Often, after ambitious restaurant meals, I leave feeling that too many hands mucked around with my food, and that despite all the fussing, the result wasn't even remotely satisfying. The cooking at Le Bec-Fin was of a different order; you didn't notice how much work had gone into it until you tasted it.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
FOR YOUR $22 YOU GET FIVE COURSES—APPETIZER, SEAFOOD, ENTREE, CHEESE, DESSERT—AND COFFEE: Tonight, Philadelphia one-time fine dining institution Le Bec-Fin serves its last meals after forty-plus years in business under Chef Georges Perrier, and will reopen under new ownership (Nicolas Fanucci, general manager of French Laundry) in a few months. Here's Philadelphia Magazine's original September 1974 review, which is a treat to read, and Pete Wells on the meal he had anticipated for twenty years:
He will be missed. Le Bec Fin will be missed. I remember my first meal there when I was a summer associate at Dechert in 1996. It wasn't on the list of approved lunch restaurants, so I arranged a lunch there with about 15 of us (paying our own way I think lunch was $35 then). I think some of the regular commentators on this blog were there when I lost my LBF cherry. I had both the snails and the crabcake on my first visit and they were life -altering. Holy shit were they good. And, the Grand Marnier souffle. Nuff said.
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