As I mentioned in a couple of previous blog posts, I had a lovely visitor (my Mom!) in San Francisco last week. I get my foodie-ness from my Mom and hence couldn’t wait to take her to tons of great restaurants.
We headed to Napa for an over night getaway to do some wine tasting, sight-seeing and of course eating! My Mom loves watching Top Chef and wanted to check out Michael Chiarello’s restaurant in Yountville- Bottega for Sunday lunch.
The interior was rustic and beautiful. From the moment you walk into Bottega, the hostess desk catches your eye with its unique himalayan salt/lighting incorporation.
The copper water tumblers were so unique- they kept water especially cold and added a big style element to the place setting.
To start the meal off, we ordered two antipasti dishes- Burrata (with kalamata olive crema, black anise crostini, fava beans, pickled spring onions, saba vinagrette) and Roasted Baby Golden & Chiogga beets (with point reyes blue cheese spuma & pistachio vinagrette). Highly recommend both…
For the paste, we ordered the Risotto del Giorno (proscuitto, mushrooms, cheese and egg) and the Black Garlic Spaghetti Grande (Head-on gulf prawns, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, calabrian chili, citrus essence & bonito flakes). The risotto was cooked perfectly- still had a crunchy texture and not overly mushy. The fried egg added a lot of flavour and mixed well with the proscuitto.
For the secondi, we shared “Liberty” Duck Three Ways (Roasted breast, salad of confit, pickled pomegranates, watercress, Sierra Beauty apples, spiced hazelnuts & duck liver mousse). This was my favourite dish. The duck liver mousse and the apple sauce were standouts.
Of course we couldn’t leave without dessert! We had the Tiramisu (with mascarpone mousse, cocoa ladyfingers, rum and kahlua coffee syrup and crunchy chocolate meringues) and the Panna Cotta de Capra (with almond semolina croutons, honey basil sorbetto, winter citrus). The tiramisu was a chocolate lovers dream… heaven in a fancy mason jar. I liked the sorbetto on the panna cotta but was a huge fan of the overall dish.
No meal in Napa is complete without some vino!
all via Canon T2i