La Vieille Maison, one of Boca Raton’s most famous restaurants is closing. Three decades after Leonce Picot brought French cuisine and Old World service to southern Palm Beach County, this Boca Raton real estate property has become more valuable than the restaurant. The last lemon crepe soufflé, a constant over 30 years, will be served Wednesday. The most requested table, the four top in the Fish Pond Room, will be no more.

“It was difficult selling that place,” he said. “We were the first in Florida, perhaps in the South, that poured champagne by the glass. We were the first ones to bring Mondavi wine east of the Mississippi.” Laura Sayles, Picot’s daughter and the restaurant’s controller, said, “We were doing things that no one else had done before.” She runs the family’s Good Tastes, a Boca wine and gift shop that is not being sold. “[La Vieille Maison’s] very unlike most restaurants in South Florida,” said Carol Gottlieb, of Boca Raton, who celebrated a friend’s birthday there in March. “It’s set up like you’re the only ones there.”

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