Table for Dru: Napa Valley

A 10-year veteran of the New York City restaurant industry, Local Foreigner IC Lauren Dru has a taste for destination dining. Table for Dru is her guide to eating well while traveling.

While we all wish we could have taken that trip to Italy this year, there’s nothing like a pandemic to make you fall in love with your own backyard. Many people call Napa Valley the Tuscany of the United States, but California’s most prominent wine region deserves to stand on its own two feet. Wine aside, the Napa Valley is an incredible foodie destination — its Michelin star dining alone is worth packing your bags for. Here’s where I’m eating on my next trip:

Destination Dining Worth Traveling For

Meadowood

The 3-star Michelin Restaurant at Meadowood is not to be missed when traveling to Napa. The dining room offers high ceilings, oversized polished stone tables, wood columns, textured linens, and a real sense of laid-back luxury. That warmth is carried into the dishes they serve, which highlight the freshest ingredients of the season and often include vegetables and olives grown on property. A restaurant for oenophiles, Meadowood offers a California heavy list of seductive wines, including 30 pages dedicated solely to Cabernets.  This year the dining room has shifted outside to the Madrone Lawn, adjacent to the restaurant, where diners can eat amid the pine trees under the blue sky.  

Single thread farms

No trip to Sonoma County is complete without a meal at Single Thread Farms, where Chef Kyle Connaughton and his wife Katina serve up an 11-course Kaiseki-style tasting menu based on the region’s 72 micro seasons. The ultimate farm-to-table fine dining experience, this 3-star Michelin restaurant utilizes ingredients from its nearby organic farm. This year the restaurant has moved its operations to Kistler Vineyards's Trenton Roadhouse where the staff serve diners under the stars.  

French laundry

In a world where culinary trends change with every passing season, Chef Thomas Keller has managed the impossible: keeping French Laundry atop Napa bucketlists for more than 20 years. The 3-star Michelin establishment offers two seasonal menus of California cuisine, pairing classic French techniques with hyper local ingredients. Most of the restaurant’s ingredients are sourced in Napa and many are grown in the garden directly across the street. The charming restaurant is typically housed in a historic French steam laundry (thus the name), but this year diners will be eating just outside in the building’s courtyard, if they are lucky enough to score a reservation.  

Where to Stay