Le Critique: Hole in the Wall: La Note Restaurant Provençal

La Note Restaurant Provençal

2377 Shattuck Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94704

Last Saturday, my French class went on a field trip to know the French culture in our local community. For our semi French culture immersion, our itinerary included lunch at a French restaurant and a visit to the post-impressionist exhibition at the de Young museum. It was great because students from higher level classes were there so we were encouraged to only speak in French at our tables. The best part about it was that because Chef already spoke French, my professor allowed him to come. Fabulous!

La Note is a Provençal restaurant in downtown Berkeley. Provence is the southern region of France next to Italy, and from the menu I gathered that La Note has truly brought in the French and Italian influences in its dishes. We went for brunch and our special menu consisted of choices of breads, pancakes, eggs, potatoes, ham and bacon. Sounds typical for breakfast anywhere? Perhaps. But it’s not as if that isn’t how they have breakfast in France. Pains, crêpes, oeufs, pommes de terre, jambon et bacon! There. Much better? Other than the English enumeration of the ingredients, the menu was in French (for the most part) and that started to get us in the mode. As we went for brunch, we had a basket of breads – croissants and baguettes with little jars of honey, apricot and strawberry jams, and of course, beurre (butter)! I ordered the Cote Est, which is just eggs, pancakes and bacon, and I will definitely recommend the oatmeal raspberry pancake made to perfection. Chef’s dish was the jambon-Gruyere, with is basically ham and Gruyere cheese on a baguette. Now, when I was in Paris, I hated it when I ordered jambon and found that it had a mayonnaise spread. Therefore, this sandwich was even better for me because it was sans mayonnaise! I loved how the sugar came in cubes as they do in France, and hot chocolate or chocolat chaud was served in a bowl. Those little details were pleasant.

Inside, the ambience was French country. There were pictures, posters and postcards of France. We sat at the patio and that was more reminiscent of France for me because when we were there, we always sat outside. Here, though, the tables are much bigger than what you would find in France, but that was a welcomed change. The best part of the experience was that we had a Parisienne server. It was great because she was of course speaking to us in French and just hearing her talk to explain the menu, chat a bit or just check how we were doing was truly the immersion we needed as we are learning the language.

I will definitely come back to La Note, hopefully for dinner because I saw ratatouille on the menu and I am dying to try that. The nice thing about being here in the States is that we have authentic places like La Note to basically take us anywhere else in the world. Sure it’s not as good as enjoying it in France, however, while we are busy living here in the US, the next best thing will do sometimes.