— TheToothfish

★★★★★

It’s about time. Seriously. For a moment I was losing all faith in Memphis restaurants. But now that I’ve been to Chez Philippe, I can sleep peacefully knowing that there’s at least one restaurant I can count on to deliver a flawless performance. And this meal couldn’t have come at a better time than right before the end of the year.

Located in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel, Chez Philippe is secluded behind two towering golden doors. As soon as I walked in, the Maitre d’ offered to take my coat. He then led us into the dining room. With no more than twenty tables, the dining room, probably modeled after Versailles, felt much bigger than it actually was because of its incredibly high ceilings. Gold-colored everything and classical music effectively created a traditional, aristocratic atmosphere, and for a while I felt like I was on another planet. To make the restaurant feel even grander, Chez Philippe is divided among three different floors, the bottom consisting of the entrance and the bar and the other two left for the dining room. The host seated us to the top level where the other diners were. Each table setting had at least four different glasses, a dinner plate, an appetizer fork, an entrée fork, a bread plate, and a butter knife. As for the menu, it had a wide variety of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Such a variety was key since the menu was a price-fixe. Chez Phillipe is probably the only restaurant in Memphis that strictly uses this system, which is typically used in super-upscale restaurants. Instead of ordering whatever you want (a la carte), you pay a set price for a certain number of dishes. In my case, it was $65 for one appetizer, entrée, and dessert of my choosing. For those with a slightly bigger appetite, a five course meal was offered, as well as a ten course.

After some deliberating, I decided to start my meal with pork rilletes (rilletes are like pate, which is a mixture of minced meat and fat in the form of a spreadable paste) served with a soy barbecue sauce, pickled onions, cornichon (crisp, tart pickles made from tiny cucumbers), whole-grain mustard seeds, and toast points. By themselves, the rilletes were very smooth. When I combined the rilletes with everything else on the plate, the result was an excellent wave of flavors punching the palette: the pungent mustard seeds first, then the quieting pork reinforced quickly by the pickled onions and barbecue sauce.

For my entrée, I had the lamb porterhouse served with a red-wine demi-glace (pronounced “glaze”). The lamb was a perfect medium-rare, not “gamey” at all, and very tender. The demi-glace was spot-on, not overpowering the lamb and adding the right amount sweetness to the dish. The accompanying nicoise olive risotto cake with goat cheese was a nice, mild side to the lively lamb.

For dessert, I had the French toast with macadamia nut cream and guava coulis. Coulis is like a sweet sauce and in this case was made from guavas. This dessert was absolutely incredible. For those of you who’ve seen Ratatouille, do you remember what happens to the food critic Anton Ego when he takes his first bite of ratatouille? Although I can’t say I was sent back to my childhood, the flavors of this dish shocked me and, for a while, I couldn’t stop smiling and quietly laughing. To the rest at the table, I probably looked like an idiot. The ice cream had to have been made in-house because it wasn’t super sweet, the macadamia flavors were very distinct, and the aftertaste was very clean. The sweet element was left up to the coulis, which was pleasantly vibrant and refreshing in terms of flavor and color (pink). Like the pork rilletes, the French toast sent me on the very journey that I love: first the sweet coulis gets your attention, then the French toast absorbs the shock, and then the ice cream calms the storm, leaving a fresh macadamia nut aftertaste.

As for service, the various waiters didn’t miss a beat. Our main waiter was well spoken and very professional while being personal at the same time. With each course, servers placed the correct dish in front of each diner without having to ask who had what. Plates were cleared as soon as they were empty, and new silverware was supplied every time. And I have yet to mention that I was eating with five other people. A six-top isn’t easy on the kitchen or the staff.

In conclusion, my experience at Chez Philippe was perfect in everyway. Even as we left, we were given homemade blueberry muffins to take home. But what especially makes Chez Philippe deserving of five stars is how each dish provoked distinct waves of flavor. Instead of all of the ingredients coming together in one compact punch, the bites at Chez Philippe gave key ingredients their own “solo”, if you will, and not until each ingredient had had its chance in the limelight, did everything come together. Chez Philippe is certainly one of a kind, and it’s my naïve hope that I’ll be able to give similar reviews for the rest of the year.

-Reviewed December ’08