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Beau-Vine |
Beau-Vine
1347 Main St.
St. Helena
(707) 968-9666
Open daily for dinner; jazz brunch on weekends; breakfast Thursday
and Friday; lunch Wednesday through Friday
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Is Beau-Vine the most interesting new restaurant to open in the
Napa Valley in the last six months? Quite possibly it is. It certainly
has one of the more innovative menus, with appetizers and entrees
divided by region (North America, Oceania, South America) and one
of the best wine by the glass programs anywhere, with over thirty
wines offered, plus another dozen-plus dessert wines. Add to that
the fact that the service is charming, prices are mostly reasonable
and the airy, stone walled room on St. Helenas Main Street
is delightful, and you find yourself looking for excuses to go back
for another meal.
Actually the menu alone offers plenty of reasons for a return.
Try the Billabong Yabbies (like small roasted lobsters with a dark
rum, lime and pineapple sauce and an addictive pyramid of Taiwanese
black rice) for an appetizer and you have to go back for the blindingly-fresh
ceviche, the Argentine parilla, the New England lobster salad or
the ricotta cheese gnocchi, all appetizers. Order the perfect porterhouse
of lamb or the paila marina, that traditional Chilean seafood stew,
and that means youve missed the tenderloin of kangaroo with
its ethereal bush tomato chutney, or the gaucho pineapple bavette
steak, or the vegetarian tartufu steak with risotto. Now do you
understand the problem?
The menu is strictly a la carte but the broad choice of side dishes
are perfect for sharing and are as carefully prepared as the entrees.
One talent the kitchen has perfected is matching flavors, so that
despite the diversity of the menu, dishes never fight with one another,
working to complement instead, regardless of their relative subtlety
or assertiveness. It’s a difficult art to master, but one Beau-Vine
has learned exceptionally well.
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Pearl |
Pearl
1339 Pearl St., Ste. 104
Napa
(707) 224-9161
Closed Sunday and Monday
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Small enough to be intimate, large enough to support a diverse menu
and a nice selection of wines, Pearl is a block or two off the main
streets in downtown Napa and no matter how many times you visit
it always seems as if you have discovered something special. Which,
in fact, you have.
Pearl is the collaboration of Nickie and Pete Zeller. Shes
the chef, he runs the front of the house. In 1995 they sold their
popular Brown Street Grill and Pearl was born and theyve been
doing a steady business with a fiercely loyal clientele ever since.
With a patio, a courtyard, high ceilings, a collection of folk
art hex signs, an open kitchen and original art everywhere you turn,
Pearl manages to be open and lively during the day, romantic in
a very California way at night. Not surprisingly the oyster is a
constant on the menu both night and day, prepared in a variety of
ways. A particular favorite is the Hog Island, Tomales Bay oyster
appetizer with a ginger lime mignonette that bursts with freshness
and flavors. Seafood in any form is a highlight at Pearl. Grilled
halibut with rock shrimp in a green curry sauce is a careful melding
of textures and spice; the pistachio crusted ahi pan-roasted rare
with prosciutto, capers and currants with an orange vinaigrette
is one of those dishes that makes you want to give the chef a standing
ovation.
For meat dishes the Tunisian-style braised lamb shank once again
reminds us that slow cooking has ample rewards as the meat falls
from the bone. The triple double pork chop prepared in an apple-Dijon
brine is another sterling example of a dish prepared to the absolute
zenith.
The menu changes daily as specials come and go, but some mainstays
are constant and should not be missed, foremost the soft taco appetizer:
house made tortillas with chopped ginger, flank steak, chilies,
cilantro, salsa verde and a delicately citrus-packed lime cream.
If they are ever offered with fish, order them immediately, thats
how good they are. Other constants that explain their customers
loyalty are the quesadilla, the green onion corn cakes with smoked
salmon and lemon-dill cream and the soft polenta. Desserts are on
a par with the quality of the other courses and if you cannot face
one alone, share it with a friend.
Pearls wine list offers some pleasant surprises, among them
a couple of Gewürztraminers that will make you rethink your
opinion of this oft-maligned varietal. There is a solid foundation
of the standard Chardonnays, Cabernets and Merlot, but consider
a Syrah, a Barbera, a Pinotage, Mourvedre or Malvasia Blanc. Pearl
is, after all, a culinary voyage of discovery.
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Piatti |
Piatti
6480 Washington St.
Yountville
(707) 944-2070
Open daily
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Piatti is a mainstay of the restaurant scene in Yountville, no mean
feat when your neighbors include the French Laundry, Bouchon and
Bistro Jeanty. If there was any doubt as to the restaurants
commitment to keeping on the culinary fast track it was dispelled
a few years ago when chef Peter Hall signed on as executive chef.
A veteran of Tra Vigne, Stars and Mustards Grill he immediately
began transforming the property from a nice Italian restaurant to
a destination. And he did it without taking the sweetbreads off
the menu or even changing the recipe. It is a wise chef who knows
when to make changes and when to leave well enough alone.
Sweetbreads aside, the menu has made a decided turn away from the
standard list of Italian specials. Piatti also readily and happily
embraces French cuisine (particularly that of the south of France),
all the while making full use of the freshest bounty of California
and beyond. Sometimes that bounty is amazingly close at hand. Witness
the black Mission olives from the trees out back that are cured
at the restaurant. Gravlax (and smoked salmon carpaccio) is made
in-house, meats, including prosciutto, likewise. When sausage appears
on the menu as a special it is also made in the Piatti kitchen.
It is this attention to culinary detail that defines Halls
cooking and constitutes the backbone of a menu that changes daily.
Some favorites? The Prince Edward Island mussels roasted in the
wood oven (which also turns out spectacular personal-size pizzas).
Served with angel hair pasta in a spicy sausage broth, it is both
hearty and delicate. The lemon herb rotisserie chicken is always
popular, the rosemary flat bread with tapenade and DAffinois
cheese is a perfect appetizer, especially if you order the Parma
prosciutto wraps along with it. The chefs take on fish and
chips is unlike anything you can imagine, such is the lightness
and flavor of a much-maligned dish, and risotto or any of the pastas
are never disappointing. The sweet potato packets with lemon sage
brown butter, pancetta and pecans are downright startling in that
subtle sort of way.
The wine list at Piatti is designed so that food and wine pairings
are a natural selection (try the Franus Zinfandel with the honey
smoked ham shank, for instance) and reasonably priced. The restaurant
takes great pride in offering wines from some of the smaller producers,
always an adventure in itself. It is all part of a stylish but comfortable
restaurant in the heart of the wine country.
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