Your journey to Chez Roux is riddled with sterile suburban neighborhoods and a macabre procession of chain restaurants that ends in a megalomaniacal finish line: the luxury resort La Torretta Del Lago. But for running this gauntlet, you are rewarded with what may be one of the finest meals in the state (and if you come at the right time, one hell of a sunset).

The dining room is elegant, but it’s also unfussy and modern, with a section of zigzagging banquettes and several tables along a glass wall that looks out upon the lake. The marble chef’s table is a great spot from which diners can watch the bustling kitchen; however, they are also subjected to a large, flat-screen TV displaying a self-aggrandizing slideshow of food photos interspersed with images of Chef Roux (who is hardly involved with the restaurant anymore) from television shows or posing with other celebrities.

The menu and meticulous technique are true-blue French, right down to the insistence of using the finest local ingredients. A cheese soufflé made with Dublin, Texas’s own Veldhuizen Farm’s cheddar from grass-fed cows is impossibly airy and rich, a cloud floating upon sweet creamed corn—all Lone Star and all Gaul. Halibut fillet is cooked superbly, and then elevated to greatness by a house-cured pork belly. Turnip fondant comes caramelized to the point of tasting nearly like toffee and is threaded with savory, salty bits of duck confit. Many dishes here are a performance of textures and flavors as stirring and flawless as a Jean-Luc Godard film.

And so it goes at Chez Roux: one brilliant course after another. You might encounter a cart of fully ripened French cheeses allowed to rest at room temperature; figs stuffed with whipped Fourme d’Ambert; or a foie gras terrine tickled with Muscat and reigned in by pungent baby leeks.

The low points are few, but noticeable against this backdrop: often-awkward service; a wine list that mingles compulsory domestic clunkers with better, but overpriced, French bottles; and a few mains that still play it too safe. Nevertheless, this is some of the most capable French cooking found in Texas and with one of the loveliest views. The journey to Conroe may not be the most inspired, but the destination certainly is.

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