DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Steve Heimoff of Wine Enthusiast Magazine wrote a puzzling story for the weekend Chronicle magazine: a tale of forgotten reservations at a high-end restaurant. It’s a quick read, and worth a couple minutes: Without Reservation: The price one pays for a world-class dining experience

Anyone familiar with the Northern California culinary scene will recognize in less time than it takes to smoke the saute oil that Heimoff is writing about The French Laundry. Yountville becomes “Yondertown,” The French Laundry becomes “La Lavanderie du Paris.” The famously elusive reservation agent, the long drive, the months-long wait for a table all stay the same.

Two things about this story fascinate me. One is that Heimoff got away with $300 worth of the best food in the country, for free. Sure, he had to eat it in his car. I’ll admit that even Thomas Keller’s star would shine a bit less brightly if he was working at a drive-through. But still.

The second thing is the transparency of Heimoff’s fiction. Maybe the whole story is a ruse, a poke at the ridiculous over-the-topness of the entire French Laundry experience. Or maybe Heimoff has a bitter pill to grind, to remix a metaphor, as would anybody who drove for two hours in a suit, anticipating three hours of culinary pampering, only to be turned away at the door.

But if it really happened, why not write about it? Why disguise it?

Curiously, Heimoff’s “Yondertown” morphs to “Yonderville” by the middle of his story, rending a hole in the thin gauze of fiction.