday. It was encouraging to see a full parking lot, then to be led to a timbered dining room, where servers in familiar red vests zoomed over with a flurry of menus, and other staff dropped off the restaurant’s signature garlic toast and herbed cottage cheese along with bread and butter. The script was the same as on my last visit five years ago, with selections including a mushroom-filled chive crepe and rack of lamb, and a set price dinner menu with multiple courses: amuse bouche, starter, salad, palate-cleansing sorbet, entree, and dessert. (You want to come hungry.) The hearty portions remind you you’re eating in the suburbs, while the stocks, sauces, and turned vegetables — some plucked from the restaurant’s garden outside — reflect classical French training.
The stars of the night were a demitasse of corn chowder, plump sweetbreads and earthy mushrooms with Madeira sauce, a punchy Caesar salad, a textbook perfect Dover sole sweetened with sautéed lobster, and a choucroute — rich with foie gras, sausage slices, and tangy sauerkraut — that’s worth the drive from D.C. (Let me add that the light, billowy Grand Marnier soufflé garnished with strips of candied orange was actually superior to my last one here.) And Haeringer, dressed in his chef whites and cracking his usual dad jokes for an appreciative audience, made an appearance in the honey-lit dining room. “Mr. Thompson moved into the neighborhood,” I overheard the chef tell a table of customers, no doubt to ease worries about the change.
A gallery in the basement hallway pays homage to a restaurant that originally opened as Chez Francois in Washington in 1954. Jacques Haeringer’s father, chef François Haeringer, relocated to Great Falls the year of the country’s bicentennial and remained a presence in the kitchen until his death at 91, in 2010.
You can see, then, why regulars might be concerned. Not to worry, says Ruben Paredes, managing director of Thompson Restaurants, who’s in charge of the transition. “Our big mission is not to change anything that makes L’Auberge Chez Francois an institution,” he says. “We have no intention of changing the food, service or ambience.” The acquisition is focused mainly on behind-the-scenes improvements, including purchasing power and technology, Paredes says. By way of example, the new owner is adding Starlink to improve -internet connections in the semirural area.
Haeringer jokes that there’s just one infrastructure detail to which the new steward of the institution isn’t committed: “They won’t be paying for my facelift.”
It is good to have you back! I am writing to ask for restaurant recommendations in Charleston, South Carolina. We have no price-point restrictions — anything from neighborhood spots to fine dining would do — and are open to any cuisine.
Count me a big fan of Charleston, which I ranked as one of America’s Top 10 food cities (in 2015, a designation that still holds). Some of my favorite restaurants back then — Fig, Leon’s Fine Poultry & Oysters and The Obstinate Daughter — are still around and still choice.
My go-to food guide in Charleston is Parker Milner, the food editor of The Post and Courier, to whom I put your question for a current take. He served up three recommendations:
“Chez Nous, which opened 12 years ago and comes from the owners of Michelin-starred Malagón, serves a daily changing offering, with two appetizers, two entrees and two desserts handwritten on paper menus in chef-owner Jill Mathias’ stylish script. The intriguing, invigorating food is reminiscent of what I’ve had in Paris with a Lowcountry twist.
Merci, a 24-seat spot in the Harleston Village neighborhood, is serving some of the most inspired plates in Charleston right now. Chef Michael Zentner (you may recognize the name from his days in D.C., when he cooked at Alta Strada) offers excellent house-made breads, produce-driven small plates, and entrees that range from the celebratory beef Wellington to poulet pressé with moutarde violette.
Lastly, The Restaurant at Zero George is my top fine-dining pick right now. Chef Vinson Petrillo works tirelessly to excite diners through a mix of innovative bites (edible ‘cigars’ with beef tartare and brown butter ‘ash,’ for instance) and premium ingredients. His tasting menu is served in a historic boutique hotel in the heart of the Charleston peninsula.”
How long should restaurants hold tables for late arrivals?
The general rule is about 15 minutes, sometimes with more flexibility for diners who inform the establishment they are behind schedule.
Ignorance is not bliss. Restaurants like to be informed when someone’s arrival is delayed, because it removes guesswork and helps with planning. Some restaurants have time limits for tables; latecomers may be informed of the fact when they show up. Also, high-end restaurants with tasting menus and multiple seatings might allow for less time, since a latecomer can throw off the pacing of the dinner.
When the tables are turned — when a diner’s reserved table isn’t ready — I think a similar grace period should apply. A thoughtful restaurant might sweeten the wait and throw in a gratis glass of wine or some small touch to thank a customer for their patience.
I’ll be going to Studio Theater soon. What’s quick and easy nearby?
How about quick, easy, delicious — and right across the street? Katsumi is all those things and more. The Japanese restaurant on 14th St. NW recently impressed me not just with the cooking, but with its hospitality. No sooner did I sit down on a plush seat than an attendant let me know I arrived in time to order from the happy hour menu, which is offered from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. daily and includes a couple of juicy grilled chicken skewers for $6, or half the regular cost. When a companion needed a moment to review the drinks list, the server said, “No rush. You’re the boss tonight,” as if we were the only customers on a busy Saturday.
Then the dishes from Masaaki “Uchi” Uchino started landing: a tuna roll, drizzled with spicy pink mayonnaise and ignited with wasabi seaweed. Fatty tuna nigiri that laid buttery, melt-on-the-tongue raw fish on a pad of well-seasoned rice. A crunchy heap of hot fried chicken kissed with honey miso. Katsumi is an ideal preshow spot, offering food that leaves you sated but won’t put you to sleep by the second act.
The signature drinks show skill, too. Some like it hot. For them, there’s Daimo Verde — tequila swirled with Alpine liqueur and a shishito cordial, among other enhancers, presented with a rectangle of ice and a ribbon of cucumber in a long glass.
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