Folie Douce

This is my favorite restaurant in Arcata– they do such a fabulous job. I pretty much have given up on almost everywhere else. And now they have lunch which is the best deal in town.
The oysters and artichoke cheesecake is to die for. The ingredients are quality– as opposed to many other places in town (I won’t name names) where you pay almost as much but get something that was delivered on a Cisco truck and is guaranteed to give you cancer in a decade.
Recently the foccacia they serve with the meal has been slightly underbaked– that’s my only complaint. :-)

For a couple to spend a $ 100 before tip, I expect a great experience. It was disappointing. The service was slow and inattentive. I didn’t Like my entrée (which believe me, doesn’t happen ever) and told the waiter when he asked that it was «okay» and he did nothing. For all he knew there could have been a hair or a fly in it, but he didn’t bother to find out. I wanted another glass of wine with my entrée but he ran away so fast I couldn’t even get out the words! The canolis we took home for dessert were hollow! They just filled the ends enough to cover the hole! I can’t belive I paid so much! Another humco disappointment. Also, they used blood orange glaze in basically all elements on their menu. It made my meal way too acidic. I’m all for local and in season, but damn! Don’t let it compromise your flavors. Also my bf’s duck came out cold. But it was delicious imo

My favorite place to eat. I go hear with my husband once a month for our date night and I don’t ever have complaints.

Outstanding service, amazing fresh food.
We had a small birthday party last night here and absolutely loved it! We started with prosciutto wrapped scallops on celery purée and pomegranate salsa. It was incredible. So fresh, tender and delicious. We had the lamb shanks with root veggies and latkes. My absolute favorite. Also amazing was the wild mushroom pizza and the seared duck breast with herb waffles. A must go to restaurant!

This place was «ok». Hamburger was cold and had absolutely no flavor! Would never order it again. That being said, the pizza and calzones were amazing! Best crust, great flavor, and quality ingredients. Would come back here but ONLY for the pizza and calzones. Also, the service was very good and the staff were very nice.

This place is outstanding. We stopped there for dinner on a trip to the Redwood National Forest. It was a real diamond in the rough. The food was great, as well as, believe it or not the wine from Humboldt county.

Wonderful experience and service last night. In town to visit family and my nephew the young college student, and this small town restaurant stands up to many restaurants in larger cities with regard to service and quality of ingredients, flavor profiles.
Picked vegetables with local picked egg, done with a light pickling hand. Lovely.
Steelhead ceviche (we could have used a little more fish) with lots of CA avocado, pomegranate. Yum.
Blackened Steelhead over jasmine rice with a coconut curry and vegetables. Wow. So good. And not being super familiar with steelhead prior I was very pleased. It’s a trout who, like salmon, migrates back up freshwater streams to mate so it’s eating flesh is a beautiful pink. This dish was delicious.
FD also shines with desserts. Homemade ice cream in smoked chocolate, coffee with cocoa nibs, and a spiced cheesecake. All wonderful and we really enjoyed sharing.
Ask your server for wine recommendations because they know the menu well. It was so enjoyable I’m tempted to go back tonight.

I ordered filet mignon tips with peppercorn sauce from the sampler menu. All the greens were undercooked — is this the new American preparation? It’s not raw and it’s not cooked, and I didn’t enjoy eating any of the vegs/​beans. The mashed potatoes were really good, but really, why plop the beautiful steak tips on top of them and smother them both in a heavy brown sauce that tasted burned. My partner ordered kobe NY steak, requesting no sauce. Hmm, why then was it brought to him slapped atop his mound of mashed potatoes smothered in sauce, which also covered his broccoli? He scraped off the gravy and found a beautiful steak!

Way, way overpriced. Was excited to try lunch, but was sadly let down by the horrid baking skills. I don’t know how folks eat the sandwich roll with its doughy, mushy center and cardboard tasting outside. Same problem with the brick fired pizza dough– undercooked doughy, soggy slice of gross. No crunch anywhere to be found on a slice of brick fired pizza??? If the owner cares to improve on the sad slices the restaurant is producing then here’s a tip: When making pizza via a brick fired oven use what is called a «00» flour caputo, tipo, etc. You can find it easily online and ultimately from your supplier
Use that «00» as your foundation and follow a simple recipe also found online and you should be moving in the right direction. Also, 500 degrees is on the cool side when working with somewhat wet dough derived from «00»…650−700 is where you need to be on the oven floor. As for the rolls, find yourself a decent baker or simply buy in bread that’s edible (Brio). If it sounds as if I’m a know-​it-​all, then guilty as charged. I’ve worked 15+ years in the restaurant business, and have personally worked three wood fired brick ovens during that time. Good luck!

One of the worst dinning experiences I’ve had which is highly disappointing considering how well recommended this restaurant came. I order the Kobe steak and didn’t even have the desire to finish it nor did my partner. It wasn’t cooked to order and it didn’t come as listed. Spent 300 dollars on a meal that I could have made better at home. I don’t plan on returning as I am supremely bummed. One good thing was the oysters they served that were from NorthBay Shellfish but the way they prepared them slightly ruined them. I wish I had a better experience.

So utterly disappointed. I’m only writing a review because this is the third time I’ve been so bummed that I wasted my money here. Service is lacking, dude couldn’t keep it straight and we had to order from another server. We weren’t even sure what was going to show up at our table. The food was not overly tasty, the flavors did not complement each other and the presentation on the plate was atrocious. At one point my partner wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to eat and assemble his meal. It looked like a taco party gone wrong on his plate. For me, the twice-​baked potato tasted like charcoal, the NY was unbelievably hard to cut through, overly fatty and loaded with gristle, and not cooked to order. Save your money and go somewhere else.

I enjoyed eating here. The server was very nice. I went on a week day night for dinner. The food wasn’t bad… but it wasn’t amazing either. The duck was a bit undercooked. The salmon curry soup was good. The veggies were a tad undercooked. Everything tasted OK, but given the high cost I’d probably go somewhere else. It is possible that I went on an «off» night… or maybe ordered the wrong dishes. But overall I left with a so-​so experience.

We had a wonderful, romantic meal there tonight. The food is fresh, varied and a joy. Service was just right; personable, prompt and then leaving us alone. We will come back for sure.
i could start trying to describe the dishes, but you just need to see the menu yourself.

Came here for a romantic dinner and the food, wine, atmosphere & service were all perfect. I feel like it doesn’t even matter what I order, everything is delicious! There is nothing I would change about this place (except maybe the prices). You get what you pay for and this place is amazing!

2^nd only to larupin…
folie douce is the bomb!!!
they have a seasonal menu, always fresh.
also weekly specials created by creative chefs.
i got this melon prawn chile pepper appetizer that was world class…
i was bumbed the next time i went because it was gone from the menu…
but, thats what you get from them, fresh, quality, 5star food!!!
and you don’t have to drive to larupin or moonstone to get quality grub.
they also have a nice wine list and fresh bread etc…
GREAT PLACE
one of my favorites…

The atmosphere was adorable.
The service was 5 star.
We did the prefix. The raspberry salad was amazing. I got the filet which was so tasty. The chimichurri was ok. It could have been a brighter flavor. The meal was a bit salty. The greens were perfect.
The homemade ice team was great!

I’ve come here for lunch twice now. It’s pretty good, portion and price wise. I’ve ordered the duck egg, bacon, Brie and avocado sandwich twice with a side salad, it’s $ 12 and with tax, just .99 extra. Classy, tasty, definitely spruces up ones lunch. I would recommend. Only one star down because it’s very small inside.

My previous experience with this place was a zero to one star experience. I don’t think there was anything I liked about it & I had no intention of *ever* coming back. I believe I wrote a scathing review on it, but can’t seem to find it at the moment.
This evening was an odd one that led my husband and I back to this restaurant. We didn’t make dinner reservations at the place we had planned eating (they were packed) & needed to figure out where to go. Both of us were having a deep craving for crème bruleé & decided to pick a restaurant based on who had it. We got on Unilocal & looked at several local restaurants to see who had taken a photo of, or whose menu mentioned the delicious dessert. Our absolute favorite is Larrupin Café’s crème bruleé, but we had already been in Trinidad earlier & didn’t want to make the drive back. We were in Arcata because of Arts Alive & figured we’d rather stay in town.
Knowing our previous unpleasant experience (a couple years prior) we weren’t too excited at coming here, but figured getting dessert & coffee couldn’t hurt. They seated us right away at the bar, which I really liked because I really enjoyed watching everyone cooking, and the staff was very pleasant. A pizza had just went by us and it looked good. We decided to split one and honestly, it was quite tasty. I think watching the cooks was really the highlight. They were busy bees & all had their own roles to play. Each one as important as the next. When dessert time came we were not disappointed. I’ve had a lot of bruleés from a lot of places, and this was a strong contender for my favorite.
While leaving I made a mental note to come back here soon. There was a couple more pizzas on the menu that looked like they really wanted to be eaten. Actually, I pretty much already decided what I want. I never review the same place twice on here, but I was impressed enough that they deserved an updated review. They’ve earned more stars, and my interest. Hopefully they’ll be able to continue to impress.

This place was SO close to getting 5 stars, and actually 4.5 stars would be perfect. Let me tell you why. I love brussel sprouts. I ordered a dish mainly because I saw it had brussel sprouts on it. It was the «seared duck breast with a red wine poached pear sauce served with savory waffles topped with house blue cheese ice cream and served with sautéed brussels and roasted beets».
The dish itself was wild. Like a child had invented it. There were so many parts to it. There was the waffles and then the bleau cheese icecream and then duck breast, and then parsnips over a bed of greens. It was all a little bizarre when you looked at it, but somehow all together it tasted phenomenal. There was also… the brussel sprouts. They ended up being the most disappointing thing about the dish. They were hard to cut, and it seemed like they were boiled. They didn’t taste good. All they needed to do was bake those suckers and lightly season them and they would have been great. Maybe they didn’t cook mine for long enough?
Ok so that was the bad, now with the good. My partner got a pizza which tasted amazing. He got the «wild mushrooms, caramelized onions, and fontina cheese drizzled with a white truffle aioli». It was good and highly recommended.
Ok NOW for the best part. The savory artichoke heart pancetta cheesecake. GET IT! It was the best thing I have had in a while! The crunchy crust coupled with the nice whipped and light filling of the «cheesecake» was incredible. I honestly wish I had gotten one all too myself. Also, don’t be mislead by the word cheesecake. This dish was very light and fluffy and will allow room for more.
Final recommendations:
1) Get the artichoke heart pancetta cheesecake and thank me later.
2) Get the pizza (because who doesn’t like pizza?)
3) Main courses are inventive and enjoyable but don’t get stuck on the brussel sprouts like I did.
4) Great wine list. If they have the half bottle of the Noceto Sangiovese, I would recommend that — especially with the duck or steak.

Stopped in Arcata while driving through from Arizona to Oregon. This is a fantastic local restaurant who sources their food from other business nearby. The atmosphere is intimate and cozy with interesting art displayed on the the walls.
The menu changes based on seasonality. My boyfriend enjoyed the pre-​fixed tasting menu. I ordered the freshly made pasta. Both of us were extremely happy with our meals and the interesting flavors that were unique to each dish (no mass chain food here ;-). We each enjoyed a glass of wine and loved the local Sauvignon Blanc from Old Growth Cellars.
We highly recommend anyone traveling through to stop and enjoy dinner at Folie Douce.