Our final meal in Napa was at Farmstead Restaurant. The restaurant is farm to table dining and everything is organically made and produced and even has a winery attached to it. I have to be honest, we ate so much in the preceding days we were in Napa, we were sort of over food by our final day. I know that sounds nuts since we are such foodies. Also, given that rich and large lunch we had at Bistro Jeanty, we weren’t even that hungry. But we didn’t want to skip it and so we dragged ourselves out for our final feeding.
Reviews were pretty good and I was looking forward to a great final meal. The interior of the restaurant is awesome. SUPER high ceilings. The restaurant is really airy and the inside looked and felt like we were eating in a converted barn (is it a converted barn?). There are farmstead tables and some booths scattered about.
First thing we noticed was the service was not great. We weren’t given bread and I’m not kidding two different servers came by to greet us. One just to say hi and another to give us a menu. Then a third came to take our order. Kind of annoying to be honest since there was a wait in between each person.
For appetizer Cookie Monster got the arugula salad with caramelized beets and goat cheese crema:
I found the goat cheese made the salad a bit too sour for me but Cookie Monster loved it. The beets were served warm and were delicately sweet. The arugula balanced out the sweet beets by lending a slight bitter peppery flavoring.
I got the meatballs that every reviewer seemed to adore:
Meatballs were served with caramelized root vegetables and a tomato marmalade. Honestly? I didn’t love them. They were just ok – I didn’t find they were that full of flavor. Also the caramelized root vegetables were glazed in something sweet. I prefer savory sauces so the whole sweet flavor profile wasn’t up my alley. Great presentation though in that sizzling cast iron.
For main course, Cookie Monster got the potato gnocchi with a grass fed beef ragu, herbs and grana:
OMG way too much rosemary and thyme in the sauce. Rosemary and thyme are not meek herbs and they overpowered every bite. It took away from the grass fed beef flavor which should have been in the forefront of this ragu. Gnocchi was well cooked however and not doughy.
Close up:
I was feeling heavy so decided to get the salmon with pesto, corn, corn pudding and summer vegetables:
Sorry – the salmon was SO bland and slightly fishy. I was adding salt to every bite. The vegetables were great and beautifully sweet so I opted to eat that and leave almost half my salmon. Disappointed.
We were pretty much over the meal but then our server suggested the chocolate pudding pie with graham cracker crust:
It was good. I liked the home made whipped cream.
I can’t say I was thrilled with Farmstead. Cookie Monster and I agreed that this restaurant was definitely our least favorite of all the meals we had in Napa. In fact, we actually did not like the meal all that much which is sad since alot of people seemed to like Farmstead. Either way, we are all for the idea of locally grown and produced food that really tries to be conscious of the environment so I’m glad we were able to come by and lend our support.
Farmstead Restaurant, 738 Main Street, St. Helena, CA
Bye bye Napa! So that was the end of our Napa trip and we were off to San Fran. We really enjoyed everything Napa had to offer – the beautiful sunny days, the wonderful air, and most of all, the most amazing restaurants we have ever been to! Till we meet again!
