After all the hype and wanting to go for years I finally made it last night and all I can say is--what's the big deal? Our dinner was rather mediocre given our expectations and the cost.
The ingredients were good and each dish had an interesting point but not enough to make up for faults elsewhere. The vegetable fritto misto was tasty and the cornmeal batter was nice but several of the vegetables were far too fibrous and others were overcooked. The 'stacked' beet and goat cheese was also tasty and the citrus zest was a nice touch--not a lot to find fault with here except that it wasn't really a stack so much as three thin presentations of beet-cheese-beet. I had the halibut cheeks. Very interesting texture and good flavor but I could barely taste many of the ingredients for the overpowering and very salty kalamata olives. My friend had the portobello wellington with a beet reduction. Also good, but hardly original (probably stolen from Michel Richard--that's not very 'cool'). Wines were totally unremarkable. The ginger creme brulee was an absolute disaster--it was barely bruleed and full of air bubbles, giving it a texture more like porridge. Yuck.
I won't be returning.
Pros: Quality ingredients
Cons: Mediocre use of quality ingredients
more