Napa-versary: Eating Sonoma

***This is part 5 of my "Napa-versary" trip report detailing a recent visit to Napa Valley to celebrate our 1-year wedding anniversary***

1. Eating Napa
2. Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part I - Check-In, Our Lodge
3. Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part II - Resort Facilities, Activities, and Food
4. The Restaurant at Meadowood + Meeting Chef Christopher Kostow
5. Eating Sonoma
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After spending the day hiking around Calistoga Ranch, we cleaned up and got ready for dinner. The day before we had feasted at The Restaurant at Meadowood, so we had made plans to try something more casual the following day. Based on our research, everything we read and everyone we talked to kept coming back to Bar Bravas de Tapas in Healdsburg, which is located closer to the Sonoma side of wine country. After looking at the menu we were sold, despite the fact that it would be a 45 minute drive each way from where we were staying.

The drive from Calistoga actually wasn't too bad, with most of it on semi-windy country roads and a short stint on the 101 freeway. We headed into downtown Healdsburg, which is filled with shopping and restaurants. It really has a lot of charm, and we even made a mental note to stay in that area next time we visit Sonoma.

Parking was a breeze, and we walked over to the restaurant where we had made early dinner reservations at 5:30pm which is right when they open. The dining room isn't that large, and only seats roughly 30-40 people at a time, so I highly recommend that you make reservations ahead of time. They also have a huge, outdoor patio in the back where most of the walk-ins were sent.

Bar Bravas de Tapas in Healdsburg, CA

Bar Bravas de Tapas dining room

My wife in particular loves tapas since it means that we get to try lots of different things. The plates were actually perfect for two people, with most orders coming in 2's or 3's. The hardest part was deciphering the menu and figuring out how much to order, but once that was done we just sat back and enjoyed the amazing food.

For just two people, I wouldn't recommend ordering any of the family-size entrees since that really limits the amount of things you're able to try. We just stuck to the small plates, and for us big eaters, 7 orders was just right. For me, the highlights were the lamb sliders, tuna belly salad, and the crispy pig ears.

Iberico ham

Goat cheese tostada

Lamb sliders

Tuna belly salad

Fried crispy pig ears

Grilled octopus

Grilled quail

None of the desserts on the menu at Bravas jumped out to us, so we walked down the street and stumbled upon Noble Folk Ice Cream and Pie Bar for dessert. Along with a large selection of ice cream, they had 5 types of pies on the menu. I'm a sucker for pie, so as soon as I saw the menu outside I already had one foot through the door. The strawberry blueberry ginger pie is the most popular and was unfortunately sold out, but we ended up going for the salt-overload combo with the salted honey pie along with salted caramel ice cream. I love salted caramel ice cream, and this one was fantastic, even better than Bi-Rite's in San Francisco.

Noble Folk Ice Cream and Pie Bar in Healdsburg, CA

Daily specials

Salted honey pie with salted caramel ice cream

Afterwards, we walked around a bit more through downtown Healdsburg. There's a small park nearby, and we somehow ended up over at Mustache Baked Goods which has the same owners as Noble Folk. They've been featured on the Food Network, and we grabbed a cupcake and some macarons for the road.

Mustache Baked Goods in Healdsburg, CA

Overall, a fantastic side-trip over to Healdsburg, and Bar Bravas certainly lived up to the hype. While we had our hearts set on eating there on this trip, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it if you're in Napa since there are plenty of options over there without having to drive over an hour and a half round-trip.

Napa-versary: The Restaurant at Meadowood + Meeting Chef Christopher Kostow

***This is part 4 of my "Napa-versary" trip report detailing a recent visit to Napa Valley to celebrate our 1-year wedding anniversary***

1. Eating Napa
2. Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part I - Check-In, Our Lodge
3. Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part II - Resort Facilities, Activities, and Food
4. The Restaurant at Meadowood + Meeting Chef Christopher Kostow
5. Eating Sonoma
___________________________


Ever since Chef Christopher Kostow took over as Executive Chef at The Restaurant at Meadowood, it's been shooting up in the culinary world and currently is only 1 of 2 restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area with three Michelin stars (the other being The French Laundry). It's also ranked at #80 on the (somewhat controversial) San Pellagrino "Best Restaurants in the World" list which we use as another source, but by no means the authority, on restaurant rankings.

Our dinner reservation at Meadowood wasn't until 9:15pm, which gave us just enough time to digest from lunch and all of the snacks we had earlier in the day. Compared to The French Laundry where a significant amount of luck is needed to just get a reservation, reserving a table at Meadowood was surprisingly easy and just required booking about a month in advance.

It's a short 10-15 minute drive from Calistoga Ranch to the Meadowood resort, which along with the restaurant, features a hotel, spa, and golf course. The resort is on a huge compound, and in the dark it was tough to follow some of the signs, but eventually we found our way to the main lobby. We peeked inside on our way to the restaurant just to take a look.

Exterior of the lobby at Meadowood

Lobby of Meadowood

The restaurant is located just a few steps from the hotel lobby, and we were warmly greeted at the door and shown inside. We had arrived early, so we spent a few minutes relaxing in the bar area and were seated next to the fireplace in the middle of the room which helped us warm up on this chilly night.

Fireplace near the bar

After a few minutes we were escorted into the main dining room, which almost feels like the interior of a barn with high vaulted ceilings, and an elegant but rustic feel that is similar to what we had seen at the hotel lobby. The dining room is relatively small, with only about 10-15 tables inside. At our table, we found a nice hand-written card which welcomed us and congratulated us on our anniversary.

The Restaurant at Meadowood dining room

Table setting and hand-written card

Our server came by and explained that there would be no menus to look at or choose from for now - we would receive a copy only after the entire meal was completed. Apparently this is a recent change that the restaurant has made now that they feel like they've built a strong enough reputation. Instead of a tasting or a la carte menu, prospective diners will just need to trust that they will be fed well. We were asked if there was anything that we didn't eat, but that was pretty much it. The rest of the meal was a surprise, with each course explained to us as it was served. 

Before the main courses started, we had a series of "snacks" from the garden.

Pickled veggies from the Meadowood garden

Puffed kale with chorizo seasoning

Afterwards, the main dinner started, with about 10 courses served over of the next 3 hours. The food was absolutely delicious, playful, and presented in interesting and unique ways that we had never tried before. For example, potatoes that had been cooked in beeswax, chicken that had been cooked inside sourdough bread, and salmon that had the skin removed and replaced with layer of turnips. 

The ingredients were extremely fresh, with most of the meats coming from local sources and the vegetables coming from the restaurant's own garden. Everything was cooked perfectly, tasted great, and best of all didn't feel too heavy. Service was extremely warm and friendly throughout, a far cry from the overly formal and almost robotic service that we had at Per Se.

Tomato, wild plum beets and creme fraiche

Cucmber seed risotto

Potatoes cooked in beeswax

Abalone with coal roasted eggplant

Wild salmon turnip

Poussin baked in sourdough bread

Koji chanterelle beef

After the main courses it was time to move on to the cheese course, and despite the number of course we had eaten to this point, neither of us were feeling overly stuffed.. That's certainly a good thing, since there have been times where we've just been too full to enjoy dessert. The cheese course was was a play on ham and cheese with lettuce playing the role of ham.

Cheese "ham" bread

Lastly, a few desserts, including the amazing "spun" coconut with olive oil. The coconut tasted almost like a sorbet and was so simple, yet so amazingly delicious.

Spun coconut with olive oil

Passion fruit baba shiso

Herbal tea

Almond prailines

Our menu

At the end of the meal, we were invited in for a quick kitchen tour, which is offered to each table individually throughout the night. The restaurant had recently completed a million-dollar kitchen renovation, and it shows. We were actually surprised how big the kitchen was, given the fact they probably don't service more than 75-100 people in a given night.

As luck would have it, Chef Christopher Kostow walked by during our tour and we had a chance to do a brief meet and greet with him. As luck would have it I had just blogged about his partnership with the new American Express Centurion Lounge opening at SFO later this year, so I looked like I had done my homework and was able to ask him about it.

Meadowood kitchen

Thanks for an amazing dinner!

Overall, an amazing dining experience at The Restaurant at Meadowood. I emphasize the word  "experience", since at most top restaurants it's a given that the food will be delicious (and if it isn't, that's a whole other problem). But at Meadowood, the food is really, really delicious, and is still memorable as I write this several weeks later. The rest of the experience was top-notch and they really make you feel appreciated with everything from the hand-written notes, to the personalized service, and lastly to the individual kitchen tours.We hope to go back one day - in fact, the restaurant keeps track of the exact menu each guest has had previously to ensure that they are given an entirely new experience each and every time.

Napa-versary: Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part II - Resort Facilities, Activities, and Food

***This is part 3 of my "Napa-versary" trip report detailing a recent visit to Napa Valley to celebrate our 1-year wedding anniversary***

1. Eating Napa
2. Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part I - Check-In, Our Lodge
3. Calistoga Ranch, An Auberge Resort Part II - Resort Facilities, Activities, and Food
4. The Restaurant at Meadowood + Meeting Chef Christopher Kostow
5. Eating Sonoma
___________________________

Resort Facilities

As I had mentioned in Part I of my trip report, Calistoga Ranch truly feels like a complete escape from the outside world. The resort has a total of 50 rooms spread across 157 acres, and since the resort is so large they offer buggy service that will take you wherever you need to go. Unlike the buggy service at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island which was hit-and-miss to put it nicely, the buggy service here was truly on-demand and punctual. We only used the buggies during check-in and check-out when we had luggage, and enjoyed walking around the rest of the time.

We found the facilities to be modern and well kept, starting with the lobby area where the main pool, fitness center, and bocce ball courts are located. The weather was scorching hot, so as you can imagine the pool area was quite crowded, with nearly all of the pool chairs occupied. There was food and drink service at the pool as well, serviced by the Poolhouse, which is a full-service restaurant located next to the pool where lunch is served during the day.

On one side of the pool is the fitness center which had both indoor and outdoor areas featuring state-of-the-art equipment. As a nice touch, water, towels, and Cliff bars are provided. There is also a small vineyard on the other side of the pool, where the grapes for the Calistoga Ranch-branded wines are presumably grown.

Main pool and hot tub

Main pool

Hot tub

Read the sign before you get in the pool!

Calistoga Ranch Vineyard

Fitness center

At the other end of the resort there is another set of facilities which include the yoga pavilion, spa, and a small boutique. There is also a wine cave which acts as both a wine cellar as well as a special events location. It's a romantic and unique space and would make the perfect location for a wedding ceremony or reception. According to the staff, during the summer-time, the resort is basically booked every weekend with at least one wedding. After breakfast on Saturday morning we spent some time exploring the wine cave, which even made us feel like Indiana Jones when we were inside.

Wine cave

Wine cellar

Activities

While Napa Valley has a lot to see and do, we found that most guests preferred to stay at the resort during their stay. I guess that makes sense, since baked into the price is the fact that the resort offers a multitude of private activities such as fitness and yoga classes, bocce ball, spa, and hiking. We wanted to do a hike during the trip and had looked into several public trails, but it worked out perfectly that Calistoga Ranch offers three private hiking trails on-site. We hiked all three, including the Canyon trail for advanced hikers which was a tough 1.5 mile trek leading to gorgeous valley views. There are two other trails at 1.5 mile and 1 mile, respectively, were more moderate hiking trails but still featured great views and scenery. Hiking was definitely one of the more popular activities and we ran into a good number of other guests on the trails, many of whom had brought along their dogs.

View of Lake Lommel

Canyon trail hike

Gorgeous views from the hikes

Food

Our favorite part of any hotel stay, but unfortunately this time we can only comment on the breakfast since we had dinner outside of the resort on both nights. But if the breakfast is any indication of the overall quality of the food, then it was absolutely top-notch. Breakfast was included in our rate since we had booked through Virtuoso, and while we got different answers about the credit (one person said up to $150, the other said that it was unlimited), they are essentially one in the same since we ordered a LOT of food and we didn't even come close to hitting the $150 threshold. 

The first day we had breakfast at the Lakehouse, which has lovely views overlooking Lake Lommel. The Lakehouse is open for breakfast and dinner, with lunch served at the Poolhouse next to the main pool/lobby. Service during breakfast was great, and we ordered up a feast which included three entrees, juice, coffee, and toast. The Kobe beef hash was a highlight and would high recommend it - in fact, it was so good I ordered it on both days.

Exterior of Lakehouse restaurant

Lakehouse restaurant dining room

Lakehouse restaurant views

Kobe beef hash

Blueberry pancakes

Egg white omelet

During our stay, out of the blue we also got an unexpected delivery to our room which included a wonderful cheese and fruit plate, a really nice gesture from the hotel.

The next day, we decided to try room service since we wanted to get an early start on the road. The night before we used the iPad in our room to order breakfast for the next day, which was much easier and convenient than calling in an order or filling out a form and putting it outside the door.

Even though breakfast delivery was promised within a 30-minute window from our requested time, the food was delivered at the exact time we had asked for and was set out nicely in the living room. The food was delivered from the kitchen via buggy, and rather impressively arrived piping hot and without a single drop of food or liquid out of place. This was once instance where it was an advantage to have the bedroom in a completely separate building, so we could still have privacy while the food was being setup.

Breakfast room service

 Eggs Benedict
 

Final Thoughts  

I really don't see how our stay at Calistoga Ranch could have been any better, and we are already itching to go back for another weekend getaway. The location, room and the facilities were wonderful, and while I can't comment on dinner, the breakfast was fantastic. But best of all was the service which was on-par with the standards you receive in Asia, which in my opinion, is the ultimate compliment. We were looked after with great care, and I'm still impressed by how well the staff were able to communicate with each other to make every transition feel completely seamless.

All the little touches really do make a big difference - for example, during check-out we rode the buggy from our room to the main lobby to find our car already being warmed-up with the trunk open and ready to be loaded with our bags. Then, as we drove away we found bottles of water had been placed in the cup holders, along with a cup of frozen grapes. And a couple days later, we received a letter in the mail thanking us for our stay. 

Overall, we were really impressed with Calistoga Ranch and would rank it among the top hotels we've stayed at in the world, and probably the best hotel that we've stayed at in the US.