Taking yet another step closer to the model chef-owner Joshua Skenes and partner Mark Bright have been moving toward at Saison, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant will begin doing an entirely ticket-based reservation system through SeatMe beginning April 10. As of late last year, Saison had already been using SeatMe for chef’s counter reservations, which now go for a not inconsiderable $601 per person (including beverage pairings, tax, and gratuity). That menu is now upwards of twenty courses, while the main dining room menu is now a whopping sixteen courses.
Main dining room reservations remain $198 per person on weeknights, with an additional $128 for pairings — and, as it turns out, once you add service and tax, assuming you’re drinking, the total per person is at $420. Effective April 10, that total rises to $248 for food on Fridays and Saturdays, or $511 per person once you’ve added beverages and service. (Weeknight prices remain the same.)
The nice part is, once you’ve purchased your ticket, you can go to the restaurant and never have to look at a check, or fumble with your wallet — all in all a much more civilized way to drop a large sum of money.
As Skenes told us in the fall, the idea is to create a fully luxurious experience, which he’s modeling, quite ambitiously, on Alain Ducasse’s Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo, in which there is only one seating per night, and the kitchen staff doubles as service staff in delivering and discussing dishes. There are now only eighteen seats in the main dining room, with four more at the chef’s counter, and patio seating available by request.
The restaurant is still intending to move downtown to a space rumored to be in the Jackson Square vicinity, but last we heard from the team that deal was still not inked.
Update: Skenes talks to the Scoop about the changes, and reiterates that the restaurant isn’t really turning a profit, and the pricing is solely to cover their high food costs. “I think the goal is to make it a genuine expression of what is a real restaurant, not a business,” he says. [Scoop]
Saison - 2124 Folsom Street at 17th - Open Tuesday to Saturday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m
Earlier: Michael Bauer Finally Appreciates Saison
Actually Pretty Awesome: Crudités at Saison
Saison Reduces Seating, Adds Ticket-Based Chef’s Counter
Saison’s Joshua Skenes Reacts to His Michelin Stars
