Restaurant Recos in Palo Alto

WINE TALK
1

Heading to Palo Alto for the first time tomorrow to sponsor a client event at the Four Seasons, and was wondering if anyone had any good restaurant recos.

Open to any type of food (except for Sushi), with more of a casual/biz casual type of vibe…and of course a solid wine selection.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, as I’ll be there for a few nights and hoping to hit up some decent spots.

Thanks!

2

Quattro in the FS itself is quite a nice restaurant. Don’t know their wine list. Zola is my favorite restaurant with your description (I assume meaning not super high end/stars/27 courses).

Bistro Elan on Birch is a good choice. A new place Boheme on California is good
www.labohemepaloalto.com/welcome-1/

Have to confess that I always BYO, so not up on any wine lists.

3

The sister to SF Kokkari is Evvia. Food is wonderful, wine list not so much though. We like Tamarine also, not sure of wine list because we BYOB. One of our favorites in somewhat nearby and is Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park with a good wine list (Tim Cook of Apple sitting next to us last time). None of these are particularly formal but they are more upscale. More recently we went to Saint Michaels Alley and enjoyed it. Decent wine list there.

4

We ate recently at Menlo Grill, which is a newish restaurant inside the Stanford Park Hotel. It was quite good, if tending towards the more conventional / less adventurous side. I think there is also no corkage, at least for the first two bottles.

5

If you are still here on Thursday and single, checkout Madera in the Rosewood hotel on Sand Hill Road. Good wine list and the cougars will be out in full force.

6

Awesome feedback everyone- really appreciate it!

Sounds like BYO is acceptable in most places (which is a great, because that’s not the case here I n Phoenix). Any killer wine shops that are not to be missed, since I won’t be able to bring anything from Az?

7

I wouldn’t say they’re killer, but 2 decent wine shops nearby are Beltramo’s (https://www.beltramos.com/wines/) and K&L (http://www.klwines.com/) in Redwood City.

8

Thanks William! I’ve bought from K&L before so maybe I’ll go check them out.

Thanks again!

9

100% agreement with William on wine shops. Although I prefer K&L, Beltramos is closer to Palo Alto by maybe a 5 to 10 minute drive. Browsing K&L’s wines is easier on their website, I find.

10

Alan, thanks for pointing Zola out. We will go there and try it out. Neighborhood french restaurants are high on our list. I see they offer an interesting corkage policy. If the wine is over ten years old, its $10 corkage. If less, then $25. That’s an encouraging policy.

11

Another wine shop is Vin, Vino, Wine on California near a couple of the restaurants mentioned above. He’s open Tues - Sat and and has daily tastings. See http://vinvinowine.com/

-Al

12

Robbie Wilson (ex-Mattei’s Tavern here in Santa Ynez) has apparently been killing it with his new Palo Alto restaurant: http://www.birddogpa.com/

  • Jonathan
13

I took Alan’s rec for Zola, and have been on all of my visits to Palo alto over the past year or so
It is a really good restaurant! I enjoyed wine off their list, which is not that big.

14

I recommend Terun

15

Glad you have enjoyed!

16

Unless you have reservations or are there at 5:30 sharp to get a seat at the bar, forget it; Evvia is very popular and reservations fill up weeks in advance.

17

Also recommend, but with a caveat: it is quite a busy, boisterous place, more appropriate for just having a great time with good Italian food. I probably wouldn’t go there for a business dinner. Having said that, it is our go-to restaurant in Palo Alto, we are there often, particularly for the Porcini pizza.

18

This is one of 3-4 restaurants on our monthly Berserkers wine dinner group rotation, we get the back room, which holds 10-12. They used to have no-corkage Mondays, which is how we started going, but I think that ended some time ago. Fortunately, we’re grandfathered in, since they like us so much [wow.gif]

19

I just had 12 or so in that same back room on a Friday night (75th birthday dinner for my MIL), just last month, and there was no corkage for the first two bottles, something very reasonable ($15?) for bottles after that. And it wasn’t some discretionary favor or anything, at least I don’t think so.

So my point is, they don’t actually like you that much. [cheers.gif]

20

Next offline??! Yes