Wayne H.
Yelp
We were huge fans of the original Michelin-starred restaurant and ate there on numerous occasions to celebrate. When we heard that it closed, we were pretty bummed.
Now that it has reopened (and been reopened for some time), we decided to give it a try. They changed the menu to be more casual so you'll longer find a $150 prix fixe dinner menu, though the a la carte prices might still give you sticker shock. To be clear, contrary to what was said in other reviews, the newly reopened restaurant does NOT have any Michelin stars (you can verify this directly on the Michelin guide site: https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/california/san-francisco/restaurants/1-star-michelin).
The manor house is still as charming (and haunted :P) as ever and the service from checking in to being seated, and throughout the entire meal is as good, if not better than what we remember. It's definitely a bit less stuffy, which is great.
The menu is of moderate size with several shared starters, several appetizers/salads, and several entrees. The menu has options for almost all dietary restrictions. On the recommendation of our server, we started with the caviar & onion dip ($28) and warm bread ($9) - both were very enjoyable, though unless you load up each chip with dip, you'll almost certainly run out of chips like we did. Same thing for the bread - there was nowhere near enough butter for the volume of bread (4 huge parker house rolls that are like 4" tall) and probably less than 2 tablespoons of butter. While delicious, $28 is a bit pricey for what is essentially chips and dip with a tiny bit of trout roe on top.
For mains, we shared a burger ($28) and the jasmine rice porridge ($26). If you're eating duck or steak, you'll shell out ~$45 and ~$60 respectively for your entrees FYI. The burger was perfectly cooked. The patty was seasoned perfectly, juicy, and I believe even had a bit of dry aged meat blended in. The bun was super soft and pillowy, but ultimately served its role of keeping this beast of a burger together. The server raved about the beef fat fries that come with the burger, but I thought they were just okay. Good flavor, good sauces, but lacking the crispy exterior that is such an amazing contrast to the soft, creamy interior. Perhaps they sat under a heat lamp for too long, but these fries were soggy and limp.
The rice porridge was interesting. Having grown up eating rice porridge, I just didn't know what to make of it. They took something simple, warm, and comforting and tried to elevate it to a level it doesn't need to be at (IMHO) and ultimately didn't stick the landing. The porridge was bland save for an overwhelmingly strong and unpleasant ginger flavor.
I took a look at their BTG list and there's a lot of variety, which I loved to see. The prices are reasonable and pretty standard, despite their insane markup (the BTG price is typically around the wholesale price of the bottle). I wish they would spend a little more time looking for domestic sparkling wine - I'm a bit shocked to see Carboniste featured alongside Laurent-Perrier.
You should avoid the Coravin selections - they're way overpriced, especially when there's less concern about oxidation from opening bottles for the regular BTG pours, yet the prices do not reflect this. Even at a generous 5oz pour, which almost certainly they are not doing, you get 5 glasses from a 750ml bottle. At $45/glass, while it's great juice, imagine spending $225 for a bottle of 2021 Kistler 'Les Noisetiers' Chardonnay that you can buy retail for $70. No thanks!
The bottle list is also pretty extensive - almost certainly a hold out from their Michelin star days. The prices are reasonable - based on a few bottles I was familiar with, expect to pay between ~1.5-2x over retail on the low end and upwards of 3x over retail on some bottles on the high end. For example, the Laurent-Perrier Cuvee Rose Brut is around $75-80 retail and was around $150 on their list (and $44 BTG!).
To summarize, we're thrilled that this Sonoma County institution has reopened, but the food was hit or miss and everything was very expensive. We left feeling that it wasn't really worth it, despite spending 3x the amount in the past for what we thought was an exceptional prix fixe menu. For the money, we'll make onion dip at home :P
- 1 packet of Lipton onion soup mix ($0.99)
- 16oz container of sour cream ($2.50)