I’d heard a lot of good things about this restaurant and the progressive dinner experience. It had been a 2-star Michelin restaurant until it closed in 2012. It reopened in September of 2022, 10 years later. I finally booked us a reservation when we made a last minute decision to go up to wine country for the holiday weekend.
I had an early reservation at the first seating which started at 4pm. The e-mail instructions said to get there 10 minutes early although I think that this was just a bit more of a notice to not be late since the dinner was on a schedule so if you arrived too late, you might miss out on some of it. In any case, we weren’t even the first ones there. We were guided into the Bubbles Lounge where we could pick our seats; we chose the hightop seating facing out towards the vineyards. We were given the option for a cocktail or Champagne (at an additional cost). We both went with the wine pairing where we had Champagne included, so we were poured glasses of A. Margaine Rosé de Saignée Brut. We had a few minutes to enjoy this before the first course of Billi Bi served here in the Bubble Lounge. Billi Bi is a mussel soup, this version without any of the actual meat of the mussels, but plenty of flavor in the rich creamy, buttery broth.
Our champagne was topped off since we were going to be continuing with it for the upcoming canapés. About 10 minutes after the hour, we were ushered through a hidden door which revealed the Kitchen Table, our counter seating (seating for 6 couples or 12 people) by the kitchen area with the prep area directly in front of us all. The lighting was pretty dark except the spotlights on the counter directly in front of us (all to perfectly spotlight the dishes) and at the prep area. We were immediately served the quintet of canapés on a single serving dish with each representing an aspect of our sense of taste. Starting at the top and going clockwise, for Sweet: Chestnut Tea Cake, Fuyu Persimmon, for Sour: Huckleberry and Yogurt Halo, for Salty: Air Cracker, Époisses, Fig Balsamic Jam, for Bitter: Seaweed Butter and Radish Tart, for Umami: Adult “Oreo” Foie Gras Torchon, Apple Butter. Fortunately, the sweet wasn’t overly sweet.
For the Yogurt Halo, you definitely had to eat that all in one bite since inside the hollow of the halo was liquid which would likely have made a mess if you only bit into it (and it really wasn’t one of our favorites). The little “air cracker” was like a little pillow with the Our champagne was topped off since we were going to be continuing with it for the upcoming canapés. At about 4:10pm, we were ushered through a hidden door which revealed the Kitchen Table, our counter seating by the kitchen area with the prep area directly in front of us all. The lighting was pretty dark except the spotlights on the counter directly in front of us (all to perfectly spotlight the dishes) and at the prep area. We were served the quintet of canapés on a single serving dish with each representing an aspect of our sense of taste.
Starting at the top and going clockwise, for Sweet: Chestnut Tea Cake, Fuyu Persimmon, for Sour: Huckleberry and Yogurt Halo, for Salty: Air Cracker, Époisses, Fig Balsamic Jam, for Bitter: Seaweed Butter and Radish Tart, for Umami: Adult “Oreo” Foie Gras Torchon, Apple Butter. Fortunately, the sweet wasn’t overly sweet. For the Yogurt Halo, you definitely had to eat that all in one bite since inside the hollow of the halo was liquid which would likely have made a mess if you only bit into it (and it really wasn’t one of our favorites). The little “air cracker” was like a little pillow with the poisses and jam and this was by far our favorite mainly because Époisses is one of my favorite cheeses with it’s stinky, funky, pungent, and, yes, salty flavor. My second favorite was the Adult “Oreo” with the slice of foie gras torchon sandwiched in the cookie sitting atop a bit of apple butter to help it stand up on the edge (I was sure to scoop up as much as I could). Foie gras is a bit of a cheat code for me to like it, so yes, i liked it 🙂
We were then served our second wine, the Karthäuserhof, Karthäuserhofberg GG, Mosel 2011 served in a large format (Jeroboam) bottle which is always entertaining. It was a very nice riesling with just a bit of age and had softened petrol notes which can sometime be a bit strong and edgy in some rieslings.
We had a few moments before the next dish was going to be served and since we had all been invited to come over to the prep area, I took the opportunity to do so. Chef Douglas and the team were preparing our next dish, the caviar dish. I asked Chef Douglas where the caviar was sourced from and he said Regiis Ova which we love. I retruned to my seat since they were starting to serve the dish.
On the bottom, there was a buttermilk sherbet. There was a square of sea lettuce (looking at it, I though it was some kind of gel) on which was the spoonful of Regiis Ova Osetra caviar. On top of the caviar was a squiggle of egg yolk “jam”. The flavors were great and I’m a sucker for the salty, sea flavor of caviar.
As the chefs were preparing our third course here in the kitchen, I could see them using a bit of liquid nitrogen. This course primarily consisted of some suzuki (Japanese sea bass), a bit of blood orange, a tiny bit of wasabi, a bit of beet juice, and some frozen bits of what I think was beet and orange. The dish was beautiful and the orange gave a nice sweet acidity. It was a nice raw fish dish, but I do want the flavor of the fish to be more prominent in raw fish preparations which was somewhat masked by all the other things going on.
The fourth course was a chawanmushi. I love chawanmushi (eggs, dashi, what’s not to love) and this one had a few extras…fried chicken and microplaned (given how much more surface area there is with microplaning, it definitely releases more truffle aromatics, but also definitely looks less attractive than shaved truffle) black truffle (from Perigord) which is always a great match with enything eggy. We were a bit surprised, although very pleasantly so, to have the fried chicken with a chawanmushi.
The last dish in the kitchen area was over at one of the stations towards the back. There was a tray of A5 wagyu (I didn’t catch which prefecture) brushed with some yuzu kosho (fermented yuzu, salt, chile peppers). There as of course a delicious meaty unctuousness from the wagyu and the yuzu kosho gave just a bit of a kick with an interesting seasoning.
After this bite, we were moved to a table in the main Dining Room (about 4:45) just next door to the kitchen. We were by the window, one of the small benefits of the first seating (the dining room had twice the number of tables, which would make good sense as we came to the end of the meal and the next group of diners would start coming in). We were served matching epi (wheat stalk) butter and bread. Bread was warm and moist and delicious buckwheat bread with the butter and a pinch of the flaky salt (Andrea totally loved the dainty vessel holding the salt, pictured next to the globe).
First dish in the dining room (seventh course overall if you’re keeping score)here in the main dining room was seared Nantucket scallops with some potato, sunchoke and and a tasty sesame black miso sauce. The scallops were smaller than the ones we usually see, but were flavorful nonetheless with a perfect sear on them. The whipped potato was perfect for helping to soak up the sauce and was perfect in combination with the scallops. This was served with a chenin blanc with a little bit of age – Château de Bonnezeaux, Vieille Vigne du Fief Prevost, Vin de France 2019.
Next course was the baby back ribs. First off, the ribs were cooked perfectly, meat just falling off the bone and add the gochujang glaze (I think I’m going to have to make my next ribs this way…). The buttered kimchee was interesting as a side with the butter muting the bite of the kimchee (which I actually like) and giving a richness to it. This was served in an acorn tart with a matching little baked dough in the shape of an acorn set in the middle of the kimchee. The acorn was also a nod to the fact that the pork was acorn fed. Not surprisingly, this was our favorite dish of the evening and was amusingly served without utensils (hand towels were of course provided) so it was literally finger-licking good. This was served with a Rioja with a bit of age – Bodegas Riojanas, Viña Albina, Rioja Gran Reserva 1998.
The last savory dish was the beef striploin. We actually saw this being prepped while we were in the kitchen for the wagyu course. It’s a shio koji (fermented rice koji marinade) aged striploin with a touch of salt. On the side was a bowl with seasoned koshikari rice with a little quail egg yolk. This was all paired with a local aged California zinfandel blend from Ridge – Ridge Vineyards, Lytton Springs, Dry Creek Valley 2010.
The next dish was a a bit of a palette cleanser and a celebration of citrus. There was a round of sake lees sorbet on the bottom surrounded by a ring of mandarin orange sorbet. This was topped with some mandarin in various presentations including just a peeled slide, a bit with the rind, as well as dehydrated which gave a nice little textural contrast to it all.
For the desserts, to pair we were poured an interesting tokaji with a little bit of age – Királyudvar, Cuvée Ilona, Tokaji 2016. The first dessert was a couple small cylinders of a delicious brown butter custard with celery root and some thing apple crisps. I love custard as it is and the brown butter took it to another level and made for a wonderfully delicious dessert.
For the mignardise, there were five bites, mirroring the five canapes that we had near the start of the meal with the five tastes. Going from right to left -Sweet: Honey Nut Mousse, Candy Cap and Maple Chantilly; Sour: Yuzu and Olive Oil Tartlet, Shiso Meringue; Salty: Black Sesame Bon Bon, Toasted Rice Ganache; Bitter: Earl Grey Canelé; Umami: Dark Chocolate Seaweed Choquette, Sweet Soy. They were all delicious in their unique way representing a taste. I do have a soft spot for canelé ever since our trip to Bordeaux, although canelé were frosted a bit on the bottom with some earl grey icing to make them even more delicious. I liked the Salty flavors well enough, but I’m not really fond of bon bons, so form factor-wise this was my least favorite although again, I generally liked the flavors.
Right at 6:00pm, we were taken to the Chocolate Room with Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka playing (on our way, we could see the Bubble Lounge was packed). It’s a small room and as you walk in, directly in front of us there was a sheet/waterfall of chocolate coming down and we were each given a chocolate coin to toss in. We were given a small hot chocolate and were shown a sample of the chocolate crunch bar that we would be receiving. We were shown the levitating platform (very blurry picture since it was so dark and hard to get a focus) where our chocolate bars were which were placed into our bags. We were then shown the exit which took us to the lobby where our coats were waiting for us on the rack.
Overall, it was an entertaining and delicious experience. We both thought that the food is exactly what we would expect from fine dining, meticulously crafted food, wonderful ingredients, and some interesting flavors. The only criticism I would have of the experience would be the pacing of the meal (14 courses in 2 hours with 2 of the courses (the canapés and the mignardise) being 5 different bites) and the relatively abrupt end to the meal in the Chocolate Room (less than 5 minutes elapsed time) and a bit of an unceremonious there-are-your-coats-and-bye (this may have also been due to the fact that were in the first seating so they had to keep a tight schedule otherwise it would back up the whole night) which detracted slightly from making this one of our very top experiences, but still excellent.
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