Napa Area Restaurants: Reviews & Recommendations

[melkor]

I'd suggest skipping Pinot Blanc. I had a very mediocre meal there.

From the looks of things, they won't be around much longer anyway.

[therese]

Back from our trip to Napa, and thanks to all here for the very helpful advice. Some very specific feedback follows.

We were staying in Calistoga, and didn't arrive until late afternoon, so had an early dinner at Wappo, a place that's been around for quite a while but hasn't lost it charms. Small-ish place, rustic feel, gracious service. Middle of the week, so Calistoga pretty much dead. I had a chile relleno with walnut sauce (very good) followed by a strawberry and custard tart. Husband had a pork chop with roasted root vegetables, similarly well-prepared. Prices low by Napa standards.

The next day it was pouring rain, and we had plans for the afternoon in any case, so we had an early lunch at Gillwood's in St. Helena. Basically a diner sort of place with wait staff that know the locals (and there are lots of them) by name but treat everybody really well. I had great corned beef hash (billed as made from scratch, and I believe them) topped with two perfectly-poached eggs and sourdough toast (bread also described as made in house). Husband had a grilled sandwich that was very good, but perhaps a bit more oil on the grill than he was expecting. He could only finish half but took the rest to go. Dessert a couple of doors north at a pleasant bakery, mexican wedding cookies.

Dinner that night was at Bistro Jeanty. Far and away the most disappointing experience of the trip, particularly as I'd cancelled a reservation at Bouchon in favor of this place. The exterior's okay (the upmarket shopping village setting notwithstanding), the interior's sort of a yawn but also fine (we were in the back room with the fire, a nice touch). Service marginal, and it got worse as the night wore on. But it was the food that really made me want to stand up and yell, "Hey, the emperor is naked!" And by way of reference, I lived in France as a teenager (in a French household) and have eaten in plenty of bistros, etc., so it's not a question of lack of familiarity with the food.

We started off with fairly classic dishes, lamb's tongue salad and smoked trout with potato salad. The lamb's tongue salad (my husband's choice) was fine, if a bit extra-mayonnaise-y even by French standards. The smoked trout (made in house, as per the menu) was a different story altogether. Rather than the usual dry-smoked fish this version is still soft and moist, more of a pickled or gravlax sort of prep. The promised potato salad was some small pieces of potato mixed in with a green salad comprised predominantly of frisee (or some other frilly green), the entire dish awash in a vinaigrette that pooled a good half centimeter in the dish. Edible (and I was hungry) but not a dish I'd repeat or recommend to friends.

Our second courses were the really problematic ones. My husband got a special, lamb cheeks served over gemelli along with some vegetable bits mixed in. He managed to eat some of it and finally said that he probably just wasn't in the mood too eat, as he was finding it not very pleasant. In the mood or not, the dish was unpleasant: way too salty (yes, even by salty French standards), very intensely flavored meat that reminded me of commercially-prepared salisbury steak (the sauce, not the meat itself, which was the appropriate texture). I'd ordered a starter for my second course, as the main dishes all struck me as a bit heavy (something I do pretty frequently, but make a point of tipping as if I'd ordered something from the list of main dishes; the waiter made a comment along the lines of "it's okay, we'll still be nice to you"). Unfortunately I'd ordered the salad with bacon and egg. In addition to its being way too similar to the first course I'd ordered (something that the server should have pointed out, assuming he was familiar with the dishes and so knew that the dish billed as smoked trout with potato salad was basically a green salad with some hunks of trout and potato), the "oeuf mollet" was not nearly so soft-cooked as tradition demands. In fact, it was downright done, with only a very minimally soft center left and none of the desired eggy ooziness that makes this dish special. Our waiter returned our half-eaten dishes to the kitchen without comment.

For dessert I got the crepe Suzette. Note the singular crepe, as it is a single crepe that arrives all spread out on the dish, not folded or garnished in any way. The best dish of the night, the crepe well-prepared and the orange flavor very pleasant. At $10.50 the most expensive sweet on the menu. My husband got the lemon sorbet, and it was fine.

Okay, I'm going to stop there, as this post is already too long. Stay tuned for Martini House and Terra...

[melkor]

I'm sorry to hear about your disappointing meal at Jeanty, I've been there several times though I've never ordered any of the dishes you had. At this point, I think I like Pere Jeanty a few blocks up the road better, but every meal I've had at Bistro Jeanty has been excellent. I wonder if I've just been lucky with my menu selections...

[therese]

Thanks for the sympathy, melkor. I had high hopes, and had the dishes I ordered been as I'd expected I'd have been happy. The lamb's tongue salad was okay, and I'd never have ordered the lamb cheeks, as the even the description was not appealing, but that was my husband's decision. We wrote it off as a bad (really bad) night in the kitchen.

[melkor]

Thanks for the sympathy, melkor. I had high hopes, and had the dishes I ordered been as I'd expected I'd have been happy. The lamb's tongue salad was okay, and I'd never have ordered the lamb cheeks, as the even the description was not appealing, but that was my husband's decision. We wrote it off as a bad (really bad) night in the kitchen.

On the bright side... you did manage to consume the better part of a lamb's head...

[Carolyn Tillie]

Stay tuned for Martini House and Terra...

I'm looking forward to it! As a recent transplant, I'm still working my way through all the restaurants and greatly appreciate all the opinions offered...

[therese]

Okay, so on with the show.

For lunch the next day we went back to Wappo, as it was convenient and we'd had a good experience there the first night. Still very slow in Calistoga, as it's not yet the weekend, but again the service was gracious and competent, and the food very good. I had Brazilian seafood chowder, described as "Cod, Shrimp & Scallops with Tomato, Onion, Coconut, Peanuts, Ginger, Chile & Cilantro". Could have been hideous, but instead was great. Husband had a cup of tomato soup (sort of Mexican in execution) and grilled salmon sandwich. All very good. We didn't have time for dessert, as we had an appointment elsewhere.

Dinner was at Martini House. Far and away the best dinner we had while in Napa. I was prepared to find it less than fantastic, as elaborate decor (check out those petanque balls) and huge buzz do not necessarily portend great food. But in this instance our only regret was that we'd had too much wine that afternoon and so didn't feel up to exploiting what looked like a great wine list. Busy busy sommelier, looked to be maybe 22. Oh well, next time.

Anyway, a very snazzy but cozy interior that includes views of the kitchen with its tightly choreographed staff. Wait staff similarly tightly choreographed, with space at such a premium that everybody's murmuring "behind you" to their colleagues all the time. Service excellent all around. View of the kitchen so much fun that my husband and I switched seats so that we could both see.

My husband started with mushroom soup that was outstanding. I got salad with oeuf mollet and wild mushrooms, a dish that sounds a lot like what I got at Bistro Jeanty. But the similarity stops there, as the dish was even more sublime than it's supposed to be: great mushrooms, wonderfully oozy egg, just perfect.

We both got small courses for our seconds, tuna tartare for my husband and mackerel (billed as a "market special") with fingerling potatoes for me. Both would have been large servings for actual appetizers, both beautifully conceived and executed. Again, I'd managed to choose a dish similar (in name, at least) to one I'd had the previous evening.

My husband skippped dessert. I had crepes Suzette. A more classic prep than Jeanty's (and $2.50 less to boot), with the crepes folded in quarters and a sauce over them. Not flambeed table-side, but then I can't imagine a venue worse-suited to tableside flambee than Martini House, so just as well. French press coffee followed dessert, very good.

Service very good throughout. We'd way underspent our usual $150+ for two, so tipped as if we hadn't.

A great dinner all around.

[therese]

On the bright side... you did manage to consume the better part of a lamb's head... 

Yeah, my husband smiled when it realized it, noting as well that one might have put together the menu "tongue in cheek".

The waiter also picked up on the "all lamb, all the time" reference, but ours was reportedly the first mention of tongue in cheek.

[therese]

The third day of our visit found us without previously arranged commitments (other than dinner plans, of course), so we headed for the coast, up to Jenner and then down to Bodega Bay and on to Point Reyes. We stopped for lunch in Bodega Bay, choosing The Tides Wharf Restaurant because, well, it was there. Great views, professional and friendly staff. Husband had barbecued oysters and Bodega chowder (tomato-based), I had a sample plate of raw and cold seafood. Exactly as billed, nicely executed. Desserts are made on the premises, and I got an almond raspberry cake that was more of a torte: three thin layers of almond cake with (too sweet) raspberry jam filling, the entire thing covered in piped marzipan then covered in whatever that clear gelatin stuff is that they put on fruit tarts. Over the top sweet, but I'd do it again.

Dinner was at Terra. High hopes given its rep here on eGullet and elsewhere, and the total lack of advertising in any form (not even a sign unless you count the name written along with the other building's tenants at the front door). An awkward arrangement with two rooms broken up by the entry, always a bit problematic as one gets the feeling that one is not in the "cool" room (no matter which room you're really in). Nice interior, mostly stone. A bit chilly by the windows.

Service was overall very good. The sommelier could have been a lot more helpful given what appeared to be a nice list, presumably containing very good and possibly unusual wines at all price points. We were ordering some fairly disparate food items, so rather than just go with our usual approach in this setting (a pinot noir from Oregon, maybe something we've not had before) we consulted with the sommelier. His advice was to go with a pinot noir. He pointed to the three most expensive and said that these were the best. He pointed at the single most expensive and said it was the overall best. He pointed out the three next most expensive (remarking that we might not want to spend that much) and told us that these were the three next best. The least expensive of these suggestions was from Oregon, at which point my husband said we were sort of making a point of drinking Napa and Sonoma wines this visit. He had nothing to add, so we had pinot noir from Oregon, something we actually had had before. It was very good.

Anyway, our regular server was fine, pleasant and professional.

I started with the mushroom and lentil salad with crispy veal sweetbreads. The sweetbreads had been deep-fried, or at least so aggressively pan-fried that they'd blobbed up into round fritter sorts of things. Not much contrast with the lentils and mushrooms. Not bad, but I wouldn't order it again. Husband had hamachi tataki, very good.

I had cod and shrimp dumplings in shiso broth. Nicely prepared, but I found the shiso note in the broth a bit stronger than necessary. And I like shiso a lot. Maybe I just notice the shiso because I like it so much. Husband had duck with a risotto fritter. He found the deep-fried bits too, well, fried, but I liked them.

For dessert I had orange risotto in a brandy snap with passion fruit sauce. Served with blood orange and grapefruit sections, as well as a few pomegranate grains. Not cutting edge cuisine by any means, but very good. Husband had prickly pear and Meyer lemon sorbet along with a tuile. He doesn't know (or care, frankly) as much about food, so I explained to him that tuile meant tile, and that these typically curved like roof tiles. Turns out this tuile is actually the size of a roof tile. Anyway, very nice sorbets.

A pleasant meal, though not blow my socks off great. I might go back, and this time I'd make a point of torturing the sommelier with arcane questions.

Edited March 2, 2004 by therese (log)

[melkor]

Is that the same duck and risotto that your husband had?

[therese]

Yep, the very same dish. The winter menu presently on the web site is the exact menu that we ate from.

So what did you think of the rice fritter/croquette/arancino? It's described as arrancini on the menu, but of course that's plural, and it's generally spelled with one "r" in any case, as the idea is that the finished product looks like an orange---I actually asked our server what this was, as I couldn't quite figure it out from the desciption. I also had to ask about the "yuzu pepper" that accompanied the hamachi, as I knew yuzu as citrus and couldn't figure out what the pepper part referred to. She confirmed that the yuzu was citrus, so I didn't inquire further into the pepper aspect of things.

[melkor]

The rice ball is good, but the sauce that the duck is served in is by far my favorite part of the dish.

[therese]

Bet you thought I was done, didn't you? Hah!

On our way home we stopped by Taylor's Refresher for lunch, where my husband had a hamburger (pink inside as promised, prompting my husband to mutter "I hope they know what they're doing") and I had an egg salad sandwich. Both very good. The egg salad was great, nice big chunks of egg. It's made with mustard that gave me instant heartburn, but I still ate it.

It was pretty chilly, so I skipped the milkshake as my hands were already pretty cold from gripping my beer. Besides, I was saving room for Bouchon bakery. I got lots of things, including fruit pastes (nicely intense, not overly sweet), pain au chocolat (okay), macarons (one chocolate and one maybe hazelnut, very good), madeleines (the stars of the visit, great flavor and much more body than the usual throw-away lemon poundcake version), tea cakes (nice, but I missed the powdered sugar), and some sort of layered creamy thing, maybe hazelnut and coffee? This last item had nice flavor, but the base was sort of like a graham cracker crumb crust, sort of a let down.

[winesonoma]

The Pistachio milkshake is the best part of a visit!

[therese]

They were pushing green tea milkshakes on this occasion.

Believe me, only thoroughly chilled hands (I was wearing leather gloves to drink my beer, okay?) and the thought of a certain Yountville patisserie/boulangerie a mere twenty minutes down the road kept me from getting a milkshake.

That and the possibility that my dear husband might just make a crack about my tireless consumption of calories.

[tigerwoman]

Okay, so on with the show.

For lunch the next day we went back to Wappo, as it was convenient and we'd had a good experience there the first night. Still very slow in Calistoga, as it's not yet the weekend, but again the service was gracious and competent, and the food very good. I had Brazilian seafood chowder, described as "Cod, Shrimp & Scallops with Tomato, Onion, Coconut, Peanuts, Ginger, Chile & Cilantro". Could have been hideous, but instead was great. Husband had a cup of tomato soup (sort of Mexican in execution) and grilled salmon sandwich. All very good. We didn't have time for dessert, as we had an appointment elsewhere.

a day or two before Carolyn's potluck in Napa (week of Feb 18th) we had lunch at Wappo too. Having only eaten dinner there a few years before we found lunch a bit underwhelming. We did like the Brazilian seafood chowder but frankly it had more of a Thai/Asian tone to it - still very tasty !! Also had the chili rellenos - which is so pretty. We shared the meze platter which had many items on it but only 2 were outstanding - the eggplant stuffed with goats cheese breaded and deep fried and some sort of pomegranete walnut tapenade - probably a Georgian thing. We also had the duck chicaronne dish - of which we liked the duck but the salad was bland. The lunch was a stark contrast to the truly memorable and fabulous dinner we had 3 years ago - somewhat dissappointing. Fortunately we had a few good meals in Healdsburg with friends that sort of made up for Wappo.

\I have pictures of everything but not sure how to post them here and too tired to figure it out now.

[therese]

I'd not booked any of our meals ahead of time at Wappo, as I'd checked out their menu on-line and it seemed a bit more fusion-y than I was looking for. So both our meals there were spur of the moment decisions, and my expectations were not sky high. So I was pleasantly surprised.

Catahoula's, by the way, has closed, to be replaced by Crush 29, reportedly opening (as per the Calistoga rag) this spring.

We had a beer at Hydro one evening. Nice space, pleasant people.

[tanabutler]

We had a beer at Hydro one evening. Nice space, pleasant people.

That's the Hydro Bar & Grill in Calistoga?

We love that place. They used to serve the absolute best deep-friend calamari I've ever had, with two side sauces. One was a ginger tamari and the other, wasabi tartar sauce. We ate lunch there every single time we were in Napa for lunch. We returned last July, on our way home from back-to-back Steely Dan/Bob Dylan concerts at Konocti Harbor. Alas, the calamari is no longer on the menu.

Brunch was great, though.

It really is a good space, with the high ceilings, brick walls, and nice lighting fixtures. It's very reasonably priced, too.

We'll be back.

[therese]

That's the Hydro Bar & Grill in Calistoga?

One and the same. We've never eaten there, but find it a congenial place for a drink, and they often have live music as well.

[misscindy]

My husband and I are coming out to Napa from Baltimore in September. Nine years ago (!) we spent our honeymoon in Sonoma and mr. man has been wanting to come back ever since. I do realize that Napa and Sonoma are very different places--we are staying in Yountville because we want to eat at the French Laundry. We did manage to get reservations there, which felt like a major accomplishment. But, I'd like some feedback on our other restaurant choices, keeping in mind a few things. We don't want to drive TOO far, we don't want to eat "fancy" food every night and we'd like to go to at least one or two places that aren't too touristy. We are thinking of Bouchon, Zuzu, Mustard's Grill, Pilar, Market and Foothill Cafe. Also thinking we must have lunch at Taylor's Refresher.

Any suggestions for other activities that shouldn't be missed will be appreciated.

And, of course, we plan to visit wineries--will write about that later. Thanks.

[Absonot]

I happen to think Bouchon is pretty darn touristy...a few doors down, Bistro Jeanty has a much more charming atmosphere and while it *might* be as touristy (in Yountville you can't really avoid it), I prefer the food quality and overall vibe of the place. Menu is lustier, heartier.

http://www.bistrojeanty.com/

Just my 2cents. With your list, the romantic occasion, and the FABULOUS time of year, you will have a delightful time regardless.

[samgiovese]

misscindy:

There is a great thread here that should be of help.

Have a great time and enjoy the harvest!

[Julia'sChild]

misscindy:

There is a great thread here that should be of help.

Have a great time and enjoy the harvest!

And this ONE as well..

[CtznCane]

For the food, view and ambience Auberge du Soleil is close and a wonderful place to go.

[samgiovese]

I agree with CtznCane that the view is unsurpassed anywhere else in the valley. And when Richard Reddington was there, the food was superb. He left several months back, however, and the the new chef has departed radically from what worked so well. We had lunch there recently, and aside from their famous hamburger and the frito misto, the menu was unrecognizable. The chef featured very expensive blue prawns and other seafood. We thought it very pricey and not up to par quality-wise. We will try it again in a few weeks to see if it has improved...could have been "opening week jitters". Anyone else eaten there recently?