Les Quatre Saisons is a one Michelin star restaurant in the Pullman Hotel. The hotel is lovely as is the restaurant dining room. The large room is filled with well spaced, good sized tables that are covered with nice cloths and large well starched matching napkins and set with comfortable stuffed chairs. Brown wood cabinets are along some of the perimeter and from the ceiling hang many large chandeliers covered with concentric circles of strung beads that provide a nice amount of light. There are less than 15 tables, faint music is in the background (in fact it was really quiet), some of the floor has carpet but tile is around the edge and the walls are decorated with mirrors. The menu offers a la carte options and vegetarian and degustation tastings. The staff spoke great English. We chose the degustation menu and the pacing was very slow but portion was control good, that tended toward large.
While looking over the menu we enjoyed a glass of champagne and some warm puff pastry with cardamon. They were light and buttery and delicious.
After ordering they brought out amuse bouche – sweet potato profiterole, beef ribeye on cracker and a blue cheese tart. The profiterole was well stuffed and quite tasty. The blue cheese tart had a nice crisp crust and good blue cheese flavor. The beef was sliced very thin and was tender with good beef flavor.
A second amuse was veal sweetbread with vegetables and lentils. It was a wonderful fall offering that was well seasoned. The vegetables had more bite than the lentils but overall it was good.
Bread service included pretzel rolls, brown bread and white rolls with butter. All were fine.
The tasting started with a duo of goose liver plated with fig, port wine and brioche. A creme brûlée style was in the center of the plate topped with port wine ice cream and flanked by ripe pieces of fig, some white port wine jam and thin crisp slices of brioche. The figs were really cold but still tasty. The port wine jam added good flavor and the crisp brioche went well with all. A couple pea shoot tendrils decorated the dish, that seemed like an odd touch. The sommelier did bring us a different glass of wine to go with the liver.
Tartar of Simmental beef filet was plated with Hookaido pumpkin and herb sorbet. The tartar was basically unseasoned and needed the powder and/or sorbet to add flavor. The pumpkin was in thin slices on either end of the plate, some of which had been fried that added texture as did a few scattered pumpkin seeds.
Fried turbot was plated with Chioggia root, buttermilk foam and grapefruit. The pea tendrils showed up again on this dish but it went better with the slices of parsnip and yellow beets. The fish was cooked perfectly and was nicely moist but some of it was slightly strong flavored. I didn’t find the grapefruit but this was an interesting combination of things.
Venison with a walnut crust was with Turicum gravy, Needle beans and Forest mushrooms. The green beans were nicely fresh tasting and cooked perfectly. The sauce really helped the meat as did the plentiful mushrooms, however it was cooked more medium than medium rare. The nuts added texture and good taste. This one was all right.
Cheese according to daily choice included hard and soft cheeses. The cheeses included a French Camembert and a well aged Comté and something from Switzerland. A fig mustard and well stuffed pear bread was also part of the plate. The mustard was hot and good with the cheese. It was a plate with good variation.
The first dessert was New York Cheesecake – espuma with mandarin, Madagaskar vanilla and macadamia nuts. It did taste like a light cheesecake with the nuts giving it a crunch.
The second dessert was Creole chocolate tarte with banana ice cream and caramel. The ice cream tasted more like caramel and the mousse more like the banana. There was lots of creamy stuff on this plate. The server brought us a glass of Gewurztraminer to go with the desserts.
The tasting also included mignardises, coffee cake and Feingebäck but we were tired of sitting there so skipped that part.
