I will definitely go back when I am in Texas again and will recommend it to everyone.Raised in Houston and Utopia, Laurel Waters met Nelson when he brought his crew to her Laurel Tree restaurant while building a treehouse in nearby Leakey. This place is fantastic, excellent food, beautiful setting and great service. She studied at Le Cordon Blue in France and worked in France at various restaurants. Around 1:15 the chef/ower, Laurel Waters came out and visited each table to see how everyone felt about their meal and to thank them for coming. Everything was very fresh and cooked impeccably. The ginger remoulade was great with the artichoke heart and the soup was fantastic. I had the quail and it was delicious! The dressing on the salad was very good and complimentary to the quail. On the day we went our menu included: Appetizer - Crispy fried artichoke heart with ginger remoulade Soup - Roasted butternut squash and basil pesto cheese muffin Main Course - Quail stuffed with sausage, cranberries and sweet onion over mixed greens or Shrimp and Grits with mixed green salad Dessert - Carmelized Honeycrisp applies with cappuccino gelato All of this plus coffee was $22, which I felt was very reasonable. It is a dry county so there is no alcohol served but you may bring your own wine and they will supply the glasses and corkscrew. Everyone gets appetizer, soup, main entree and salad, dessert and beverages. The menus change weekly and are a set menu for everyone except for the main entree which gives you a choice of two options. The restaurant is very warm and welcoming inside and has a country french style. We arrived approximately 10 minutes early but they seated us quickly. You're free to wander through the grounds if you wish to. They only serve lunch and dinner on Saturdays. There are flower gardens and in the spring it is surrounded by fields of poppies in bloom. It's a beautiful stone building surrounded by 400+ year old live oak trees, one in particular is in full view from inside the restaurant. It was fantastic! The restaurant is outside of the small town of Utopia, TX. My sister, brother-in-law and I ate lunch at the Laurel Tree in mid- November. In fact, Chef Waters is planning a shopping trip to France in March 2012! All in all, we had a great day, left San Antonio around 9:30 AM and returned by 3 PM, feeling that we had spent an afternoon in a French restaurant. Quite a unique find in a town as small as Utopia. Chef Waters travels to France, where she trained as a chef, and buys antiques and has them shipped back to Utopia for her mother to display and sell. In addition to a most enjoyable lunch, we stopped at "Main Stree Utopia," 282 Main Street, which is a great antique shop owned by Chef Waters' mother. She said that she designed the kitchen around the antique French "island" which was center-stage to where she and her kitchen staff were working. Chef Laurel Waters graciously accommodated our request and talked to us while we watched her prep orange and grapefruit supremes for the green salad. Several of us are "foodies" and we asked the hostess if the chef would allow us to see her kitchen. It makes for a very unhurried and leisurely luncheon or dinner experience. Another practice at Laurel Tree is that your reservation guarantees that you have the table for the entire lunch service. You would want to have a designated driver, however, to make the very winding road a safe trip back. As others have noted, Laurel Tree is in a "dry" county, so diners can bring their own wine if they choose. For dessert, we were served fresh apple cake topped with whipped cream and candied pecan. Both were piping hot and absolutely delicious. Half of us chose the salmon and the other half the chicken. The main course was a choice of either Salmon patty or a puff pastry filled with chicken, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts served along with lemon mashed potatoes and a green salad. Next followed Broccoli soup with Gruyere cheese and a basil pesto cheese muffin. The $22 four-course menu started with Caramelized beef sausage with Dijon and grapes and an egg salad tartlette. Then south on 187 thru Utopia, 2 1/2 miles arriving at Laurel Tree, for our 11:30 lunch reservation. Six girlfriends drove the 1 1/2 hours from San Antonio to Utopia taking the scenic route 16 to Bandera and then picking up 470 west winding its way to 187.
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