L’ Anne

My husband and I absolutely love this restaurant. Took us a while to try, but once we did it turned into an instant favorite. The kobe burgers are unbelievable, and something we order nearly every time we go. It is pricey, so while we certainly don’t visit on a weekly basis we do go as often as we can. While the service is slow, you know it’s because you’re being treated the same as each individual table in that you are welcome and appreciated. Another reason for the slow service is because each melt in your mouth delicious meal is prepared so carefully, and is well worth the wait. We brought my picky in-​laws to this restaurant (mother in law used to be a caterer, so she knows her food!) and they loved it as well. 5 stars, must try.

I will begin with the positive facts about this restaurant:
The ingredients are fantastic and the flavor of the meals were great. A very high-​quality food experience.
That said, we walked in for lunch on a Thursday — seemed to be a slow day, the restaurant was for the most part empty — there was one other table with customers in the place.
The menu seemed fantastic — we ordered an appetizer — the gnocchi. It was light, flavorful and the texture, terrific. However, it was lacking some sort of ‘sauce’ such as a brown butter sauce, or perhaps a cream sauce or even a soy-​based sauce given the Asian influence.
The wait time for the appetizer seemed extraordinarily long — given there were no other customers in the place. However, the wait time for the appetizer seemed short given our wait time for our main courses to come out.
In order to kill time we ordered «Vietnamese Coffee» — without knowing what to expect, I was expecting something along the lines of «Thai Iced Tea» — instead we were served what I cannot describe in other terms than, plain iced black coffee. The glasses were huge, the creamer was tiny, and instead of offering simple syrup — we were given granulated sugar, which everyone has experienced with cold drinks, simply sinks to the bottom of your drink without dissolving at all — leaving you with a bunch of sugar grains at the bottom of our glasses. Given the size of the drinks, we could have used about 3 more creamers to add to the coffee. To say the least, «Vietnamese Coffee» in my opinion, should be documented as «Iced black coffee» — and then I would have not ordered it.
More waiting for the main course — restaurant continues to be empty.
Finally the main courses came out:
1. Vietnamese noodles with chicken
2. Coq a vin
3. Wild Prawns
Let’s start with the Vietnamese noodles with chicken — again, flavor very good. The chicken portion of the dish was cool (to be fair, not cold) yet not at all hot as to indicate it was just prepared — giving me the impression that it was ready first, yet was waiting on a cool shelf until the other dishes were ready. Portion — tiny.
Coq a vin — Vietnamese rendition — again, flavor very good. Portion size — tiny. Chicken cool — not hot.
Wild Prawns — I’ve eaten at hundreds of restaurants and to highlight the size of shrimp, most restaurants use the term Prawn to indicate a larger size of shrimp than you would normally expect — the owner/​server indicated that this restaurant is among the only place she knew of that served «wild, organic, non-​GMO prawns».
If you go to a seafood shop, the size of shrimp used to standardize in the industry is called «Count» — in other words, it’s the count (or number) of shrimp that it would take to approximate a pound. So, 25-​count shrimp would take 25 shrimp to make a pound of shrimp and 10−12-count shrimp would be more than twice the size of 25-​count shrimp. Those would normally have the word prawn associated with them.
We received the 25-​count shrimp size — I believe there were exactly 5 shrimp on the plate of rice — which again — had great flavor.
We had been at the restaurant so long, that instead of entertaining the dessert menu, we just requested the check in order to save what was left of our afternoon.
For 3 people at lunch — exactly 1 appetizer and 3 lunch courses, after a normal gratuity, the bill came to just under $ 100.
To highlight the portion size: we decided to drive through Chcik-​fil-​A in order to satisfy our remaining hunger.
So — if you’d like to experience a flavorful lunch that takes an inordinate amount of time to receive, and with portions the size that leave you hungry so much so that you drive through another restaurant, I would say avoid L’Anne.

Going downhill… menu selections dramatically reduced in number and quality, less innovative then in past, evidenced by the small prime time turnout of patrons on a Saturday night. Items on menu may not actually be available, but not because they were sold out. Likewise, wine list misrepresents vintages actually available, check the bottle closely before it is opened.
This restaurant has been a special local gem for years, but the gem has lost its glimmer. Prices may be more reasonable, but even so, there is no bang for the buck. Very disappointing!

As a regular customer, who comes here every week or every two weeks and spends $ 60 – 120 each time, we officially bid adieu.
I will preface by saying I come here mainly for 3 things: the crème mushroom soup, the special salmon salad Chef K makes, and the panini with the golden fries that my husband gets. The last 2 times we’ve come, the salad was all wrong, wrong dressing, bitter, just leaves and they charged me $ 22.
I thought tonight, for my mom’s 60^th birthday we would give it a go because she loves salmon as much as I do and she’s been recovering from pneumonia so her appetite is low as is. Not only was the salad completely wrong and the fries utterly limpless, when I brought it to the attention of the owner instead of doing her best to accommodate my family, she got defensive and telling me I’m all wrong (even after I reproduced her the pictures I’ve taken of the salad on a couple of occasions.) It was extremely awkward, uncomfortable, and classless.
The main chef was gone and apparently the «five chefs in the kitchen» are incapable of doing the beautiful work of ONE chef.
This place used to be one of my favorites but if you can’t treat your consistent clients with respect, you’re doing it all wrong.
Inconsistent business with owner unable to take constructive criticism. Both thumbs down.

No healthy vegetable options. Could only manage a small bite of the noodle/​tofu/​vegetable dish. It was so oily and greasy. Tea is $ 6 and served lukewarm. I left hungry. Will never return.

I, too, was at the restaurant on ⁷⁄₁₃ with Donna B. The food was SO skimpy — the three courses were more like 1 course in any other restaurant. We just could not believe that it cost $ 100 pp for this non-​fulfilling meal. I agree — we were ripped off. In hindsight, I wish we would have all spoken up and possibly demanded a reduced price. I will never go back to this place again. On the bright side, the pianist and vocalist were awesome.

Omg! We got so taken ! Went there with friends for dinner back in June, had a wonderful dinner. The owner talked to us about coming back in July to experience a «chef» tasting menu, sounds good! Eight of us show up, order wine, the owner comes over and tells us that they normally do a five course dinner, but the meal they planned is so «heavy» that it will be 3 courses, ok? So out comes the skimpiest salad, blah, next comes Dover sole, omg! They did not even filet the fish! No sides on the plate unless you count the «smear of whipped potatoes» then desert, a spoonful of sorbet! Now I’m still hungry ! The bill comes, unbelievable! 350 a couple! Are you kidding me! No chef came out as was promised, a total lie! I will never return! The owner disappeared and sent her daughter to deal with us, disgusting!
We ended up at another downtown Resturant in Wheaton, ordered food, drinks and an awesome desert! Stay away from this place, it’s a total rip off!

Just a small place with no people, food is ok, not what you expect when you pay $ 50 per person, costly and not good service too, all bad things happen here

L’Anne French Cuisine was a fantastic treat! Everything from fine portion sizes to a great welcoming service staff. It is a timely thing, that is, to go to a restaurant such as this. None the less, I definitely recommend going here for that ‘special’ day! Beautiful plating and excellent food overall.

Best restaurant in the western subs. Hands down! Great timely service. The owner is engaged in all operations. The food is incredible! Be sure to tip the chef!

Excellent place!

We had a delicious meal, and it was a great prix fixe value for $ 40 for five courses (Tues-​Thurs & Sun). Actually, we had no idea that was the deal until we got there on a Tuesday night. The Vietnamese crêpe came with lettuce for wrapping, and was a tasty combination of crispy and fresh, savory and sweet, warm and cold. I loved the seared tuna nicoise, and the shrimp, grapefruit, raddichio, roasted peanut with Vietnamese sauce was like a deconstructed spring roll. My butternut squash soup was rich and flavorful, while my wife’s Phở broth had a perfect balance between richness and a clean taste. My favorite was the roasted pork belly, which was so tender that it fell apart with a fork, though my wife’s hangar steak was perfectly medium rare and tender. Finally she chose the crème brûlée duo, while I had the green apple tart.
In the end, the flavors were well balanced without being overly salty, and while many courses had rich flavors, no dish was too heavy. A great meal, and we’re definitely coming back.

I had absolutely no business going to L’Anne. I was tricked. Befuddled. Enchanted. Deceived by some warlock. Ok, so I called my mother and asked for a good place to go for a romantic evening. She recommended L’Anne to me, and thus started one of the most stressful dining experiences of my life.
When you’re finishing up college you start to feel yourself change. You start seeing yourself as an adult. You do fancy things for the sake of being fancy. You worry about bills. You worry about the future. You think about your career. You know what it means to grow up.
We arrived early for our reservation, which turned out to not matter because the place was empty, an oddity from what I’ve heard. We got seated, and order wine and open the menu. BAM. I’m not an adult any more, I’m a two kids in an overcoat trying to pass for a grown up. Oh God, oh God. Calm down. When did I get paid last? Do I have enough money to buy anything? We’ve already drank some wine, we can’t just leave. Calm down. Calm down. It’ll be fine.
L’Anne gave us some recommendations, but to save my wallet, my poor poor wallet, we split an appetizer, Lobster and Pork dumplings. Portion size was as small as expected, but the food was AMAZING. We then split Crispy Duck Goat Cheese salad. To die for. Then we headed straight to the meat course. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. God I wish I could have collected 200 dollars…
In the interest of saving money I got the Pork Chop, which was as good as a pork chop can be. Since I was being cheap I talked my girlfriend into splurging on the Duck, which was amazing in every way.
Other reviewers are right, L’Anne does hover around the table talking about this and that. We didn’t really take charge of the conversation so we mostly talked about the restaurant, which after a while felt a little awkward. But she remembered me from when I was there a year ago with my family for brunch, which I give her a lot a credit for.
We spent WAY more money than I feel the meal was worth, and spent double what I wanted to spend when we left the house that evening. That’s not L’Anne’s fault, remember, tricked by a warlock. But I will say, on the subject of value, there is a fixed price 5 or 6 course meal for (I believe) 85 $ and 95 $ dollars a person respectively. That was outside our ballpark that evening, but honestly the six course meal was only 30 $ a person more than what we paid to split two courses and have meat. If you are going to splurge on amazing food, it definitely has it’s value.
I’ll be back when I’m a real grown up.

Excellent! Lanny and her chef sure delivered. Because it was a special occasion we did the 5 course tasting meal. Started the evening with a duo of Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls (Portions very generous) with a SS peanut soy sauce. 2^nd course: MUST ORDER! Tempura calamari, watercress, cilantro & herb vinaigrette– it was nice and light. I had the smoked salmon salad. Lanny told us that they have a special Cold smoker in the kitchen that allows them to cure their own fish. 3^rd Course: Butternut Squash and Curry Soup and DH had L’Anne Phở. Now I have had Phở once before (@Sprout) and it tasted nothing like this. Delightful. Entrée: Try the pork belly served with roasted eggplant. I had the garlic chicken with shitake mushrooms which had a tasty broth.
We finished the dinner with a duo of peach and lemon crème brûlée… Wonderful. We will be going back to try all the things that we didn’t get a chance too at this visit. Worth the trip to the Suburbs!

First Class place!
Looking forward to eating here (more) in the near future.
Allow me to explain…
Wifey participated in a Top Chef/​Secret Ingredient cooking contest here. Secret ingredient being APPLE.
Sadly we did not «win» but it was a fun.
it also provided us an opportunity to meet the people here… including the owner Lanni (hence the L’Anne).
Since the food we ate here was «our own»…we did not get a opportunity to try some dishes. We only tried the Chicken Liver pâté which was very good. Mustard and Olives & a toasted baguette made for a tasty plate.
Perusing the menu has us wanting to come back soon. The menu (lunch and dinner) looks fabulous.

3.5 stars. I’ve been here for lunch a couple times and my colleague and I both enjoyed the food. Service was quick and friendly, portions were pretty generous, and the food was pretty good as well. The soba noodles with chicken had a good flavor and nice textures although it wasn’t particularly authentic and they weren’t actually soba noodles, they were rice noodles. I am fine with that but really wanted the firmer soba texture that day so they set the wrong expectations. The spicy Korean-​style pork sandwich with onions and liver mousse was very good, although not spicy at all. I love the bold flavor, the nice balance of sweet and salty, and the textures that were present. It was a little messy to eat but I loved the taste. I’ll be back for again for lunch soon.

What a confused place, on all accounts.
It purports to be Asian and French. The ambiance is, for lack of a better word, odd. The dining area is narrow and cramped but with unusually high ceilings. The walls are pumpkin colored with mediocre, cliché «Asian» art… meaning, canvases poorly painted with red acrylic paint and a black symbol as the sole compositional element ($ 550 each). The spotlights are a little too bright and the dark areas too dark. A couple gentlemen were playing lounge music on string instruments, set up so folks entering the restaurant have to trip over them. Strange music choice, strange that they were there at all.
It took about 10 minutes for someone to greet us once seated, and the bartender eventually brought my drink but not my date’s. While we waited for our appetizer, we watched a few confused waiters repeatedly try to give people other tables’ orders. I’ve never seen that happen multiple times during one dining experience, — until L’Anne. The staff seemed collectively inexperienced and unfriendly.
Our spring rolls were good, as was the peanut sauce. Not to anyone’s surprise, one of the waiters brought our entrees to a neighboring table. Once they made it to us, with no apology for what is apparently a common snafu, they were good. I had chicken in a sake sauce on a bed of tomato risotto ($ 20). My husband had seafood pad Thai ($ 17). Neither entrée was large but they were certainly fresh and flavorful.
The dessert menus were wrinkled, stained, torn pieces of paper. Really? For a restaurant trying to be fancy, these were worse than anything I’ve seen at Steak n Shake. While we marveled at the nasty dessert menus, the man dining next to us received the wrong check.
Overall, the food is good but the ambiance and service wreck the experience. We expected a classy French restaurant with Asian influences. The food lived up to those expectations but nothing else about the place delivers.

Went back for dinner with hubby and the owner recognized me which I thought was cool. Food was fantastic however I got hoodwinked with the water situation. Somehow I wound up with bottled water when I thought I asked for tap.
Back to the food, tasty eats, great martinis, hefty bill which will unfortunately keep us away except for special occassions.

The food here is AMAZING! I was a little disappointed that they only had one rice dish for the main course, but the disappointment stopped there. The way the chef blended the flavors together was unbelievable. It was about $ 20 for my dish of Shrimp Tempura with Steamed Rice in Herb and Spicy Tomato Sauce. The portion is on the smaller end of the spectrum and left me wanting more (which helped me save room for dessert). The taste definitely blew me away. They also had a special dessert sampler that consisted of 3 different desserts that were delicious.
This is a place you can dress up for, but one you can also wear jeans to. I went with a couple of my girl friends and we had a great time.
Overall, you get the bang for your buck here. Since it is more expensive, I wouldn’t eat here every day, but would definitely return for a special occasion (say tax refund celebration?).
Website:

We don’t often find ourselves in Wheaton, but the occasion of a friend’s son’s Bar Mitzvah dinner brought us to L’anne. A lovely place, with unique and delicious French/​Asian food and spotless service.
Being guests at an event, we didn’t have an idea of the cost, but a peek at the menu showed appetizers in the $ 6 – 10 range and entrees from $ 16 – 30. I chose the ribeye steak with a hoisin/​mushroom sauce for my entrée. It was tasty, though the meat had quite a bit of fat.
Our dessert was a nicely plated flan and profiterole with chocolate mousse. Two desserts on one plate — my kinda place.