<p>H and I will celebrate 30 years this spring. Looking for suggestions for lodging, B&B, hotels, restaurants and of course, winery tours in Napa for April, May or early June. Anyone know of any interesting festivals in the area during that time?</p>
<p>Auberge d’soliel is a beautiful place to stay, with a fabulous restaurant
Vintage Inn also nice place to stay(less pricey)
Restaurants: French Laundry, Mustards, Piatti, Travigne(St Helene)</p>
<p>So many vineyards, favorites Joseph Phelps, Cakebread, Domaine is a lovely tour with lunch.</p>
<p>Lincoln ave spa in calastoga was fun for mud wraps</p>
<p>Thanks, 4Giggles.</p>
<p>French Laundry is harder to get in then HYSP or whatever that is…LOVE mustards, but for something REALY casual do Rutherford Grill or Taylors Refresher for stand outside causal. They have tuna burgers, fish tacos, adn a wine list among other things. Sattui is a good winery with a deli where you can have a picnic. Mums is good for sparkling wine and on Silverado Trail rather than the much more crowed/touristy main strip. Cakebread does cooking stuff, and so does the CIA also “up valley”, maybe St. Helena’s.</p>
<p>ooh, this is gonna be such fun. thanks, shrinkwrap.</p>
<p>Enthusiastically second Auberge du Soleil, Tra Vigne, French Laundry. But Shrinkrap is right: if you want to eat at French Laundry, maybe you have a chance for a reservation in May if you start trying right now.</p>
<p>Don’t miss a chance for a mudbath (with massage) in Calistoga. I gather Nance’s, our favorite for the past 25 years, had a fire and closed. But find one of the other places and do the whole 19th Century schtick.</p>
<p>I’ve always thought it would be fun to go on the winetrain.</p>
<p>Thanks,mstee, the winetrain caught my eye, too.
JHS, maybe we’ll let our French Laundry reservation dictate our travel dates.</p>
<p>The French Laundry has reservations on <a href=“http://www.OpenTable.com%5B/url%5D”>www.OpenTable.com</a> </p>
<p>I could have had a reservation for 9 PM on Feb 6th, but that was the only one for the next month!</p>
<p>If you’re not familiar with Open Table, I recommend it highly.</p>
<p>mominva-
I did a fair amount of research about the restaurants before we went to Napa a few yrs ago. This info may be a little dated , but here’s my list:</p>
<p>Places we ate:
<a href=“http://www.bistrodongiovanni.com/[/url]”>http://www.bistrodongiovanni.com/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bistrojeanty.com/[/url]”>http://www.bistrojeanty.com/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.terrarestaurant.com/[/url]”>http://www.terrarestaurant.com/</a>
<a href=“http://www.brix.com/[/url]”>http://www.brix.com/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mustardsgrill.com/[/url]”>Home Page | Mustards Grill;
<p>Places we would have eaten if we had time:
<a href=“http://www.martinihouse.com/[/url]”>http://www.martinihouse.com/</a>
<a href=“http://www.fumebistro.com/preview.htm[/url]”>http://www.fumebistro.com/preview.htm</a>
<a href=“http://www.restaurant.com/microsite.asp?rid=300873[/url]”>http://www.restaurant.com/microsite.asp?rid=300873</a> (Tuscany)</p>
<p>These are good review websites:
<a href=“http://www.sallys-place.com/food/dining_directory/north_america/napa_valley.htm[/url]”>http://www.sallys-place.com/food/dining_directory/north_america/napa_valley.htm</a>
<a href=“http://napa.valley.diningguide.com/dl1na.htm[/url]”>http://napa.valley.diningguide.com/dl1na.htm</a></p>
<p>At the time we were there, French Laundry had gone down a bit in quality because they were focusing on their newly opened NY shop. It may be back to its stellar quality, but we didnt go.</p>
<p>Another thing to STRONGLY consider (we didnt plan far enough in advance) is to eat at the restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America’s California Campus <a href=“http://www.ciachef.edu/visitors/gs/[/url]”>http://www.ciachef.edu/visitors/gs/</a>
You can’t go wrong with any of these. Have fun!!</p>
<p>Been years since I’ve been there, but the restaurant at Domaine Chandon used to be an elegant place for dinner. I ate at the FL years ago, before Open table, at that time they started taking reservation at 10am 2 months to the day before the date you were coming - reservations for the hoi polloi were generally filled by noon of that date 2 months in advance.
Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed, partly because they served cauliflower and I hate cauliflower, and the table next to us was totally obnoxious, but they were buying multiple $400 bottles of wine and fois gras, so it didn’t matter! On the upside, the great man himself came out to survey the dining room (maybe those folks next to us were famous, they dressed like LA film types), and it was my birthday and the pastry chef makes special chocolate cookies for birthdays, so that was nice.
Tra Vigne used to be great, my favorite winery is in Sonoma - Rochioli.</p>
<p>Ditto many of the suggestions here–H and I used to always stop at Sattui’s for a picnic when we lived in the Bay area 25 yrs. ago and often visited Napa. It was a secret gem then–now not so secret. We were back in Napa last year and ate at <a href=“http://www.cindysbackstreetkitchen.com%5B/url%5D”>www.cindysbackstreetkitchen.com</a> (same owner as Mustard’s-- we actually liked it as much or more.) Another “secret” is a newish winery <a href=“http://www.quixotewinery.com%5B/url%5D”>www.quixotewinery.com</a> which just opened for tours last year. If you are an art or architecture junkie this is a must-see as the building was designed by Hundertwasser – and it’s an interesting story! You must make a special arrangement to visit.</p>
<p>We went to Bistro Jeanty a few years ago. It was fine, but nothing to anchor a special experience around. I will caution that my much higher opinions of The French Laundry and Tra Vigne are much more out-of-date. (As I recall, the only meal I ever had at The French Laundry was in the middle of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings!)</p>
<p>My favorite place to stay is the Carneros Inn. It’s gorgeous. Cottages spread around a large space. However, it’s not the in the center of the Napa area, so if you really want to focus on visiting vineyards, might not be the place for you. Do give the crew on <a href=“http://www.chowhound.com%5B/url%5D”>www.chowhound.com</a> a shout. We here in Northern California are very proud of our food so you will get lots of information. Best is to tell them what you are thinking about and get them to critique your list.</p>
<p>Thanks, all, for these suggestions.
This rainy weekend we will research the links and get some preferences in order.
Keep 'em coming!</p>
<p>We ate at the Bistro Jeanty last year. We were looking for a place to eat after seeing a young friend perform in an opera at the Lincoln Theatre in Yountville. As I recall, it was expensive <em>peasant</em> food. But we were given comp tickets to the opera, so figured we could buy a nice dinner with the money we didn’t spend on tickets. We enjoyed it, and I thought the food was good – but then, our experiences with upper level dining are few. The kids (our 17 yr. old and her boyfriend and our 13 yr. old) were introduced to the concept of <em>lamb’s cheeks</em> as food there. :eek: The outing – the opera, the food, the company – was a very enjoyable experience.</p>
<p>I’ve never eaten at The French Laundry – is it worth it?</p>
<p>I love chowhound and opentable. I ate at “cindy’s backstreet kitchen” a few weeks ago and our family loved it as well.</p>
<p>“I’ve never eaten at The French Laundry – is it worth it?”</p>
<p>For some reason I feel compelled to say are the Ivies worth it? Your milage may vary…</p>
<p>Mstee, when we ate at French Laundry it was arguably the “best” restaurant in the US - but what makes a restaurant the “best”??? It is a real foodie place, the decor looks relaxed, but really isn’t, it is a true “temple of food”. one of the neatest things about it is that they grow many of their own herbs and baby veggies in a garden right outside the kitchen door, and the prep kitchen is a large room built on to the main restaurant that has large ceiling to counter height windows on 3 sides - the idea being you can watch the technique of the staff at work prior to going in to your dinner. The food is all very artistic and somewhat contrived, but the tastes are amazing - except for the cauliflower, no amount of artistry makes cauliflower edible - but it is definitely a foodie place, an event as much as an enjoyable dinner.</p>
<p>I love cauliflower… roasted… in a curry… what’s wrong with cauliflower?</p>
<p>Mominva: I live near Napa so never eat or stay there. However, what type of wine do you and your husband like?</p>