Guillaume Tell - Aran

We had heard about Guillaume Tell and have driven past it many times as we live nearby. Yesterday we finally decided to pay a visit what a gem! The restaurant is small and beautifully furnished in a great setting. The food was magnificent. What was really great was the many different food combinations and tastes. Imagine wasabi encased in candy floss? Amazingly wonderful. The wine list is extensive and includes some very interesting options. Not somewhere one would eat often but well worth a visit.

If you blink, you might not know that you had passed through Aran. So,don't blink and stop at Guillaume Tell for one of the most interesting, creative and delicious meals that you may have ever had. Chef Denis Velen is both creative and challenging. Challenging in that he combines tastes that you would not ordinarily even consider putting together. If you enjoy "dining" and not just "eating", this is a place for you.Take the amuse-bouche that was the first dish served. It looked like a ball of cotton sitting in its small dish. In actuality, it was a ball of spun-sugar cotton candy with wasabi mousse and pine nuts inside. Crazily, it worked! The second amuse-bouche that arrived unannounced was what my wife said was the best piece of salmon sashimi that she had ever had: like butter was the only way to describe it. (And we had lived in Japan for eight years).We then asked to share one order of duck liver plancha on a confit of sauerkraut and gingerbread. Again, a strange combination that worked wonderfully. And our one order was split and presented as if it were two single orders. I wish that all restaurants were this considerate of their guests.As to the main courses, there was no disappointment here. I had the breast of quail farci wrapped around a stalk of asparagus along with the crispier thighs with a delicious sauce. My wife had the queues de cigales au curry doux et cacahuete, which I believe roughly translates to shrimp in peanut curry & coconut milk. She proclaimed it to be absolutely wonderful. After this, there was no way that we could even consider desert, but they did sound wonderful. If you are a really big spender there are many wines that you can spend a bundle on if you wish, but we had a bottle of the Jean-Daniel La Portaroux Pinot Noir from the vineyards here in Villette which was perfect for us. To top it off, Chef Denis produces his miracles in a kitchen not much bigger than many of your own and without a cast of thousands. After our meal we stopped to thank the chef and met his only two assistants. Now, after all of my above comments you may ask why 4-stars and not 5? The answer is the sun - or better the lack of shade from the sun. All of the guests last night were seated on the outdoor terrace. And those seated facing west were looking directly into a blinding sun. While the staff did everything that they could possibly do to ameliorate the situation, until the sun set enough in about 75 minutes, it was quite uncomfortable. To make the evening perfect, something would need to be done to provide better protection from the sun's rays.

We were a party of 4 having a 9 course menu degustation, each plate was well served, different yet in theme with the others. Unfotunately the service was a little slow due to staff illness, but not overly long nor a big problem

We were surprised to find a table in a terrace at the last minute in a summer evening. We were impressed by the creativity of every dish, great service and nice wines. The decor could be updated, and the view of the parking lot wasn't that nice but we forgot all these as soon as we started savoring the dishes. Highly recommended.

This was an unplanned visit, trying to find a restaurant that was not fully booked on a sunny evening in Lavaux, and we were stunned by every dish we had! The service is exquisite, with every dish explained and every detail considered, the food is simply a-ma-zing and I would like to repeat that, a-ma-zingg! We chose our dishes a la carte and tried the scallops with truffle ravioli and the lamb dish. We were served some very nice starters as well, and met the chef personally at the end of our evening. The atmosphere is very homey, we were inside but I believe there's also a small terrace. The prices are high, but for the experience I'd say it's very much worth it!!