When we first arrived, there was one other couple - who looked as though they had been married for quite a long time - elderly with little conversation. Their second course arrived when we sat down and the noises that were coming from that corner of the restaurant were unfortunately not drowned out by the music. The man kept making long "Ooooh ahhhhh grunt!" noises and it sounded so much like he was screwing his entree and he wanted EVERYONE in the restaurant to watch his wrinkled 60 yr old ass that it almost put me off my meal. Luckily they were finished before our appetizer arrived however and thankfully smoking is not permitted because I was totally expecting him to light up after his orgy. (I mean seriously, if you're going to pretend to be a gourmet try to act with some manners and don't be pretentious about it. I have lots of things to say about so-called "gourmets" who think they know food just because they can make cheeseball basil pesto, but I'll save this rant for everyone another time. :))

Some things I have to say about the food/service though:

Prices are $35-55 an entree but include the appetizer. This way they guarantee selling enough food but the customer gets their money's worth too. Not a great thing if you're on a diet but you shouldn't come to a this restaurant if you're on a diet anyway. Expect to take in about 2-3000 calories in one sitting - most of it in dairy/saturated fat from cream, butter, meat or shellfish. Luckily most Seattlites are skinny enough to cope with this and we're not in the midwest.

So, coming from a franco-italian cuisine background where escalope of veal in a marsala and mushroom, cream sauce was something my mum forced us to eat as children (one never really appreciates food as a child - no matter how good!), going to Le Gourmand was a bit like going home or back in time to my childhood in my mum and dad's restaurant. So I was rather taken aback after our excellent meal when I realized at 2am that I was suffering from palpitations and stomach cramps. It took me a few hours to realize I had indigestion from the extra extra supra rich food! (And some antacid took care of that - I think I've only had indigestion a few times in my life though!)

The proprietors are both chefs - the family run atmosphere is great but only really evident when the chefs have time to come out of the kitchen to chat with you, which was a delightful change to the usual Seattle snobbiness. The potential for more of a family run atmosphere may be replaced by having more people in the restaurant on busier or festive nights, however - we had gone on a very slow Thursday. Otherwise the upfront service was really good, attentive, polite and pleasant, but boring. It's asking a lot from waitstaff to connect with everyone and it takes a certain charisma to be able to do that - this I appreciate. So that's all that was missing from our experience - a proprietor upfront in the restaurant - and who else would cook the excellent food?

I had moules as an appetizer - really excellent.
The hubby had the little cheese-pastry things (which were a little plain to me) but good otherwise.
For entree hubby had the lamb - which was very good but again not my style.
I had the duck. It's quite difficult to make sure the duck is crispy and have a nice sauce with it, and it's not often that people pair duck with a fungi cream sauce, so it was a nice change from all the fruity sweet ducks I have had in my life (and that's quite a few - <quack>), but the sauce was really perfect - really. Mild but with a fungal sweetness that did compliment the duck - and later I could smell the porcini on my fingers all night - it really was like good sex that you can smell on you for hours afterwards, that makes you not want to shower for a while.

Having the salad after the entree was odd and I thought it was a touch pretentious. I was so full too there just did not seem to be any point. I was expecting the vinaigrette to be on a par with the sauces.

The wine at times fantastic - there are many choices by the glass - all really excellent.

All in all, Le Gourmand is a snapshot of elegant excellence and it's nice to know that it's there if I ever have a hunkering for rich saucy food.
This is what excellent food was in the 70's and 80's. Food has moved on since then - this really traditional french approach is considered passe, but then again it's hard to find Gordon Ramsey in Seattle, and if you really want to treat yourself, go here - it's really not as expensive as everyone says because you would pay that much at any other restaurant anyway if you had the appetizers.

Food: 9.5 out of 10
Wine: 10 out of 10
Service: 9 out of 10
Atmosphere: 5 out of 10 (on a quiet night)