Eskis, a three-Michelin-star restaurant located in Lyon, France, is quite a tiny and cozy place with very innovative cuisine. A table should be reserved as much in advance as possible. We did it half a year before.
A week before the flight to Lyon I received a letter from Eskis requesting my confirmation: Am I going to visit them at 9 p.m. August 2nd? I confirmed. However, the same request appeared a day before the flight. Well, I answered that we would definitely arrive at 9 p.m. unless our plane crashed in the Alps.
At last, we are in the Michelin star restaurant, the first in our lives. The sequence is as follows: there are several sets in the menu; menu set, a set of three dishes, and a set of four dishes, apart from the desserts, starters and cheese platters. You make your choice. They start to serve the dishes along with a glass of wine (you may vary the number of glasses and rely on the chef’s choice of wine for each of the dishes). The chef follows the concept of molecular gastronomy: to pass the taste of a big dish through the microscopic one. You are supposed to feel the whole range with the first bite.
Unlike the plates, the portions are hardly ever bigger than a mid-sized molecule. It seems to me, this is the rule for every Michelin star restaurant.
At the beginning, they serve special cocktails (the red one is a champagne mixed with something), calvados, and some other stuff intended to stress a sort of flavour concept. They really do.
Let’s take these red blobs. It was some kind of well-spiced tomato gel stuff. A waitress brought the following cousin masterpiece and explained what it was made of and how. She could speak either French or English. She called these gelled tomatoes a soup. (!) They were darned good.
Then they brought this:
There were three “molecular” mussels under the unimaginable avocado-lime-pear sauce. Our taste buds were pleased with the basil and mint leaves on top.
Afterwards, there were several starters, first and second courses, complemented with even more incongruous ingredients.
Nevertheless this Thai soup was definitely Thai.
This red concept turned out to be a vinegret.
Well, I definitely tasted a slight piece of a beet somewhere in the middle, in the sweet mango sauce. However, I do not even remember the rest of the ingredients.
Desserts. Yummy. Well, it’s no wonder: a lot of sugar does the trick.
Something writhed under the cover. What was it? Cheese. I guess it’s supposed to be smoked.
According to the French mode all this was served together with something sweet and olive oil in a pipette. This region is not glorious for its cheese varieties (mostly goat cheeses), so it did not boggle my mind either. (Definitely, it is not Brittany, Ladies and Gentlemen.)
Another dessert. Is it a McDonalds advertisement? In fact, it is hardly bigger than a box of matches.
One ice cream ball and some sweet concept to keep your pancreas awake.
The most important thing about the ice cream—the last dessert—is the preparation process. They roll out the whole plant and freeze the mousse right in front of your eyes. Watch the video and guess how they do it.
Coffee. This is not a photo illusion. The shapes of the cups at Eskis really are skewed like this.
What about the coffee concept? Hmm The French are bad at making coffee anywhere.
It is reasonable that people come to the Michelin star restaurants to taste rather than eat. But when it takes up to 40 minutes between each concept, only those who haven’t seen each other for ages and wish not to be disturbed can deal with such a long wait. In Eskis, they really do not disturb you. You will have a good long talk.
The whole dinner took nearly four hours and cost 220 Euros for two. (Dear credit card, I am so sorry! This will never happen again.)
However, I feel the desire to visit one more Michelin star restaurant just to check will it be the same?
As for the chef. He is a young man who loves his job, and puts his heart into it. He is a Master!
More about cuisine:
The Best, but Cheapest Trout Farm in the World
Eternal Oyster Season in Cancale, France
Two Wonderful Excursions: Swiss Cheese and Swiss Chocolate
Estoy impresionada por el menú y la presentación de los platillos. No imaginaba que servían 3 o 4 tiempos. Me encantó la cena!!! realmente delicioso!!! Fué un gusto conocer un restaurant 3 estrellas michelin. Buena publicación. Gracias!!!
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Thank you, Maria Eugenia.
If next time you will write a comment in English, much more people be able to understand it.
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Wow, this food looks so tiny and detailed! Despite the long waits, it seems like the chef worked really hard! Thanks for the post. – Mary @ Green Global Travel
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Thank you, Mary.
It was unusual dinner, therefore I decided to write about it.
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I’m drooling!
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It’s great. 🙂
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No, not all Michelin rated restaurants are the same! I have visited a few now, of differing ratings and have never had to wait 40 minutes for concepts to be presented. While it sounds like an experience, I prefer food to come at a reasonable pace and this has always been my experience. The best so far has been Robuchon a Galera in Macau – incredible!
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Of course, not all of them. Thank you for the recomendation.
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What a great story
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Thank you.
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Thank you!
I noticed that you follow my foundinfrance blog and now have found this one.
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I lived in Carcassonne. You wrote about it very interesting.
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every dish looks out of the world!!! more like delicate pieces of art then edibles. Eski sounds like a cousin of elBulli (www.elbulli.com) which I think you may like to tinkle with next. I’ll say sorry to your credit card first… 🙂
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It survived 🙂 Thank you.
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Great Post. If I write about making trip to Europe, France especially, I remember this post of course.
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Thank you very much.
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Next time you happen to visit Nice, check out The African Queen! Excellent food and reasonable prices! Great wait staff!
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OK. Thank you.
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I don’t know if I could bring myself to eat most of that stuff, it’s all so pretty. It’s a shame that the quality of taste didn’t always match the visuals. Or for that matter, the cost …
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You will never know until try.
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I will have to visit this place someday. Quantity is not important I prefere quality.
Helio
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Then this place is for you.
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Wow! That was very fascinating. I can see how it would be frustrating to spend so much money for very little food. I’m intersted to read your future review of the 2nd Michelin restaurant you go to, just to compare. Thank you for stopping by my blog and I am happy to have found yours!
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We don’t seek quantity, we seek taste.
I am not sure about the second one, but who know?
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Reminds me of our Michelin restaurant experience in Great Britain two summers ago..what fun. And yes, expensive, not something done again and again. But to repeat the process often would diminish its uniqueness. Thanks for sharing…at least by photo. *G*
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We were just explorers.
Thank you for the visit.
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Fantastic blog post… I loved the images and your commentary of the whole experience was great 🙂
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Your photos are also fantastic, for example “Eyes of Predator”
I follow you too.
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Conceptual restaurants… they are beautiful to sit in and quite comfortable. It’s good that you have the patience and constitution for it. A diabetic would never make it. Four hours and such minimal amounts! It would almost be like torture. I don’t think I could do it. I’d have to bring along a secret meal to eat when they’re not watching or hovering. Models eat like this so they are the most likely guests and given the cost they are also most likely to be able to afford it. The dishes certainly are beautiful aren’t they ?
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I looked around, there were no models, only very simple people sometimes with kids.
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Thank you for your kind comments.
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Thank you for the visit, Debra.
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We had an excellent dinner in Lyon, one of the best I have ever eaten. Yours looks pretty special. The French do bad coffee. I wonder why. I love the coffee in Italy and it is also reasonably priced.
I had lunch at La Tour D’Argent in Paris in October. It is Michilin star and very, very good. I did a post on it.
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Your blog is very interesting and informative.
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I love the pictures thank you for sharing. I would suit one dish every 20 minutes as long as I had wine and my best friend (not my hubby who’d be too impatient). And I do think I could sit for 4 hours but not starting as late as 9 pm like you and your bride did.
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But the restaurant opens at nine o’clock.
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Like the imagery but french food is not my cup of tea.
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It depends.
I will tell you about our experience with the Provence cuisine soon. It will be a bomb…
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Sorry to hear coffee in France still sucks.
My first terrible experience with bad coffee/bad coffee service in France was in Annecy inside the walls of the Old City at a rustic bistro which – unlike multistarred restaurants – had delightful peasant food of the region. But, the coffee was made a la Turque as the madame of the bistro put it.
This mostly meant scorched with grounds floating throughout.
That was 1971.
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France has not changed since 1971 🙂
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Thanks for your comments about my Maroon Bells photos. I just added a new post with photos from “Haunted Stewart Mansion”
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You are welcome. Thank you for the visit.
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Wow, the service was beautiful! I’m not so sure about the taste and quantity of the food. I might have to dine down the street after the gourmet dinner ended. Thanks for “liking” my Abu Simbel piece on Global Mysteries
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No, that was enough until the morning.
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I so love food and trying new ones but I think this will only reach my throat and not my tummy and dissolve right away there. Bit of a small portion isnt it?
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Yes, very small, but there were many of them.
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What an experience! Looks like your tastebuds were satisfied after this. Also, these shots of each plate are great, as are the presentations themselves.
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I should say: the taste buds of my wife. She is a gourmet.
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I think you should make it a mission to track down all the Michelin restaurants to compare them! Maybe one each year?
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It depends on the quantity of money.
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Your photos are lovely!
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I am very glad to hear it. Thank you.
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Beautiful photos! Tasty looking food as well. 🙂
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Thank you.
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If you travel to Italy, have a try at Dal Pescatore (.com), no molecular though 😦 ahhha
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OK.
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Victor we arrange and attend dinners in Michelin starred restaurants regularly and some are very “concept” oriented. Others have a focus on a special technique or product. But, all are very high quality. Like your photos. Beautiful photography. Perhaps you’ll join us on a trip and then take photos of all of our dining experiences!
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You are lucky 🙂 We were in the Michelin restaurant only once.
Maybe we’ll repeat it in a future. Thank you.
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I would rather admire the concoctions than disfiguring them
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That is their destiny.
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The French view dinner as an excuse for scintillating conversation. We North Americans tend to view it as a way to banish hunger; many of us can work our way through a Christmas turkey dinner with all the trimmings in half an hour. There’s a middle ground in there somewhere, but 4 hours is a bit much.
Love the photos.
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Me and my wife like to talk drinking a bottle of good wine, but you are right, four hours is too much even for us.
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Worth doing for the beauty of it all. Hang the cost! In awe of the imagination going into these “bits”.
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Of course.
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Was that liquid nitrogen with the dessert?
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Bingo 🙂
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I think that’s utterly clownesque … not my kind of cuisine 😉
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This reminded me of our experience at J. Bakers in York, UK. We enjoyed the tasting menu there. Small snippets of amazingly prepared dishes added up and we left feeling pleasantly full and our tastebuds amazingly satisfied. Best of all, we could put to rest the concept that English food is dreary. LOL
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I am so glad for the English cuisine. I have never been to Great Britain.
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Beautiful pictures!! Well done. I look forward to checking this place out.
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These dishes look delicious and artistic at the same time! Great post.
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You are right. Thank you.
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It seems you had a great dinner. I also like to have food outside. Most of the thine in the weekend I I like to go outside with my friends to have dinner. Nice to read your blog post.
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Yes, great, long and…. not cheap 🙂
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Artistry. I just can’t tell, was it yummy after all? Did the taste of the food linger in your memory (in a good way?)
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Yes, that food was tasty and I remember something, but not all the dishes.
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I like the look of the red layered thing – such artistic presentation! Perhaps you and your wife will come to Singapore one day and blog about the food here? 🙂 And thank you for liking my recent post. I may take a leaf from your book and do an all-food post soon.
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Singapore? Why not? 🙂
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Now that really would be an experience, Maybe one day I will try for myself, I must not forget to book well in advance Interesting post
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In advance of course. Such places are very popular.
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Are you serious…four hours for one meal? Gee!! So glad that you didnt have somewhere special to be….looks yummy, but a little bit too fancy for my taste. We love going to Thai Restaurants – they have the best vegetarian meals at such good prices 🙂
Cheers
Lisa
PS – gosh your photos are gorgeous!
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No!!! Four hours for the whole dinner 🙂
And yes, we visited only Tai restorants, when we have been to Tailand a couple of times. But now it was France, and we were seeking something special.
Thank You.
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Forty minutes between each course/concept? I would get so hungry I’d probably start gnawing on my hand! 🙂
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I was feeling the same, but my wife was relentless: show must go on!
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Wow! Such creative and beautiful dishes.
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Yes, Stephanie, it is expensive, but worth to try.
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I really, really love food. But this is kinda crazy, isn’t it?
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Maybe this is an art?
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the red dessert dish is beautiful!!!
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That was a vinaigrette. A salty dish 🙂
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