A friend and I are sitting with the passionate, mercurial Francois Payard, the pastry, chocolate and savories genius from New York who has his eponymous restaurant, pastry and chocolate shop at Caesars Palace, and he’s showing us the proper way to eat one of his rhubarb Napoleons.

It’s a six layer creation, each layer separated by a perfectly browned pate feuillete, or puff pastry. “Just look at how dark this pastry is,” he tells us. “It’s not burned, it’s caramelized. This is how it should be.”

With a deft stroke of the knife, he shears off a half-inch slice, from top to bottom. “Put the whole thing in your mouth at once,” he instructs, in intelligible but heavily accented English. “This is the real way to eat a Napoleon, not crushed up American-style.” Jawohl, Herr Professor.

We bite in, and the layers of cream, fruit and pastry mingle perfectly in our mouths. I hear my friend let out an audible moan of pleasure. She’s either seen the film, “When Harry Met Sally”, or she’s really into pastry.

Payard, a Nice native, literally grew up in his family’s pastry shop. By age 21, he was already a chef at the Three Michelin Star Lucas-Carton in Paris, an unprecedented age to hold such a lofty post.

He first came to New York in 1990, at age 24, and he’s become a fixture there. Payard is currently closed in New York, (he reopens in July, at 116 W. Houston St.) and he’s able to devote more time to his Vegas establishment. It’s a charming, cream and yellow round room designed by David Rockwell, with a tiny kitchen in the center of all the tables. I mention that sitting in the dining room feels like being inside a giant wedding cake. The chef nods his head in agreement.

“The idea was to create a small, charming restaurant,” the chef says. “We didn’t want to compete with the big fish, such as Bradley Ogden, or Guy Savoy.” Did I mention that he has the talented Gregoire Gourreau in the kitchen, ably assisted by Adel Slassi? These boys can do all the things their master has taught them.

Unfortunately, though the restaurant has hit its stride for breakfast and lunch, (when people come to eat the chef’s world class quiche, or his faultless Croque Monsieur), dinner business has languished.

Sure, it would be easy to blame the economy, but it’s probably more germane to mention that the concept the chef had, that of a pre-Celine or Elton John savories menu, may have been brilliant, but was too outré for the masses.

A number of chefs and critics agree that some of the dishes the chef made for his savories menu were the best and most unusual ever tried in Vegas. One of them was a squid ink macaroon filled with homemade garlic cream cheese and olive tapenade, and gorgonzola ice cream. I’d also praise a ricotta tart with citrus and ground Szechuan pepper.

I am choosing the present to mention all this because I’ve long called Payard is the most underappreciated talent in Vegas, and because the restaurant is now offering a $19, three-course, prix fixe lunch. It’s the best deal on the Strip, in fact, probably the best deal in town outright.

Here’s what you get for the price.

The first course is a choice between a round goat cheese onion tart, and a lobster salad. The tart is composed of onion marmalade on top, cheese underneath, and that perfect pastry on the bottom. The salad, avocado, citrus fruits, and butter poached lobster meat, from the tail, is dressed in a light, passion fruit vinaigrette.

The main course is either salmon en papillotte, cooked in a parchment bag with spring vegetables, or couscous with merguez and chicken. I’d choose the couscous, but only because the salmon is Atlantic. I prefer wild salmon, but at this price, that would be impossible.

Then, to top it off, you can have any one of Payard’s museum quality pastries, perhaps the Manjari Berry, chocolate almond sponge cake layered with berry curd and Manjari chocolate mousse, topped with an almond macaroon, or the impossibly rich Pont Neuf, chocolate mousse with chocolate sauce, hazelnut feuilletine and a brownie.

These aren’t just pastries. They are symphonic constructions that require the skill of a potter, the soul of a poet and the mathematical techniques of an architect. Listen, I love apple pie as much as anyone, but let’s face it. You don’t need to study for 20 years to make one.

When you leave, you’ll probably want to buy a small box of chocolate on the way out. Forrest Gump couldn’t have even imagined this stuff.

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