A group of us will be getting together early next year and want to try and find a really superb restaurant for a BYO the night before. When I googled best restaurants, there were slim pickings. Alexander’s steak House was considered the best, and it looks like a mid level steak house.
This is for a group of wine geeks, and we are planning to dig deep in our cellars, so need somewhere that can handle a heavy duty BYO (glassware, decanters, preferably a sommelier although we can do it ourselves). Any thoughts either in Cupertino or within a twenty mile radius.
How large a group? Plumed Horse in Saratoga is a place some of the elite wine geeks around here go. A very nice, small, semi-casual new restaurant in Palo Alto is Zola, one of my current favorites. Alexander’s is a higher end steak house, will probably be tricky to negotiate a good corkage deal, but you could try if you want steak.
Manresa in Los Gatos would be expensive for corkage (and dinner) but it’s great. They will work with you for service on wine dinners. I’m not sure if you would get any corkage discount but I expect the experience would be good.
huge +1 for plumed horse… celebrated my birthday there last year with 8 other wine geeks, and they took amazing care of us. we brought in about 15 bottles of wine, they had us in the chef’s room. the service was exceptional. the thriller dance was the highlight.
We have a big tasting at Ridge which is why I thought we would end up staying in Cupertino, but there didn’t seem anything worthwhile for the BYO we are planning for the night before.
If we choose one of these restaurants, and find a hotel close by, I think that would make more sense.
Ridge is actually closer to Plumed Horse in Saratoga than to Apple in Cupertino. Ridge has a Cupertino address, but is still 25 mins from downtown Cupertino. Plumed Horse is probably the best option for your party. Jeffrey is the sommelier. Hotel Los Gatos is a great hotel about a 10 min Uber ride from the restaurant. I would suggest Dio Deka to dine for your party, as the food is excellent, and is located inside the Hotel LG, but they have a progressive corkage policy.
My wife and I lived in Cupertino in the early 90’s and dined regularly at the Plumed Horse. One evening sticks in my memory…we had a great bottle of aged Mayacamas Cab off the list with a fabulous meal, and then ordered two glasses of Taylor vintage port to finish off the evening. The young waiter produced two regular wine glasses and filled them to the brim with port. That was quite an evening!!
The plumed horse is under completely new management with a new menu. They are really nothing like the PH of 5+ years ago. They are a perennial Michelin quality dining establishment.
Big Fan of Evvia in Palo Alto- Not sure how would do for a wine dinner, but should be OK- see big groups there from time to time. Kokkari in SF is sister restaurant and is often recommended here. None of the other places I have been would be that great IMO.
Have done several wine dinners at Plumed Horse, including one with 8 people and ~25 bottles. Great option, great food and great service… and they even helped us do a double blind tasting (for most bottles).
Would also second the Woodside Pub, although might be a drive back, depending on where you’re based.
Bumping to see if any south-bay area natives had any updates or new favorites for the area? We’ll be there the end of July briefly, still figuring out exact travel plans since we have some flexibility, but I’m thinking of going to a few tasting rooms in Monterey/Carmel and then in the Santa Cruz mohntains (Ridge, maybe Thomas Fogarty and Big Basin) over a couple of days, and was looking for a place to eat. Manresa in Los Gatos looked great but at this point reservations look tough. Do they still have a bar area for walk-ins? Any strategies to wheedle a last-minute table? Any suggested alternatives? Would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!
first, wanted to say that I appreciated seeing all of Craig G’s posts on Manresa and Manresa Bread when I did a search, did help a lot.
Manresa ended up having an open table after I emailed them to ask, so we were able to try it out. The food was overall of an exceptional quality and creativity but there were a couple of surprising missteps in both food and service for a restaurant of this caliber – e.g., my salad/greens course had a small green very-alive-and-very-squirmy green caterpillar that was clearly visible navigating a leaf while the dish’s components were being explained. They were very gracious about replacing the dish and comped a couple of drinks but it made me wonder how something like that could be missed at the pass, etc. The wine list was deep with a lot of selections from the local Santa Cruz Mountains (tried a glass of a Rhys Santa Cruz pinot and the Manresa Cuvee, which we were told was a cab blend from Mount Eden) and also the Loire, and it seemed to me pretty fairly priced. They have 2 master sommeliers which was cool, our sommelier was the one who had just joined the staff recently and he was gracious with answering all of my inane questions.
The restaurant we enjoyed the most in the area was Bywater, though. I’ve never been to New Orleans but the restaurant’s clearly a passion project for David Kinch and it was cool to compare the gumbo at Bywater to the similar cajun-style abalone that we had tried at Manresa the night before, seeing that nola note carry through in both places. Great cocktail list, really enjoyable food. Loved the fried oysters in the po boy.
to complete the DK trifecta, we also went to Manresa Bread. Great coffee and pastries, they are not sparing in their use of better, especially in the kouign amman. Looked to be a popular spot with the locals, and deservedly so.
I enjoyed Alexander’s. Sat at a bar table. Brought a Realm Dr. Crane. It was decanted and nice stems were brought. The Hamachi shots, filet, and sautéed broccolini were all very good. While quoted a $50 corkage fee, the bill ended up showing none. We did buy a relatively inexpensive glass of a sparkler for the Hamachi, but can’t imagine that caused the corkage to be waived.
So, there may be some wiggle room on corkage, but likely a lot harder in the formal dining room.
Tom
