Greetings! hoping the Board can help with recommendations for a quick trip I have in September. Here are the details:
Group: 4 guys. I’m in charge of the dinner planning.
Event: 1 dinner in Napa Valley confined to the area from downtown Napa up to St Helena.
Looking for the following, in order: 1) Great food, 2) Fun over formal.
Where would you go? TIA!
Goose and Gander or Farmstead are great, I’d prefer to sit at the bar at both rather than the dining room.
For me it would be drinks at auberge on the deck then dinner at bistro jeanty
That’s a long stretch (3/4 of the valley) and potentially a long drive home. Where are you staying?
Oenotri (Downtown Napa)
Redd Wood (Yountville)
Bouchon (Yountville)
Ad Hoc (Yountville)
Farmstead (St. Helena)
Have you been to any restaurants you like in Napa Valley before? Presumably 4 guys want to be able to get a little noisy, so anything too formal is out. Bouchon is pretty formal. Ad Hoc is almost too informal, and has just a single, simple prix fixe menu each night. Redd Wood seems perfect. Another in Yountville is Bottega. In downtown Napa there’s The Thomas, which has an upstairs outdoor patio with its own bar. Very good food.
Thanks for the responses! We are likely staying in yountville but could change to Napa.
I’ve been to Redd, Bouchon, Jeanty, Ad Hoc and Bottega though it’s been several years since I’ve been back. All great. I was hoping some new hot spots have opened in the past 2-3 years somewhere in the area.
Redd Wood sounds perfect then. North end of town, across from FL. Full bar, pizza, nice menu, relatively casual place.
+1 you could get pretty loud at the bar or in the dining room and it wouldn’t matter. Great food.
4 GUYS right? Seems an essential element of restaurant ambiance has not been addressed yet.
I’m all ears, Glenn.
Bistro Jeanty
If you want straight forward, no foo foo or eclectic dining in downtown Napa go to Cole’s Chop House or Ristorante Allegria. Both near 1st and Main.
Cole’s is for meat eaters. The wife and I split a New York after having appetizers, wedge salad and sides. Pricey but well worth it. Buy a bottle, they comp a bottle. Do have seafood and stellar oysters Rockefeller. Casual and often noisy.
Allegria specializes in Northern Italian Food. Real good appetizers, salads and food variety. Casual and often noisy.
Up a notch is Codeiro’s Bar & Grill near Silverado Country Club.
http://www.cordeirosbarandgrill.com/menu
If you want to eat with the rest of the tourists, they’ve already been named.
“…stellar oysters Rockefeller.”
Randy, it’s been 28 years since I ran the wine program at Antoine’s (birthplace of that dish and where the service bar was 6 feet from the oysters Rockefeller prep station) and I STILL wake up in the middle of the night sometimes dreaming of smelling those and pissed off 'cause I can’t have any…