L'Auberge Chez Francois

Since 1976 at the same house

Sauces are still the measure here. Jacques Haeringer, Executive Chef and Proprietor at L'Auberge Chez Francois in Great Falls, works in a kitchen built on repetition, pacing, and the old Alsatian habit of letting richness find its edge. He became Chef de Cuisine when his father, François Haeringer, moved the restaurant from Washington, D.C., to Great Falls in 1976, after the Claridge Hotel address gave way to redevelopment. François had opened Chez François in 1954, after coming to the United States in 1948 and cooking his way through Washington kitchens, including the Three Musketeers on Connecticut Avenue. In Great Falls, the family made the restaurant into the auberge François had wanted, a country inn with the discipline of a French dining room and the warmth of a house run by people who knew every corner of it. Jacques’s lineage is direct: his father’s handwritten French recipes, his mother’s years with the office and pastries, and his brother Paul’s work in the front of house. The station has changed around him, but the method has not loosened. The plate still asks for texture, balance, and memory, not novelty for its own sake.

Alsatian weight, kept in balance

The cooking at L'Auberge Chez Francois is classical in structure, with Alsatian and French dishes that carry their weight plainly: Beef Wellington, Chateaubriand, Grand Marnier soufflé, Chocolate soufflé, Bouillabaisse, La Sole de la Manche, Coq au Vin, Seared foie gras, Lobster with Sauternes butter, and Choucroute garni. Jacques’s own signatures include Duck Breasts with Orange Sauce, Goose Rillettes, and Wild Duck Liver Terrine, a set of dishes that shows how the kitchen handles fat, acidity, and savor without sanding off the edges. The restaurant’s format allows a meal to move with ceremony, while the food remains direct. François’s original Washington restaurant once served more than 500 meals a day, a figure that explains part of the house language: refinement had to survive volume, and hospitality had to remain legible under pressure. In Great Falls, the opening night pushed past the intended 75 guests, with François and Jacques cooking while Jacques’s mother handled pastry. That pressure left a mark. The kitchen still favors dishes that reward timing, sauce work, and a steady hand over reinvention.

The room as part of the craft

The room sits on six acres of rolling green hills, on a site that once held a small cluster of shops before François turned it toward the shape of an Alsatian inn. Landscape architect Charles Gillette designed the gardens, and the dining rooms carry Haeringer family heirlooms and murals of Obernai, France, the town that anchors the family’s imagination of hospitality. The house is rustic without becoming casual. It uses the old grammar of a country restaurant: candlelight, fireplaces, wood, fabric, and a sense that the table should slow the guest down before the first course arrives. On the garden level, Jacques’ Brasserie opened in November 2011 with another register of the same memory. Its hand-painted ceramic-topped tables came from François’s collections, as did copper for the walls; red paisley fabric came from bolts kept at his home, and sconces came from the National Cathedral. Bar Rouge, nearby, gives the house a scarlet counter and a shorter route to a drink.

A family table that keeps its form

The restaurant’s awards belong to this address, including AAA Four Diamond recognition and Washingtonian reader votes that named it “Most Romantic,” “Best French,” and “Best Service” for more than 25 years. They matter less as decoration than as evidence of duration. Jacques has also carried the house outward through cooking classes, wine pairing dinners, cookbooks, and television, but the center remains the same pass in Great Falls. The craft here is in the sauce, soufflé, room, and the particular patience of Grand Marnier soufflé.