4 Best Restaurants in Yountville, Napa and Sonoma

The team that created The French Laundry is also behind this place, where everything—the zinc-topped bar, antique sconces, suave waitstaff, and escargots, French onion soup, and salmon and beef tartare starters—could have come straight from a Parisian bistro. Sole Provençale, pan-seared flat iron steak with caramelized shallots, and mussels steamed with white wine, saffron, and Dijon mustard—the latter two served with crispy addictive fries—are among the perfectly executed entrées.

Inside an ivy-laced old stone building and with good reason atop many a Napa Valley visitor's bucket list, chef Thomas Keller's destination restaurant generally lives up to the hype with intricate yet not overthought cuisine. Some courses on the two prix-fixe menus, one of which highlights vegetables, rely on luxe ingredients such as white quail or shima aji (striped jack); others take humble elements like carrots or fava beans and elevate them to art.

Chef Thomas Keller's culinary ventures include part ownership of Regiis Ova Caviar, whose output is often paired with sommelier-selected Champagnes and sparkling wines at his fancy-casual indoor-outdoor restaurant. In addition to the ever-evolving menu's multiple caviar options, small bites and snacks like Wagyu tartlets and hamachi with finger limes might whet the appetite for barbecued quail, a pork katsu sandwich, and other slightly larger plates.

At this low-key southern Yountville dining room, superstar chef Thomas Keller offers a daily-changing, fixed-price multicourse menu whose mains might include smoked beef brisket with baked beans and coleslaw or sesame chicken with radish kimchi and fried rice. Ad Hoc also serves a small but decadent weekend brunch, and the Addendum annex, in a small building behind the restaurant, sells boxed lunches to go (ultra-moist buttermilk fried chicken) a few days a week from late spring to early fall.