The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

It’s quite rare to have a truly “special” food experience at a restaurant these days. Don’t get me wrong; there are a lot of very good restaurants producing very good food. But few, in my humble opinion, turn out genuinely unique and exceptional dishes that transform the average dining-out experience into an otherworldly affair.

Friday night at LudoBites was one of those distinctive dining experiences that will stay with me for a long time. I went with the PleasurePalate Meetup group – 8 people total, none of whom I had ever met. The evening started off with a bit of drama, thanks to one of the women in our group. Minutes after sitting down, the woman yelled out to Ludo, who happened to be walking by our table. “Hey, YOU. Come here,” she said, with about as much grace as a truck driver spitting a tobacco loogie out of his big-rig window. “Yeah, YOU. COME HERE.” Ludo, caught off guard and clearly offended, stood his ground and asked what she wanted. “I want to take a photo with you.” He mumbled something about doing it later and walked away, head shaking with disbelief. Of course, this woman was sitting right next to me and immediately I feared that our whole table would be guilty by association and therefore receive ill treatment for the rest of the night. Thankfully, that was not the case.

We divided the table into two groups of four people and ordered plates to share: the first was a luscious and cool chorizo soup with cantaloupe chunks and a cornichon sorbet. It was spicy and creamy, and the tang of the sorbet and honey-flavored cantaloupe really balanced out the richness of this liquid velvet. It was a revelation in that typically I do not like gazpachos or cold soups. This? To say I’d like to bathe in it would be an understatement.

The rest of the evening was one lively surprise after another: veal tartar that had a hint of oyster flavor and a lovely crunch from slivered almonds; the creamy polenta with cantal cheese and black truffle that had a beautiful grits-like texture and hid a layer of exquisitely-cooked, shredded meat (oxtail?) at the bottom of the bowl, the culinary equivalent to finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The sinfully rich lacquered pork belly topped with a cool mustard ice cream was gorgeous and fanciful; and my favorites of the evening – a buttery chicken liver mousse atop a savory onion brioche and sweet green apple gelee, and the famed foie gras Croque Monsieur with a cherry compote on squid ink bread – have been haunting my dreams ever since. Ludo’s skill and sense of whimsy are evident in every single dish he prepares.

For dessert, I had to be selfish: I wanted the chocolate cup cake with foie gras Chantilly cream and candied bacon all to myself. Basically, it was a rich chocolate cake with a foie gras frosting, and though that description may scare you, the perfect flavors would convince you that more chefs need to use offal toppings on their desserts.

The thing with Ludo’s cooking is that he combines flavors, textures and ingredients that I, even as a pretty good cook, would never think to try. He’s not afraid to take chances, to throw caution to the culinary wind and do something daring. And that, my friends, is what makes LudoBites a truly unique dining-out experience. I will miss it, and look forward to his new venture – wherever it may be.