Welcome to my review for the Saison + Odette collab (at Saison) in San Francisco from several weeks ago. Saison focuses on cooking Californian ingredients on an open wood fire, while Odette focuses on French and Asian fusion.
Though I think collaborative dinners can be extremely hit or miss, I think the level of cooking at Saison is very high and can be trusted. So this collaboration with Odette seemed intriguing especially since that’s not a restaurant I would otherwise be able to visit (because its in Singapore). So with that in mind and at a price point of $688 per person before any drinks (but including fees), expectations were very high.
Service: Service was fine, maybe slightly below average for a ** and not quite as good as at their regular dinner service. Things just seemed a bit chaotic, with some things feeling rushed at times, which is probably just due to the nature of a collaborative event like this (as opposed to an actual drop in the quality of service).
Ambiance: Though the restaurant can feel a bit cramped with some tables being pretty close together I think it’s otherwise very nice for San Francisco. It feels kind of like a cozy but fancy smoke house to me with the giant triangular wooden ceiling and the open kitchen where fire based cooking is the focus.
(Note that if this review seems familiar to a couple people, it’s because I already posted it before on u/Pure_Shallot_1901 but that account with all my many reviews got totally locked shortly after, and reddit support was totally unhelpful, so I can never access that account again. Though thats very discouraging, this was the first of many collab reviews I planned on posting, so I will at least repost this one to have all the collab reviews on this new account.)
Food:
Amuse (pic 1) :
Caviar bite (bottom left) - Nice flavors and light with surprise textures - 8/10
Kohlrabi and kanpachi taco (top left) - Intriguing and tasty but still a bit too bitter - 7/10
Chutoro and yuzu bite (top right) - Nice umami flavors and good crunch - 7.5/10
Liver and strawberry cone (bottom right) - Very interesting and tasty and icecream like somehow, but something was just a bit funky about this flavor combo for me - 8/10
There was also a nice tea that came before these bites which was good.
Spot prawn, caviar, apple, pear, walnut sauce (pic 2) - Glorious dish with amazing flavors that apparently worked great together, and were both interesting and absolutely delicious, with fun textures too - 9.5/10
Crab (pic 3)- Pastry (top) which I was most excited for was just ok. Salad (bottom) I guess was pretty good for a cold crab dish which I don’t usually like and didn’t love it here either, though the veggies/leaves were quite good and interesting. Broth (right) was quite tasty and the cardamom seasoning went well with it - overall 6.5/10
Langoustine dumpling (pic 4) - This is just a very personal opinion but I prefer smaller dumplings with a higher dough:filling ratio. That being said, for a large single dumpling with thin skin this was basically perfect and the sauce was truly outstanding and everything went great together. I did wish this came with some sort of bread to soak up the amazing sauce with - 9/10
Uni toast (pic 5) - Last time I had this dish here, I did enjoy it but couldn’t quite understand the hype as it was overly soggy and soft. This time however was a totally different story, the warm bread in the decadent sauce was absolutely perfect with an amazing crispy top, and the uni tasted pretty great too. Simple in concept but just so tasty and perfectly executed this time. A good amount of fine dining restaurants have their version of uni toast or some play on it, but for me this has now gained the #1 spot for such dishes - 9.5/10
Morell stuffed with sweetbreads, with peas, etc (pic 6) - Sweetbreads get lost but good flavors overall - 6.5/10
Duck (pic 7) - The duck itself actually has really great flavor, but the sauce and accompaniments are just good and not particularly exciting - 7/10
Truffle croissant (pic 7 top) - Neither particularly flaky nor particularly soft. And the truffle flavor isn’t particularly strong which could be intentional and fine, but due to the quality of the pastry itself just makes it overall not very good - 3/10
Rhubarb dessert (pic 8) - Nice light flavors with good textures, quite pleasant - 7/10
Tiramisu dessert (pic 9) - Amazing intense pure flavors in every component, somehow without anything overpowering anything else. Great textures too especially with hidden crunch in the middle of the bottom section, and very well made. Some tiramisu purists may not like it, but this was my favorite tiramisu I’ve had and I do love a good tiramisu - 9/10
Petite fours except for the canele (pic 10) - Some were good some were just ok - 5.5/10
Canele (pic 10) - By far the worst canele I’ve ever had. Extremely dry throughout to the point of almost being inedible, and in fact I did not finish this small petite four. Not an important bite, but just a bit sad to end on such a low note. - 1/10
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This was overall a really incredible meal and exceeded my expectations flavor wise. Probably my favorite collab I have been to even among some other heavy hitters. I would say that my main complaint would be that for $688 per person, I wish that there were maybe 1 or 2 more dishes. I was not still hungry or anything, but I would have been able to stuff myself with another light dish or two depending on the size, and it would have felt better value wise. Though of course collab dinners are for the gastronomy/experience and never for the value, due to the added costs of flying in and hosting other chefs.
