… that I have eaten at Mustards Grill, in Yountville, more than 600 times,
and here….
at Bistro Don Giovanni, in Napa, I have dined 535 times, according to the restaurant’s reservation computer.
My loyalty to these restaurants, which I adore and have revisited numerous times, started after I ended my restaurant-reviewing days at The Toronto Star.
Like Ernest Hemingway, I had press credentials at The Toronto Star. During my career there, it was the third largest newspaper (circulation) in North America.
For nearly six years, I was the paper’s restaurant critic with a nearly unlimited budget to dine in any restaurant in the world, or profile any chef I chose.
The problem with being a restaurant critic is that every night you have to dine in a different restaurant. You can rarely return to a newly discovered gem because the job requires finding something NEW all the time. Newness becomes your nemesis.
In my last several years at The Star, I had a column in the paper seven days a week, we published a 32-page Food Section every Wednesday, and I had regularly scheduled restaurant reviews, food think pieces, and chef profiles every other day of the week.
After moving to Napa Valley 23 years ago to make wine and write about it, one of the immediate joys of NOT having to discover a new restaurant every night was the freedom to return to a place serving great comfort food as often as I liked.
Mustards Grill and Bistro Don Giovanni filled the bill.
The exciting thing about both these restaurants is that today, decades later, each of these restaurants is still at the top of its respective game.
Cindy Pawlcyn’s food has never been better in the 35 years she has operated Mustards Grill; her pork chop, hanger steak, Caesar salad, calamari slaw, mile-high pile and chocolate whiskey cake have become Napa Valley food icons, or food memes, for what is great about our valley.
Giovanni Scala has never served a mediocre meal in my 535 visits; I always come away from his Italian dining room with a broad smile. The wine list is large and fairly priced, the pastas, pizzas and Caesar Salad provide unconditional love. My smile is always on high beam when I leave the restaurant, and I’m often one of the last guests to leave, regardless what time I start dinner.
And now I have just found another restaurant worthy of such repetitive attendance…
…. drum roll please….
It is Bar Oso, a Spanish-style restaurant serving exceptionally fine tapas and wonderfully complex cocktails.
The only difficulty for me to dine here is that it is 1,000 miles from Napa Valley. It is in Whistler, British Columbia.
I discovered Bar Oso, (“oso” is “bear” in Spanish) on a trip to Whistler last week and dined there the three consecutive nights I was in town. That’s how good it is.
If I lived in Whistler, I’d dine here regularly, running up a tab at least once a week, 52 times a year. Maybe more.
The fare is contemporary Spanish small plates. Every day in Whistler, I thought about the octopus and potato dish, served in a reusable sardine can (above), which I’d had the night before.
The smartly textured beef tartare, topped with a quail egg, was divine.
But the signature dish, which I had on two occasions, is a charcuterie platter of cured meats, cheeses, pates and an unlimited quantity of toasted bread slices, which are so thin they appear to have been cut on a mandolin.
The platter contains four kinds of house-made pate, five different cheeses, two types of thinly sliced ham, one of them Iberico, olives, and pickled vegetables. Pair this with a copita of Sherry, or a glass of BC sauvignon blanc, or pinot gris, and you are in heaven.
Made with Valrhona, the chocolate tarte is the black hole of deserts, SO dense that no light can escape its density, richness or darkness. Possibly my favorite new desert of 2019.
Bar Oso executive chef, Jorge Munoz Santos.
The restaurant was co-founded by two chefs, Jorge Munoz Santos and James Walt.
When I met James, I mentioned that Bar Oso reminded me of my two favorite tapas bars, Barrafina, in London, and Casa Mono, in New York. Without flinching, he remarked: “Those are exactly the two tapas bars on which we modeled Bar Oso!”
On the bar side, they make cocktails, which belong in the Bartenders Hall of Fame.
Six different gin/tonic concoctions are conversation-starters on the menu, including the one pictured above, called Long Table Cucumber, a fusion of Long Table gin (made in Vancouver), spritzifiedwith Phillips Cucumber Mint Tonic.
There are only 33 seats at this tiny boite and reservations cannot be made. But the turnover is quick so wait time is not ponderous.
Bar Oso has a sister restaurant several doors away called Araxi, where I also dined. They have a tremendous wine list featuring sensational wines from British Columbia and use a Coravin, offering guests special wines by the glass.
Araxi is also a good option for dining in Canada’s top ski town, but if my repetitive behavior last week is any indication, Oso is, in terms usually reserved for The Matrix, the ONE.
Bar Oso, 150 - 4222 Village Square, Whistler, British Columbia. 604-962-4540.