Taste: Ruth Reichl on Early Menus from The French Laundry
In Taste, Ruth Reichl is interviewed on her vast collection of menus. On looking at menus for The French Laundry (1988), Bay Wolf (1970's), Greens (1979 or 1980), and Chez Panisse (1983) she remarks on Sally and Don Schmitt's, French Laundry: "It is interesting to me how similar these menus are in the way that they look, and—this was very unusual for the time—they are all prix fixe. At the French Laundry, before Thomas Keller took it over, it was owned by a family named the Schmitts. You can see how their food is kind of hard to characterize, at this time when so many restaurants were either French or Italian.