Napa Valley

07/11/2019 - United States, Napa Valley

08/24/2018 – UNITED STATES, NAPA, CA

This past summer we traveled to Napa Valley. The beauty of the place is unique and breathtaking. I have a friend who is going next week so I thought I would give the readers all the tips we experienced. Here are a few recommendations from our trip.

Restaurants:

One of my favorite dining experiences was at The Gatehouse.  Its on CIA’s campus in Helena.  The chefs are all the CIA students who are graduating.  It’s the equivalent of their thesis.  You will taste some of the best of the upcoming chefs and they’ll let you walk through the kitchen.
https://www.ciagatehouserestaurant.com/
If you want super fancy, I recommend The Restaurant at Meadowood.  It has 3 Michelin stars and is one of the best restaurants in the world. It’s in Helena as well.
https://www.therestaurantatmeadowood.com/
If you want to go classic Napa, try anything by Thomas Keller.  The French Laundry has 4 Michelin stars and is very hard to get into but Bouchoun has 1 Michelin star.  We went there and it was amazing! His restaurants are in Yountville.
https://www.thomaskeller.com/
The Oxbow Public Market next to the CIA campus in downtown Napa is really cool just for a casual fun experience. Lots of different restaurants in one building. It’s very famous!
https://oxbowpublicmarket.com

Wineries:

First, I wanted to do the wine train but we weren’t drinking at the time so it didn’t really make sense, lol.  
https://www.winetrain.com/
We went to the Hess Collection Winery.  It has an art museum inside with some pretty crazy artwork.
https://www.hesscollection.com/
Round Pond Estate has a winery and olive oil tasting.  The olive oil tasting is supposed to be amazing!  We tried to go but we were too late in the day and the lady had already left.
https://www.roundpond.com/portfolio/
Coppola’s Winery is supposed to be very fun.  We didn’t go there but it apparently has a museum of his work in there. It’s about an hour north of Napa.  We didn’t have time to go that far.
https://www.francisfordcoppolawinery.com/

The wineries are all spread out.  I’m sure you can’t go wrong with any.
Just go and have a blast!