1026 1st Street, Napa, CA 94559
Items ordered:
- Burrata Cheese (served with grilled ciabatta, fresh tomatoes, basil, extra virgin olive oil)
- Calamari Fritti (served with roasted bell pepper-chipotle aioli)
- Gnocchi Al Pesto with Chicken (fresh handmade gnocchi, pine nuts, basil, pesto cream sauce)
- Chicken Parmesan (Mozzarella cheese, over spaghetti pasta with marinara or Alfredo sauce)
We enjoyed a short trip to Napa as part of Thanksgiving weekend. Of course, the real joy of the Napa is the nice restaurants. We chose this place because it was really close to our hotel (right in downtown Napa) and because Italian is always an agreeable option for our kids.
The decor is really interesting. It feels like the location was previously an old fashioned bank. There are big columns and just overall the atmosphere feels grand. Also, the service was excellent.
The food was good, maybe not amazing. Calamari is exactly what you expect, and it was done well. There were some bits of fried vegetables mixed in (like fried fennel), which was nice. The burrata seemed very fresh, although it felt more like the hardness of a mozzarella rather than the runniness of a burrata.
The pastas had very rich sauces, and our daughter really liked that the pesto sauce was more creamy rather than strictly pesto. The gnocchi was good, but not quite as pillowy soft as the best gnocchi that we’ve had. The chicken parmesan was very well made.
Finally, the desserts might have been the best part of the meal. The Tiramisu was very rich and had very strong adult flavors (i.e. it wasn’t overly sweet, and it had a very strong coffee aroma). I only got a tiny bite, because our oldest daughter pretty much ate the entire thing. The chocolate mousse cake was also good, but I felt it had a little too much sponge and not enough mousse.
Overall, this was very good. Probably won’t return for a while, but that’s more because there are just so many great options in the Napa area.
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