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02/10/2007 - Head of the Class
Head of the Class
By Heidi Knapp Rinella
Long before the celebrity chef boom, Andre's introduced fine French food to the valley
Celebrity chefs have come, (some) celebrity chefs have gone, and still André prevails.
André would be André Rochat, chef/proprietor of Andre's French Restaurant. The conventional wisdom credits Wolfgang Puck, and rightfully so, with the rebirth of the Las Vegas culinary scene when he rolled the dice and opened a Spago at the Forum Shops at Caesars in 1992. But Rochat opened his first local restaurant a dozen years earlier, on decidedly untony Sixth Street close to downtown. In the waning days of an era of elephant bells, polyester shirts, earth mothers and the blow-dried look, here was a fine French restaurant in a sea of buffet lines that wouldn't have parted if God himself had ordered it. Now, that took guts.
Cut to 2001, and Andre's is not only going strong but has two siblings, one born at the Monte Carlo and one as yet unborn at the Palms, and keeps racking up the awards.
But, dedicated foodie though I am, I hadn't managed to get to Andre's until recently. (The list is long, and this wasn't one readers were asking about, because they already knew or at least thought they did.) Despite everything I'd heard, I had no idea what I'd find; there are some restaurants that people go to out of habit, the fact that the bloom is long off the rose notwithstanding. Was Andre's still able to stand up to what, in the past decade, had become very stiff competition?
Oh, yeah. In spades.
There's the charm of the place, first, and the dedication to service. There was some chatting between maitre d' and bartender when we first walked in, but it stopped in midword, it seemed, and we were immediately shown to our table. Our waiter was a joy: efficient, articulate and extremely pleasant without crossing the line into chummy, and not a bit stuffy about anything. Ditto for his assistant.
The place itself is gorgeous. Pleasant enough on the outside but pretty unprepossessing, it's just a complete feast for the eyes on the inside, with a board-and-stucco ceiling (complete with straw), lace curtains and big, hefty furniture that say country French to us.
And then there was the menu, and just about everything on it. There was no paean to trendiness there, and conversely no strict adherence to a handful of classics that can get a little boring over time. Instead, the menu showed real innovation and creativity, an adventure for the customer.
I don't, for example, remember the last time I saw chervil, an herb that's been a favorite since my childhood, on a restaurant menu. Yet there it was, as an ingredient in one of the evening's specials (which were printed and inserted in the menu, a definite plus for customers): roasted Alaskan halibut with chervil beurre blanc ($25.75). The chervil notwithstanding, I hesitated, because halibut can be so bland. It was indeed mild, but also meaty and perfectly flaky, and complemented well by the delicate flavor of the chervil. On the side: potatoes Maxime, which were crisp-edged slices (sort of like potatoes Anna without all the layering) and a mix of braised vegetables.
The sauces on our entrees were an illustration of the fundamentals at work: the mild beurre blanc on the halibut, but a far more assertive sauce of roasted garlic and grain mustard on the roasted Colorado rack of lamb ($34.75), which our waiter said was an Andre's classic. A meat as strongly flavored as this deserves a sauce that's its equal, and this one was. The lamb itself, medium rare as ordered, was tender and succulent. Roasted potatoes were served on the side, plus a tian, which in the classic definition is a Provencal vegetable dish; the classic tomato, zucchini and eggplant had been included in it.
Our appetizers were equally successful. One combined veal sweetbreads and chicken quenelles ($10.75), which are light little dumplings. I love sweetbreads, but it's the sort of thing you want to eat in moderation, so the quenelles were an ingenious moderating factor. They were in a very light tomato sauce studded with pieces of mushrooms and black truffles, the whole shootin' match draped over a tall square of puff pastry. Delicious.
The hearts of palm salad ($11.75) was a nice seasonal dish in that it was based on mizuna, a delicate Japanese green in season this time of year. With really, really creamy goat cheese, pine nuts and a balsamic vinaigrette, it was refreshing and light.
We'd ordered a Grand Marnier soufflé ($9.75) ahead of time and were grateful we had. As we watched our waiter's helper dollop on the creme anglaise until the delicate top collapsed, we had a feeling we were in for a treat and indeed we were; the soufflé was positively ethereal.
I've noticed that Andre's doesn't have the aggressive marketing efforts of some of the celebrity chefs (and many other restaurants in town) and now the reason is clear: Rochat has nothing to fear from any of them.
Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are unannounced and done anonymously at Review-Journal expense.
André Rochat opened Andre's French Restaurant on Sixth Street in 1980.
Andre's French Restaurant
where: 401 S. Sixth St.
phone: 385-5016
overall: A
food: A
atmosphere: A
service: A
pluses: An atmosphere you're not likely to find elsewhere in Las Vegas.
minuses: Andre's on Sixth Street will be closed for vacation July 1, reopening July 30.
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