Le Francais - Wheeling, IL

I've eaten at a lot of very nice restaurants over the years, but Le Francais in Wheeling, IL is, by far, the nicest place that I've ever been.

Le Francais was started in the early 70's by noted chef Jean Banchet. A lot of people were wondering why he started a restaurant in Wheeling, which was 25 miles from downtown Chicago. However, it was an immediate hit and before too long a number of restaurants sprung up along Milwaukee Road in Wheeling.

Banchet sold Le Francais to Roland Liccioni (pictured here) in 1989 and Liccioni ran it for 10 years until he had to retire due to health reasons. Liccioni then sold the restaurant to Phil Mott, the brother of famed Chicago restauranteur Richard Mott, the owner of North Pond, Porter's Steak House in the upscale Hotel 71, and the former Jackson Harbor Grill; and to Don Yamauchi, who was the long time executive chef at Gordon Sinclair's signature restaruant Gordon in downtown Chicago, and who also was the executive chef at Carlos.

Yamauchi (pictured here) turned Le Francais' menu into an avant-garde array of neo-French/Asian cuisine that, even though it was still very good, turned off some of the old French traditional Banchet/Liccioni customers, and business declined.

Mott sold his interest to investors Michael Lachowicz (of Le Deux Gros in Glen Ellyn) and Mike Moran in 2001. In 2004, shouldered with a burgeoning resentment of all thing French in the wake of the Iraqi war and France's refusal to partcipate; plus a steep decline in people going out to eat during the uncertain times, Le Francais closed their doors. A few months later, Liccioni, now back in good health and fresh from opening up the Vietnamese/French restaurant Le Lan, took over Le Francois and reinstated the traditional menu that made the place famous.

I've eaten at Le Francais twice - once when Banchet ran the restaurant, and the other time was when Yamauchi was the executive chef. Both were truly dining experiences. The first time I went was in June 1988 with my boss, Mike Cannady and his wife, Becky; a co-worker colleague from Minneapolis, Kevin Leja; Charlie Santmire and his wife, Toni, from The Sound Environment in Omaha and Lincoln, NE; and Charlie's right hand guy, Jim Wichita.

I truly can't remember much other than it was the most elegant and unbelievable experience I had ever had at a restaurant up to that point in my life. And at that point in my life, I didn't appreciate the overall experience at a Five Star restaurant as I do now.

I remember the more recent experience much more as in December of 2002, as my boss, Daniel Jacques, came to Chicago and we went out to dinner with Steve Weiner from Abt Electronics. Steve sold a boat load of Focal.JMlab speakers for us that year and as a token of appreciation my boss flew in to Chicago to take him out to Le Francais. Steve has since become a good friend of mine and shares the passion of good food and good wine that I have.

It turns out that Steve and Don Yamauchi are good friends, part of a small group of people who get together and have food parties. Don wasn't working that night, but Steve had him come in and meet my boss and I, which was pretty cool. Don seemed to be a wonderful guy, he was dressed down in a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and he sat and talked with us for a little while. I thought it was pretty cool to have a world-class chef sitting there in a casual manner and talking about his philosophy of food.

One of the things that Le Francais did while Yamauchi was the exec chef was a nightly seven course meal that was made up by the chefs that evening. And with each course you got a glass of wine to go along with it. I think it was something like $139 per person and the whole table had to do it. So we said, "Yeah, what the hell."

And it was great, the taste sensations were unbelievable. The wine was great, the service was impeccable, the experience was even more exciting than it was 17 years prior because I had a greater understanding and appreciation for the full experience of exquisite dining.

After leaving Le Francais, Don Yamauchi became the executive chef at Porter's Steak House at Hotel 71, then earlier this year he became the executive chef at the world class Tribute restaurant in Farmington Hills, MI.

I've eaten at some very nice places, but I don't think anything has topped the two experiences I've had at Le Francais.

Comments

[Linda]

I came across this because I thought of this restaurant and wondered if it was still open. In 1987, we lived in Milwaukee and spent a business weekend in Chicago which included dinner at La Francais. I wish I remembered more about it. They had a choice of 2 dining times. This was the first time I had ever heard of that. If we wanted dessert we had to order it when we ordered dinner because it took so long to prepare. I don't remember my appetizer but for my entrée I had 3 birds--quail, squab, and duck. I liked 2 of them and didn't like the 3rd but I didn't know which was which. The dessert was chocolate soufflé with Grand Marnier. Wonderful!

[Tammy Soper]

Forever closed. I ate there in 1982

[Eric]

I used to live across the street as a kid and would walk to Le Francais to get a pack of smokes for my dad from the cig machine in the lobby. I was 4-5 yrs old.