Nick visits Napa classics Mustards Grill and Auberge du Soleil and checks in to the newer Charlie’s, before fitting in a trip to Zuni Café in San Francisco on the way home. Above, Zuni’s house-cured anchovies with celery, parmesan and olives.
It is the same whenever and whichever wine region we are fortunate enough to travel to. The wines we are offered are invariably fantastic but the food, almost by definition, is somewhat less impressive.
I am spoiled. Wine producers bring out their very best, often their oldest, vintages for JR. And I just happen to tag along as Mr JR.
This has happened in Burgundy, in Piedmont, and most recently in the Napa Valley. Wherever we ate, whether in private homes or out in restaurants, the wines always outshone the food.
This was true even when I was cooking. I had offered to cook for our hostess in St Helena. When we discussed the menu in advance, it was pointed out to me that it would be Easter Sunday which determined that it would have to be lamb as the main course. For the nine of us, she had bought three large racks of lamb from the Fatted Calf in Napa which were supplemented by potatoes, a lot of salad leaves, numerous Meyer lemons from her garden, and some heavy cream.
The lemons I zested and juiced before adding to the cream, bringing the mixture to a boil and adding sugar. When it had cooled, I found the requisite number of small bowls to pour the lemon posset into before carefully putting them all in the fridge. (The word posset goes back to the 15th century. It was originally a drink of milk curdled with wine but is now used only for this dessert.) The particularly sweet, waxy potatoes I quartered, mixed with garlic salt, rosemary and olive oil and roasted in the oven at 350 °F (180 °C) for 90 minutes.
I cut the lamb racks in half and sautéed them before coating them with a mixture of butter, salt, pepper, mustard, olive oil and rosemary. Then I put them in the lower oven at 400 °F (200 °C), initially for 20 minutes and then for a further 15 minutes before I could serve them medium rare alongside a garlic purée. (Peel a head or two of garlic and simmer in salted water until softish, then allow to cool. Drain, place cloves in food processor. Add black pepper, process and place in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.)
What we ate was good. What we drank was far, far better. We began with a fine selection of charcuterie and three cheeses in the kitchen, sharing bottles of Cristal 2014 Champagne, Araujo Sauvignon Blanc 2010 Napa Valley and Hanzell Chardonnay 2008 Sonoma Valley. We then moved to the dining table and enjoyed two very special bottles of red. There was a magnum of 1986 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon that was on point and delicious. Wine writer Karen MacNeil kindly brought a bottle of 1959 Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon from her private cellar. This Napa classic was incredibly youthful, with fantastic sweetness, freshness and perfume.
At Mustards Grill, which has been dispensing vast quantities of food, and bonhomie to match, since 1983, similar principles applied. A spring garlic soup from their blackboard list of specials was excellent as was the enormous serving of baby back ribs and cornbread, and they were trounced by a slice, or more exactly a tranche, of their lemon-and-lime meringue pie. All, however, were put into the shade by our host’s wine offerings which included a Bollinger RD 1996 Champagne and the star wine of the evening, an Inglenook Cabernet Sauvignon 1966 Rutherford, from the year when England won the World Cup!
It had been more than 20 years since we last visited Auberge du Soleil above the Silverado Trail. It has expanded enormously. Recent modifications to its bar area have resulted in sharing the hotel’s magnificent views over the valley even more generously, although the difference in the cooking between this area and the more refined restaurant next door have been carefully maintained.
The reason our host had booked here soon became clear. In his opinion this is the finest place in California to enjoy a hamburger, and he may well be right. I am no fan of this dish although Americans obviously are. At lunch in London the day after our return, Lena Ciardullo, executive chef of Union Square Cafe in New York City, told me that during a busy Sunday brunch service her kitchen often serves 100 hamburgers out of the 280 main courses ordered.
But I am sure that this was not related to the two California red wines we were lucky enough to enjoy at ‘Auberge’, as the locals call it. The first, and the more magnificent of the two at the outset at least, was a Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon 1976 Napa that was pure joy. The second, slightly dumb initially but soon to wake up, was Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 1978 Napa, which had been on my wine list at L’Escargot in 1982 for the exorbitant price of £27.50 per bottle.
Finally, for our last dinner in St Helena, I managed to secure a table at the new, much sought-after Charlie’s restaurant in what was once Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. This restaurant, opened in October 2023 by chef Elliot Bell, places a strong focus on local suppliers and the local community.
It may seem churlish to criticise a restaurant with such lofty social ambitions but the cooking was less than impressive. A dish described as a shrimp cocktail was nothing other than its constituent parts – four peeled shrimps on ice with the Marie Rose sauce in a tin for dipping rather than mixed in to a cocktail; the slow-cooked trout needed more slow cooking; and the campfire pie, a nod to the restaurant’s previous owner, was just too sweet.
The evening was, however, more than made up for by the decision of our guest, who chose two sublime Napa wines from the restaurant’s excellent wine list. The first was a 2022 Blueprint Sauvignon Blanc from Lail Vineyards, the second an absolutely outstanding 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon from Corison Vineyards that is on the list for $375.
Our final meal before heading to SF airport was once again at Zuni Café, where the sunshine streamed through its many windows and the pianist played some lovely tunes. Here we ate and drank very well: the classic house-cured anchovies with celery, parmesan and olives followed by their famous roast chicken with bread salad, shoestring potatoes (see above) and a slice of gâteau Victoire – although I looked enviously at JR’s pistachio pavlova with strawberries.
With all this we happily drank a half of Spottswoode’s 2022 Sauvignon Blanc, a bottle of Spottswoode’s new 2021 Cabernet and part of a magnum of 1995 Vin de Terroir Cabernet Sauvignon from Renaissance high up in the Sierra Foothills, supplied by Matt and Karen Kramer, for which the restaurant charged a very reasonable total $40 corkage fee. $526.83 for the four of us and worth every cent.
Mustards Grill 7399 St Helena Highway, Napa, CA; tel: +1 (707) 944-2424
Auberge du Soleil 180 Rutherford Hill Rd, Rutherford, CA; tel: +1 (800) 348-5406
Charlie’s 1327 Railroad Ave, St Helena, CA; tel: +1 (707) 804-3099
Zuni Café 1658 Market St, San Francisco, CA; tel: +1 (415) 552-2522