Come if you care about the most excellent French cuisine turned into an art form by the “Chef of the Century”, the legendary late Joel Robuchon. You will feel his presence. Come if you want to feel like your hard earned money have not been wasted. Come if you want something to remember for a long time. Arguably, there are many places where enjoyable fine art can be found, but there is only one Louvre. Similalrly, there are many places serving elevated cuisine, but there was only one Joel Robuchon, one elBulli, one Bourdain who added his unmatched narrative, and so on. Even though we feel that much is being made about exclusive eateries (and we don’t care about the foodie hype often constructed to justify exorbitant prices), L’Atelier stands on its own with its 2 Michelin stars. Not because it is pretentious or chique, but because the food is simply great and the service impeccable. Sure, there were 1-2 minor issues, but those are subject to one’s palate and the youth of the dedicated staff. We prefer that over pretense. Seated at the kitchen counter, we found the interactive view-of-the-kitchen ambiance deserving the place’s name: you can just enjoy your meal and watch an artist in his studio /atelier at work. The place was not packed (a surprising fact initself) which we thought was good. Seating shoulder to shoulder at the counter could have been a bit too much. We thought that seating on the terazza /outside defeats the point, comes short of the Chef’s intent, and we would not recommend it. As far as what to sample, we went a la carte, focusing on testing the variety of dishes and techniques: cold, hot, seafood, meats, soups, mousses and deserts. Generally no more than three flavors are harmonized making it easy to follow the trail on the food’s origin. Everything was really good, but the beats, artichoke, pork and beef ruled. The duck underwhelmed a bit, still good but in a really tough competition, langoustine a bit predictable but, again, one of the best one would have ever tasted.