We started with “Prosciutto di Parma, mascarpone, honey” ($2 supplement). The rosy-hued Italian ham was fittingly cut with the Berkel, the Rolls Royce of meat slicers. The prosciutto was served with dishes of creamy white cheese and honeycomb on a commemorative LUDOBITES wood plank from The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills. The starter was simple but terrific, especially when combined with Breadbar’s excellent bread.

Ludo topped his heirloom tomato salad with a blimp-shaped mass of feta mousse, oregano, shaved onion and pitted Nicoise olives. It’s long past tomato season, but these red, green and purple tomatoes made from hand-me-down plants tasted of-the-moment.

Fillets of silky smoked salmon were topped with tiny edible flowers and Petrossian trout roe, which provided salty little bursts. It quickly became clear that dipping the smoked salmon in the “tangerine gazpacho” was a waste, so I picked up the dish and began drinking the cold yellow soup, which was phenomenal, with sweet tangerine pulp.

We had mixed success with the “Foie gras tart, maple syrup and lemon.” The foie gras terrine and oyster mushrooms were phenomenal, but the pastry base was difficult to cut, even with a knife. The overpowering spread had mild sweetness from the maple syrup that couldn’t match the explosive lemon tartness.

“Celery roots velouté, whole grain mustard, Parmesan marshmallow” was my least favorite dish. A velouté is similar to Béchamel sauce, a thickened stock. The “soup” was too rich for my taste, especially when piled with fluffy Parmesan, but my friends lapped it up. I could have used more Dijon spice to cut through the richness of the cream.

The most successful “two bites” combined “Sautéed scallop, curried yogurt, spinach.” The bay scallops were the most perfectly cooked I’ve ever tasted. Since they’re small, the bivalves are normally overcooked until they match the texture of pencil erasers. Not under Ludo’s watch. The Indian style curry was equally excellent, as was the spinach.

Our first main course combined “cherry tomato aigre-doux, rigatoni pasta, poached lobster in tamarind butter” ($3 supplement). The meaty lobster claw was excellent, and the melted mozzarella was a nice touch, but the tomato sauce was overwhelmingly sour. It must have been the shredded tamarind. If we spoke French, we would have known what to expect. Aigre-doux is the French term for sweet and sour, but Ludo took both aspects to the extreme.

Our second main course incorporated “red fish, broccoli, soy sauce caramel, fennel, blood orange.” I’d never seen red fish, aka red drum, on a menu outside of New Orleans. This version featured a caramelized fillet of luscious, pull-apart sheets. The fennel and blood orange “slaw” was another intensely flavored Ludo creation that overwhelmed my palate. The gritty broccoli puree cradled soy sauce caramel, both of which I enjoyed.

We bypassed Ludo’s caviar topped panna cotta in favor of a more conventional dessert, the “milk-shake “belle-Helene” pear (Auguste Escoffier).” In 1870, famous French chef Auguste Escoffier apparently created a pear dessert to honor Jacques Offenbach’s opera “La belle Hélène,” topping pears with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. In a nod to Escoffier, Ludo used chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla and blended pear pulp with the chocolate in a milkshake. The dessert was then topped with a small pool of whipped cream and squiggles of chocolate sauce. It was a fairly simple but delicious shake.