Great report—-pithy and pertinent. Am sure some first-timers will value your insights. Generally agree with your opinion of various restaurants, especially L’Espirit. It is such a personal thing — unless the experience has been truly dreadful, I don’t give a negative review. It is easy to have an “off” night so we like to give a restaurant a second chance. It is helpful to have a number of inputs and your straightforward comments will be useful. People should try different places, weigh reviews and decide for themselves.
As always, Julianne . . . your input is gentle, thoughtful, & perceptive. I love reading what you write! Somewhat similarly, Guenther has hit on the same “cylinder” with respect to L’Esprit (“L' Esprit, nice spot, but staff and dishes never impressed.”)
I want to say that I found the comments of each of you about L’Esprit to be worthy of encouraging readers to give the restaurant “a second chance.”
It’s very interesting to me that I can agree with something of the sentiment expressed by each of you. The service can be slow, though never, in my experience, without considerable concern from the staff. In this regard, I will say that I love the place . . . one of my top two island restaurants at dinner. For one reason, I believe that it’s authentic French service, much as I found on my first, 1978, visit. The second reason being that I think that the food preparation & presentation are exquisite.
Now . . . let me add that I write the foregoing in knowing the risk of opening the angst of a pro- / negative- Maya’s exchange, as this Forum famously debated for many years. Not my intention, which only is to say that visitors,if disappointed once, should give it a second chance.