Ad Hoc, Yountville, California

On our trip to Napa, I made reservations for Rob and I to have dinner at Ad Hoc as a belated birthday present to him. I initially wanted to do the French Laundry for his birthday, but didn’t think we would be able to get reservations and opted for Ad Hoc, another excellent Thomas Keller outpost, instead. It turned out that we were able to snag some last minute French Laundry reservations anyway, so Rob got two belated birthday dinners on one trip!

Ad Hoc is a fantastic restaurant that serves family style meals and offers one set menu every night. You won’t know what is being served until that morning, when they post the menu, but you can be sure that it will be good. The menu consists of salad, a main, a cheese course and a dessert. Everything element is chosen for its quality, from Snake River Farms meats to salad greens grown in the French Laundry garden that is literally down the street. While not cheap, the value is tremendous for the quality of the food and the fun of eating there.

I wrote up a detailed report of what we ate at Baking Bites with lots of pictures. Funnily enough, one of my readers was eating there on the same night! We’ll be back the next time we’re up north!