Spring menu at Ortolan

Last month the Michelin 1-star restaurant Ortolan announced a special Spring set menu of three courses for only $40 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. Normally their set menus start at $85 with individual appetizers ranging from $20 - $30 and entrees hovering around $40, so I figured the $40 3-course offering was an excellent deal.

Ortolan is helmed by French chef Christophe Émé, who was done time at fine dining establishments in France, England, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. He's worked alongside some of the most respected chefs in the world including Philippe Legendre (Le Cinq, French Michelin 3-star) and Philippe Braun (executive chef at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris) , and was the executive chef at L’Orangerie, an L.A.-area restaurant that received recognition as one of the best French restaurants in the US.

After some nudging from his wife who happens to be actress Jeri Ryan (she played Seven of Nine on Star Trek Voyager), chef Émé decided to finally open his very own restaurant, Ortolan, in the heart of Los Angeles' dining scene on 3rd street. This casually elegant restaurant has been running strong for five years, serving chef Emé’s classically inspired French cuisine.

Last Thursday my friends and I made the trek over to 3rd street for our 7pm reservation. Punching through LA's notoriously thick traffic on a weeknight is not an easy task, but we all made it in time before my hunger had me walking over to the adjacent Toast Cafe.


We're led to a semi-private dining table overlooking 3rd street. The room is tastefully decorated and somewhat isolated from the bustle of the main dining room.



Amuse bouche - Chilled green and white asparagus soup. Served in test tubes with little straws for slurping along with an additional tube holding a sprig of lavender. This looks straight out of a high school chemistry lab. I wasn't too impressed with this presentation and I would have preferred the soups to be served in shorter, wider glasses for drinking. And while the asparagus flavor came through as very refreshing, the soup itself was closer to room temperature than chilled.



Amuse bouche - Warm eggplant caviar in an herb puree. Now I realize this doesn't look too appetizing, but trust me it was quite impressive in taste and texture, despite what you might be thinking :). On its own the eggplant was a bit salty for my taste, but spread over some soft bread allowed the earthiness to pull through. The herb puree added a subtle aroma and a nice minty flavor.




First course - Marinated salmon, lemongrass sorbet, ginger, ponzu. Chopsticks were provided so you could reach in for chunks of raw salmon through the thick sorbet foam. A unique experience no doubt, and a very tasteful one too as the salmon was extremely fresh and gushing with flavor. A little more ginger kick would have been welcomed, but otherwise this was a fantastic first course. Check out the plating: the "fish bowl"sits atop a series of three stacked plates of progressively larger sizes. Neat. Now I do have a gripe and it's the fact our first course appeared nearly 30-minutes after the amuse bouche. In fact the entire meal moved rather slowly with our dishes appearing at a pace way too slowly, especially since the restaurant was not busy by any means.




Second course - Lobster spaghetti with beef jus, white asparagus cream. I rarely have a hard time deciding what to order, but I just couldn't decide on this dish or the potato ravioli with morels, but a little consultation from our waiter had me set on the lobster spaghetti. I absolutely loved the presentation with the spaghetti noodles tightly coiled around lobster meat, giving the illusion of a sushi roll. To eat, I simply sliced portions with my fork and then scoop some of the beef jus. Morels added earthiness and a contrasting texture, while the peas gave the whole dish a little more color.




Third course - Apple tart with vanilla ice cream. It's quite large at about 7" in diameter and the elegant design was very pleasing to the eye. I loved the freshness of the apples and the sweetness of the crust. Apple tart is one of my favorite desserts and Ortolan's version did not disappoint. I should say that our third and final course came out so late that I was worried this dinner would carry into breakfast the next day :-O. Ortolan needs to work on their dinner pace.

This vanilla ice cream was provided with the dessert but came out partially melted. Was that the pastry chef's intent? After a few minutes this ice cream was nearly all liquid, at which point I just drizzled over the tart. Delicious nonetheless.




My friend ordered the Lemon tart with tangerine sorbet, citrus supreme. A pungent lemon flavor was so pronounced that it nearly dominated the overall experience, but the effect was actually refreshing and bright, especially with the sweetness from the citrus pieces. The custard, however, was a bit runny for my tastes as I prefer a thicker consistency.


Overall this was a great effort from Ortolan and you are certainly going to be hard pressed to find a better deal at any other Michelin 1-star restaurant. At $40 for three courses, that works out to $13.33 per course and this includes the two amuse bouche servings, a wonderfully warm bread service, and a gorgeous setting along 3rd street. Several of us also opted for the $20 wine pairings, which completely heightened the overall dining experience. I'm no wine connoisseur and I can't tell if the pairings were "beautifully mated" with the accompanying dishes, but I was pleased with the selections and since I have zero complaints, I suppose then that pairings were just fine.

I'm still stymied over why the courses came out so slowly; nearly 2.5 hours for a 3-course dinner on a slow weeknight? Now I do take the time to savor my food (honestly!) but this was beyond my savoring threshold. Nonetheless, the food was excellent, the presentation was sophisticated, and the service was attentive and not overbearing. Ortolan has other tasting menus including an $85 Spring seduction tasting menu which includes seared scallops, short ribs, and herb-crusted cod. I'm definitely making a return visit soon.

Ortolan
8338 W. 3rd Street
Los Angeles CA 90048