BBE Editor's Pick

étoile restaurant

1 California Dr., Yountville (Napa)

By Anne Zimmerman

Pristine dishes with distinctly California accents: Syrah grapes, wild mustard, pine nut purée. A garden full of birds. But enjoy this Michelin-starred French restaurant and its sweeping vineyard views as if it were yours alone. This is elegant wine country dining, with not a day-tripping tourist in sight. Thanks to the bubbly, your mind might start to wander. How many miles from home are you? We’ll never say.

menu musts

Chunks of Dungeness crab march around a pile of sea beans, sorrel, and pickled Buddha’s hand citron. The perfect bite has all that, plus a so-small-it-could-be-ignored salt-roasted radish that intensifies the taste of the sea. The multi-colored heirloom beet salad is embellished with tangles of bitter chickweed, briny roasted gooseberries, and the satisfying pop of small yogurt spheres. Forget decorum, thick slices of lamb loin should be amply dredged in a slurry of smashed niçoise olives, tissue-thin roasted and shaved Brussels sprouts, and spicy carrot purée. Needless to say, splurge on the suggested wine pairing for each course. view full menu here

the scene

Cosmopolitan. What’s with all the Frenchmen, we wondered as we glanced at a dining room also filled with tables of Germans and Japanese? Wait, are we the anomaly?

side dish

at your service
A reverent server is spot-on all evening but delivers the cheese plate with a bit of insider info: “This one is very special to us.” So special, we discover, that the Flora Nell Blue Cheese from Rogue Creamery can only be found at étoile —and it’s specially driven all the way from Oregon to Northern California.

decibels
Low. So low that the soft murmur of conversation is the only thing you’ll hear.

hours

Lunch: Thu–Mon 11:30 AM–2:30 PM
Dinner: Thu–Mon 6 PM–9 PM
closed Tuesday and Wednesday

price range

$18 (Idaho smoked trout rillettes) to $42 (roasted veal tenderloin and lobster)

1 California Dr. (Exit from Hwy. 29: Yountville/Veterans Home), Yountville, CA 94599; 888-242-6366 www.chandon.com/etoile-restaurant.html $$$$