I miss L'espalier

I'm very sad that L'espalier has closed. For my fifth birthday, my mom and dad arranged for me to cook with the pastry chef there. It was very special. I even got my very own personalized L'espalier chef's jacket. We made shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate. I got to make the dough and roll it out. Then we used a little circle cookie cutter to cut out the cookies, and we dipped half of each cookie in chocolate.

After I was done baking, I got to do the tasting menu with my parents. It was the first time I had foie gras, and I loved it. We also had blini, which are little pancakes, with caviar and a sous vide egg. Sous vide is a way of cooking food slowly at low temperature in a water bath. Sometimes we do it at home! One of my favorite parts was the cheese cart that they wheeled to our table, so that we could hear about all the cheese and pick which ones we wanted. The restaurant was quiet. There weren't very many other people there for lunch.

Foie gras with quince and apple

Sous vide egg with blini and caviar

Crane Mountain goats milk cheese; Bon Pere goat and cow's milk gouda; Harbison cow's milk cheese that is wrapped in spruce bark; Riley's 2x4; Rollright, which is produced in England; Gorgonzola from northern Italy

I liked L'espalier so much that I wanted to go back when I turned six. This time I got to go for dinner! We did the tasting menu again and one of favorite things was a fried duck tongue, that was part of the small bites at the beginning of the meal.

The duck tongue is the thing that looks like a piece of bacon on top of the little cake in the back.

But then at the end of the year, my parents told me that L'espalier was closing. I was so sad. We were out of town, and we couldn't get a reservation when we came back for their last night. I made a sign, thanking them and telling them that I'd miss them, and we brought it to the window of the kitchen that you could get to from the Prudential mall. One of the chefs saw me and brought out little cupcakes for my brother and sister and me. I told him how much I had liked the duck tongue at my last visit and he was really excited because that dish had been his idea!

I'm sad that L'espalier closed because it was one of the last fancy restaurants in Boston. My mom and dad told me that there used to be a lot more fancy restaurants than there are now. I know that some people like eating at more casual places, but I like fancier restaurants more and think that it is important to have them to celebrate special occasions.