The first real appetizer was a “mosaic”—like a slice of stratified terrine—of artichoke, foie gras, and milk-fed chicken breast. Very satisfying. Next was a bright salad of assorted heirloom tomatoes—just little cubes of them, cut from the heart of the fruit—with snow peas and tomato-basil granité. Then came a single large oyster shell holding two small oysters, one on top of the other, glazed with crème fraîche and set into an icy oyster-water gelée; the oyster flavor was so intense that the two-oysters-in-one-shell idea seemed an apt metaphor: This was an oyster times two.
One of Savoy’s classic creations is what he calls “Colors of Caviar” (the quotation marks are his). It’s like a fish-roe pousse-café, a straight-sided glass with a layer of dense gray caviar vinaigrette at the bottom, then one of white crème fraîche with caviar, another of finely puréed green beans, and one of (domestic) golden osetra caviar, crowned with a caviar sabayon. The idea is to delve down into it with your spoon, so that each bite is a mix of flavors and textures. It works nicely.
When the next course came out, I had no idea what it was. It was almost loglike in shape, with a golden-brown exterior glistening with butter and sporting a mohawk haircut—a row of bristles sticking straight up along its center. It turned out to be a nice plump Dover sole with its fillets bent back and around; the bristles were its heat-darkened bones. (When I mentioned the mohawk later, Savoy laughed and said, “It’s supposed to look like a rack of lamb.”) The fillets were served boneless in smoked seaweed butter, over sautéed spinach with a checkerboard of cubed Yukon Gold and purple Peruvian potatoes on the side. I generally like sole cooked as simply as possible, but this presentation genuinely enhanced the fish without obscuring its basic character. This was such a stunning dish that a second seafood course—grilled lobster with curls of heirloom carrot in assorted colors and an heirloom-carrot purée with bits of lobster meat and a light crust of herbed bread crumbs— though tasty enough, seemed anticlimactic.
One of Savoy’s most famous dishes appeared next: his artichoke soup, luxurious in texture, concentrated in flavor, topped with thin slices of black truffle and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano and served with a small brioche, the dough interleaved with wisps of mushroom and truffle and slathered with truffle butter. The final savory course was crisp veal sweetbreads in brown butter accompanied by little potato chaussons (slippers), like cottage-fry sandwiches with a bit of black truffle inside.
A cascade of pre-desserts, desserts, and post-desserts ensued: a parfait of strawberry gelée, vanilla-lemon panna cotta, basil gelée, and Sauternes granité, sporting a fried basil leaf on top; a little bar of dark chocolate and crunchy praline with hazelnuts and chicory cream; a dish holding shredded coconut, coconut tapioca, coconut granité, coconut chips, and coconut emulsion; and then a wagon full of sorbets, ice creams, puddings, cookies, marshmallows …
It was an excellent meal, full of contrast and flavor. “Las Vegas is an exciting city, a city of the future,” Savoy told me. “Our customers seem to love us. They are very knowledgeable—when Americans begin to take interest in something, they go all the way—and will eat anything I cook, even sweetbreads, rabbit, kidneys. It’s a pleasure to work here.”
A month or so after my Las Vegas meal, I dined at Savoy’s Paris restaurant, again with a tasting menu and with Savoy in the kitchen. Many of the courses were the same as they’d been in the States, which offered a nice opportunity to compare the two places. Again the meal began with those little foie gras sandwiches—but here they came around twice, so I’d have to deem this course twice as good as its American equivalent. Next came “Tout Petit Pois,” a shallow bowl filled with silky pea purée, pea gelée, peas anointed with chive oil, baby watercress sprouts, and a poached quail egg, the quintessence of spring. The eggcup-cum-love-seat appeared next; this time, the soup was finely minced broccoli and cauliflower with gazpacho, and part two was a cheerful little cherry tomato stuffed with chèvre. The mosaic of artichoke, foie gras, and chicken breast was nearly identical to its Las Vegas counterpart, but the bird involved, a poulet de Bresse, seemed more flavorful. The tomato salad and two-in-one oyster were not served, but “Colors of Caviar” was, and again it worked wonderfully.
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