vProbably the highlight of our travels in France but it wasn’t cheap. Chateau de la Chevre d’or the “Golden Goat” is a magnificent 5* hotel, and has the prestigious designation of being a Relais and Chateaux. This gorgeous property is carved into the cliffs of the ancient town of Eze. Eze is a medieval village perched on the mountains overlooking the F no rench Riviera. Arriving to Eze by train, you are at sea level, but after a somewhat harrowing 30 minute drive straight up into the mountains, you arrive at Chateaux de la Chevre d’or. This hotel may have the best views of the Mediterranean in all of Francemuk and paired with its endless gorgeous private balconies, gardens that look as if they were maintained by Edward Scissorhands, private pools, large multi level hotel suites, and it’s ** self-named Michelin restaurant (La Chevre d’or), I put this hotel at number 1 in my book.
La Chevre d’or, like the hotel, is spectacular and almost surreal. Our table was perfectly placed along the window in the front corner of the restaurant equipped with an elegant highchair for my 1yr old daughter Sophie. We decided to go all in and order the seven course tasting menu with the wine pairing.
For the first course, like many **’s, they hit you with an array of flavors and choices. Lemon brioche square, foie gras candied with raspberry shell, chilled seafood salad toast, and whipped olive oil. (pictured below)
The next Course was the Mediterranean Lobster smoked in rosemary table side, served with compressed melon, grapefruit cardamom sorbet, edible flowers, and an incredibly rich lobster reduction. The lobster was perfectly cooked, and the sweet melon countered the rich lobster sauce while playing off of the perfectly paired wine beautifully.
Directly following the lobster was a refreshing take on bouillabaisse, while keeping true to the flavors of the classic French dish. The bouillabaisse included octopus, prawns, squid, peppers, shaved radishes, crunchy potato, red peppers, rich lobster sauce (identical to the one above), garden leaves, and topped with a lemon air. The flavors and sauces in both dishes, while executed perfectly, were very similar in flavor to the lobster dish above. (pictured below)
The next course was sea-bream with roasted cherry tomatoes, tomato coulis, fennel foam, olive salt, olive oil and herb oil. This dish was another perfectly executed French classic with a modern presentation. The sea-bream was sous vide cooked to perfection, but the fish needed a harder skin-side sear and was lukewarm when it hit the table. This is an incredibly common mistake in high-end restaurants that all typically sous vide cook all their proteins. (pictured below)
Following the sea-bream, our next course was the rabbit. As this gorgeous plate is being delivered, you are quickly greeted with forest aromas coming from the roasted chanterelle mushrooms, walnut puree, and roasted rabbit saddle. The rabbit, again sous vide and cooked perfectly, lacked in temperature and texture.
Chef Arnaud Faye demonstrated nearly flawless execution, but, in my opinion, he played it very safe with the various flavors. On the other hand, Pastry Chef Julien Dugourd let me know with his first dessert that he’s here to play. This dessert, with its assertive bold flavors, was just what I was thirsting for throughout the dinner courses, and when paired with the first dessert wine, he knocked it out of the park. The first dessert course was super rich dark chocolate plated and executed perfectly along with sudden and extreme crunchy explosions of spearmint. (pictured below)
Following his chocolate mint masterpiece, the second dessert course was a chilled lemon dessert, which again was assertive with its lemon flavors. This flavor explosion was a lemon custard and chiffon cake wrapped around a white chocolate shell perfectly molded and painted to recreate the adolescent lemon that this desserts bold flavors represented. Without the extremely sweet wine pairing, this lemon bomb would have overpowered me, but I commend Julien for not playing it safe.
While staying at this hotel, I would say that Le Chevre d’or restaurant is a must and, while price tags must be overlooked to stomach this incredible experience, it is worth the price. As for the tasting menu, my recommendation would be to tone it back to the five course menu with wine pairing. If you are trying to save a little money, the lunch tasting menu is also very good, but it might rob you from the full experience of dinner. If you are not one to spend extravagantly on food, or hotel, don’t go anywhere near this place. I would highly recommend the wine pairing, as it was easily the highlight for me and I really felt the food was accompanying the wine, not the other way around. Sommelier Claude Derrien was fantastic and pleasantly rude at the same time.
The hilarious Austrian billionaire, Herbie, that we befriended alongside us at dinner and then continued talking with until 2 am on the restaurant balcony, summed it up best. For a * you need a beautiful restaurant and amazing food, for ** you need all that with veteran staff and killer wine program, and for *** you need all of those plus an extremely generational talented chef willing to risk it all.
private chef andrew kern 