La Caille at Quail Run
9565 South Wasatch Boulevard
Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah
(801) 942-1751
Cuisine: Continental
September 2003

http://www.lacaille.com

Printable Copy of this Review

If you are at all familiar with New Jersey eateries, do your best to conjure up a restaurant environment that is an anachronistic amalgam of Rats and The Manor... Get the picture? Now, hold that thought and add a corral of exotic animals, armada of free-roaming peacocks, a bevy of busty serving wenches in period costume proudly displaying their overdeveloped mammary glands in daring décolleté, and, last but not least, a souvenir shop. "Never eat in a restaurant where the (servers) dress like pirates or jockeys or cowboys or apache dancers–or anything but (servers)... Never eat in a restaurant with a souvenir shop attached," warned restaurant critic Jim Quinn... And he was certainly right on the money here.

Located on twenty-two acres of ponds, orchards, and vineyards just a few miles southwest of Salt Lake City proper, La Caille bills itself as a romantic retreat offering elegant dining in a French country chateau. In reality, however, this is a gastronomic "Grizzlyland," appealing primarily to bus tours, gullible tourists, and well-heeled locals who obviously equate "crass" with "class" and probably couldn't taste the difference between a caper and a rat turd.

As you have undoubtedly surmised, La Caille isn't exactly my cup of tea. Unfortunately, my wife and I had little choice in the matter, as we were ferried along to our destination on a bus–in the company of forty or so other diners–by a representative of an organization who happened to be picking up the tab for the evening& This, as it turned out, proved to be one of the highlights of the outing, as prices at La Caille are, to say the least, FORMIDABLE.

Just how formidable...? Well, when you come to your senses and realize that you may dine at any number of Salt Lake City eateries on superior cuisine for, in some cases, A THIRD of the long green you will shell out here, it becomes painfully apparent that you are the victim of a gastronomic con jobus maximus. The "Filet Café de Paris," a charbroiled prime filet mignon dressed with Roquefort and a mustard Armagnac sauce weighs in at a whopping $62.00; the rib-eye steak and Australian lobster tail, La Caille's glorified version of surf n' turf, goes for $58.00; and the New Zealand rack of lamb for $54.00. Even a lowly tilapia carries a hefty $34.00 price tag. Each is garnished with but a single roasted red bliss potato and large floret of underdone broccoli. A number of entrées are quite good, but they are not exceptional by any means... and exceptional is precisely what you expect at such outrageously inflated tariffs.

Desserts, in my opinion, are the biggest rip-off of all. At $15.00 per, it's quantity vs. quality & and guess what gets left in the dust? This is retro dining at it worst–Crêpes Suzette, Bananas Foster, Cherries Jubilee, Flaming Baked Alaska - and the gargantuan portions simply do not measure up.

Even if you're richer than God, La Caille isn't worth the lofty expenditure. Trust me, save yourself a bundle and dine elsewhere.

 

The Artful Diner is a freelance food writer who writes restaurant reviews for nj.com. His latest review can be seen on his nj.com weblog at http://www.blog.nj.com/artful_diner/. An archive of past reviews for New Jersey Online as well as reviews for restaurants around the country and the world can be found on this Web site at http://www.artfuldiner.com/reviews .

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