1. Cindy’S Backstreet Kitchen
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-1200
Address: 1327 Railroad Avenue
Description: At this local favorite, Cindy Pawlcyn, renowned for her Mustards Grill farther down Highway 29 in Napa Valley (and the newer Go Fish on the south edge of St. Helena—see the listing in this chapter), serves the more traditional comfort food for which she is revered. The menu ranges from innovative salads (the curry chicken salad is great) to small plates such as shiitake mushrooms and asparagus, to the popular rabbit tostada, spice-crusted lemon chicken, spice-rubbed quail, or wild mushroom tamales. This is a friendly place on two floors, with an inviting and comfortable bar and a patio when the weather is agreeable. The wine list is equal opportunity, not devoted entirely to Napa Valley, and spirits are served too.
2. Gillwoods Restaurant
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-1788
Address: 1313 Main Street
Description: You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat the locals to Gillwoods, St. Helena’s favorite breakfast joint. (You’ll recognize it by the people milling about outside for the short wait for a table.) It’s casual, intimate, and filled with good cheer and caffeine. The big draw always has been the scrambles—eggs and cheese mixed with various ingredients. The restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch seven days a week and does not take reservations. Gillwoods has a second location in Napa Town Center. The menu is the same there, and kids get their own menu at both places.
3. Go Fish
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-0700
Address: 641 Main Street
Description: Like Thomas Keller, Cindy Pawlcyn is a big presence in Napa Valley’s restaurant scene. Go Fish is her third eaterie in this valley, all of them successful and popular with locals and visitors. The focus here is on the raw bar, but you can also get fish prepared “Your Way”—whatever the day’s catch might be—sautéed, wood grilled, or poached. The kitchen also offers “Fish Our Way,” when the chefs decide what goes with what. The “No Fish” menu includes chicken, beef, and risotto. The desserts range from crepes to panna cotta to a chocolate bombé. Lately, Go Fish has been featuring the Tuesday-night Crustacean Crawl, a three-course, $40 dinner feast. The restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner.
4. Market
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-3799
Address: 1347 Main Street
Description: Ready for some comfort food? It’s hard to beat the offerings here. This restaurant bustles with locals and visitors, who come for the exceptional buttermilk fried chicken with mashed potatoes and corn bread, the chicken potpie, and the glazed meatloaf. Start your meal with the chopped Market salad with blue cheese and bacon. End the experience with home-style goodies such as a waffle cone sundae, a root beer float, or a plate of freshly baked cookies. Market is a homey eatery with an interesting bar, fieldstone walls, and friendly and efficient service. It’s open daily for lunch and dinner.
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Address: 1245 Spring Street
6. The Restaurant At Meadowood
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 967-1205, (800) 458-8080
Address: 900 Meadowood Lane
Description: A new chef, Christopher Kostow, came aboard early in 2008, which will no doubt change the culinary direction here a bit. What’s likely to remain unchanged is the source of their fresh produce for the meals, much of it grown on the property or nearby. You can also count on the “Wine Country cuisine” theme to continue. The fixed-price menu has a la carte selections, and guests also get the Chef’s Tasting Menu to choose from, a seven-course meal that might include lobster and squab with spinach, mushrooms, and Zinfandel onion marmalade. The Restaurant at Meadowood is open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday.
7. Model Bakery
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-8192
Address: 1357 Main Street
Description: You’d think it was a film set if those whiffs of fresh-baked bread didn’t call you from the kitchen. The look is perfect for a small-town bakery, with ceiling fans and a black-and-white checkerboard floor. The Model Bakery makes scones, croissants, danishes, bagels, and at least a half-dozen types of muffins. The repertoire includes six or so daily breads, plus regular daily specials. The bakery also sells juices, soups, fresh salads and sandwiches, brick-oven pizza, and, as you would guess, coffee and espresso drinks. It’s open every day but Monday. A second location can be found at Napa’s new Oxbow Public Market.
8. Taylor’S Automatic Refresher
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-3486
Address: 933 Main Street
Description: Retired traveling salesman and pharmacist Lloyd Taylor opened the Refresher for business in 1949. In the 1990s it went out of business for a time, and now it’s owned by the Gott family, who spruced it up—but managed to retain the quaint atmosphere—in 1999. Taylor’s cooks up lunch and early dinner seven days a week. The menu includes burgers, a very popular ahi burger, hot dogs, tacos, salads, and fountain treats. There are nice picnic grounds behind the eatery. The city of Napa was thrilled when Taylor’s opened a location at the Oxbow Public Market in 2008; now they don’t have to drive upvalley to get their favorite burgers and fries. (Another Taylor’s is located in San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Marketplace.)
9. Terra
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-8931
Address: 1345 Railroad Avenue
Description: Terra sits one block away from Main Street in a historic landmark, a hardy fieldstone foundry constructed in 1884. The open redwood-beamed ceilings in the two dining rooms give you the feel of a Tuscan villa. Chef Hiro Sone’s one-page menu aims for southern France and northern Italy, though he admittedly takes a few geographic twists and turns. The most popular main course might be the broiled, sake-marinated sea bass with shrimp dumplings in shiso broth. Terra is open for dinner every night except Tuesday.
10. Tra Vigne
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 963-4444
Address: 1050 Charter Oak Avenue
Description: Chef Michael Chiarello made it to the top of the Napa Valley dining hall of fame on the strength of this cozy trattoria in St. Helena. The stone building is an old landmark, and Tra Vigne has become a contemporary one. The regional Italian menu encourages grazing, with a host of interesting small plates, pastas, and pizzas to complement the meats and fish. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. The full bar and wine cellar are stocked with Italian reds and whites, plus a good selection of Californians.
11. Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant
City: St. Helena, CA
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (707) 967-1010
Address: 2555 Main Street
Description: Don’t worry, eating at the Culinary Institute of America’s restaurant doesn’t make you a guinea pig for fresh-faced chefs-in-training. This branch of the CIA is for the continuing education of chefs. Dishes here might include mussels steamed in Fritz Winery Melon, torchon of foie gras, or oxtail roulade. Second-course selections could be wild mushroom lasagna or a grilled pork chop with sage spaetzle, apples, braised escarole, and whiskey sauce. Try not to dribble while craning your head around the dining room, with its cement floor and stone walls lightened by blues and yellows. Greystone has a full bar and is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.