15 Restaurants You Can't Leave Napa Without Trying (2025)

15 Restaurants You Can't Leave Napa Without Trying (1)

Napa Valley is a global destination for wine, of course, but also for food, where Michelin-starred stunners hold court in sumptuous settings surrounded by idyllic vineyards. While we’ll never say no to an invite to The French Laundry (hint hint, cough cough), there is so much more to explore up and down the length of the Valley. There are plenty of Michelin stars, of course, but also standout bakeries, favorite local haunts, and a taco truck we’ll happily travel for. Here are 15 of our must-visit dining destinations in Napa Valley, from Downtown Napa north to Calistoga.

Stateline Road Smokehouse

Napa
Kansas City native Darryl Bell's brand new restaurant in a former auto body shop specializes in Kansas City-style barbecue, with 1000-gallon tank Moberg Smokers cranking out brisket, ribs, chicken, pulled pork and the best brisket burnt ends you'll find in California. Don't eat meat? The smoked maitake mushroom grain bowl with lettuce and purple rice will give carnivores FOMO and the curly fries are almost as good without bacon bits on top. If you're as obsessed with his barbecue as we are, you can buy the sauces online, which he perfected while preparing staff family meals at Thomas Keller's Bouchon.
Ready to go? First-come, first-served. No reservations needed.

Compline Restaurant and Wine Shop

Napa
Matt Stamp and Ryan Stetin’s Compline Restaurant is a favorite among Napa winemakers thanks to its quality global wine selection in the attached bottle shop (we love the focus on bubbles and affordable bottles) and their menu of literally everything we want to eat, from Bodega Bay rockfish with almond salsa macha at dinner time to a stellar burger and duck fat fries at lunch. A second wine shop space next door offers an even more extensive selection of hard-to-find bottles and doubles as a tasting lounge with a vinyl soundtrack (inspired by record bars in Japan). The shop plays host to regular wine events, and offers multiple, changing tasting flights.
Ready to go? Reservations for the restaurant and tastings at the bottle shop are available via OpenTable.

Mustards Grill

Napa
Chef Cindy Pawlcyn’s “deluxe truck stop” has been holding court on St. Helena Highway for almost four decades. While local, wood-fired fare has become ubiquitous in Napa Valley (and California at large), Mustards was doing it before most, and better than many still, with a playful focus on comfort food classics that happen to pair perfectly with the restaurant’s selection of local wine. Because when’s the last time you had a hearty slab of meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes alongside a magnificent Malbec?
Ready to go? Reservations are available via OpenTable.

15 Restaurants You Can't Leave Napa Without Trying (2)

Oxbow Public Market

Napa
This gourmet food hall and marketplace puts most others to shame. Oxbow is a one-stop shop where you can grab cheese, charcuterie, sandwiches, and fresh fruit for a picnic, or an early morning coffee (Ritual Coffee) and bagel (Loveski) to start your day. Or stay a while and enjoy fresh-shucked oysters from Hog Island and ahi burgers and milkshakes from Gott’s Roadside. We love Oxbow at all days and times, but Locals’ Night on Tuesdays, which includes live music and deals, is particularly special.
Ready to go? Vendors are first-come, first-served.

Bistro Don Giovanni

Napa
A longstanding Napa favorite, Bistro Don Giovanni is the Italian restaurant of our fantasies, from the convivial “welcome to the family” vibe to the stunning outdoor space complete with vineyard views and an excellent wine list to match. And then, of course, there’s the food. From the handmade pastas, to Mama Concetta’s meatballs served atop creamy polenta, this is the kind of food our dream nonna would make.
Ready to go?Reservations are available online.

Tacos El Muchacho Alegre

Napa
Michelin-starred destinations are great, but sometimes (most of the time), what we really want is a damn good taco truck. Napa more than delivers in the form of Tacos El Muchacho Alegre, which holds court next to Universal Auto and can, in our estimation, do no wrong. The truck, run by the Pelayo Gómez family, does everything well, from tacos and quesadillas to burritos and ceviche, but we’re partial to the Jalisco-style Torta Ahogada, in which a sandwich loaded with a filling of your choice is drenched in fiery-red spicy salsa.
Ready to go? Order in person.

Ad Hoc

Yountville
Thomas Keller is kind of the man when it comes to Napa, which makes it hard to decide which of his concepts to recommend. And while we fully support going big whenever possible (heard of a little restaurant called The French Laundry?), we’re a little bit obsessed with Ad Hoc, his more casual but still mouthwatering love letter to masterfully executed American comfort fare. The four-course menu changes daily, is served family style, and kind of feels like what a best-of-all-worlds family dinner should be, if one of your family members happened to be one of the best chefs in the world and cooked the best fried chicken you’ve ever had. Addendum, which offers lunch to go and in the garden, closes for the winter, but when warm weather returns to the valley be sure to add it to your must-visit list.
Ready to go? Reservations are available online.

The Restaurant at North Block

Yountville
Situated within one of the cooler boutique hotels in Wine Country, The Restaurant at North Block is one of our favorite destinations for wood-fired fare, stellar cocktails, and oysters. Whether you’re stopping in for a stone-baked pinsa flatbread snack and happy hour oysters or settling in for a full-scale feast centered around a dry-aged New York strip steak or cacio e pepe featuring hand-cut spaghettoni, there is, truly, never a bad time to visit.
Ready to go? Reservations are available via OpenTable

15 Restaurants You Can't Leave Napa Without Trying (3)

Oakville Grocery

Oakville
The oldest continually operating grocery store in California, Oakville Grocery is far more than a historic pitstop on your way to winery number two (or six). It’s also a destination in its own right, home to a truly stellar selection of gourmet pantry items (including local artisans like bean-to-bar Volo Chocolate), wines, and picnic fare, with an extensive menu of gourmet sandwiches, salads, wood-fired pizza, and more. They also have breakfast sandwiches, burritos, and pastries, which are pretty much always a good idea.
Ready to go? Order for curbside pickup online.

Model Bakery

Multiple locations
Sometimes, we find ourselves in wine country with a bit of a hangover (shocking, right?). Thankfully, Model Bakery exists and makes what is, arguably, the greatest breakfast sandwich in the world: a cloud of scrambled egg topped with melty cheddar and Canadian bacon layered between Model’s absolutely legendary, plate-sized, house-baked English muffins. The muffins alone are a work of incomparable beauty—pillow-soft interior, griddle-crisp exterior—and are a favorite of Oprah’s, in case you needed further inspiration. Everything else, from the pastries to the sandwiches to the breakfast burrito, are tasty too. We particularly love the original St. Helena version but the Napa and Yountville bakeries are just as good and we will take Model Bakery wherever we can get it, including for breakfast in bed.
Ready to go? Order for curbside pickup online.

15 Restaurants You Can't Leave Napa Without Trying (4)

PRESS Restaurant

St. Helena
This Napa Valley classic is no longer a simple steakhouse and Cabernet Sauvignon meal. PRESS still has the largest collection of Napa Valley wines (10,000 bottles) in the world, but with new chef Philip Tessier at the helm, the Michelin-starred restaurant emerged from the pandemic as the most exciting fine dining in Napa Valley. Tessier was the first American to ever medal at the Bocuse d'Or (the chef Olympics) and coached the American team to gold the following year. His French technique and exacting precision are apparent in tweezered garnishes and complex sauces and consommé poured tableside, but most importantly, the food is as delectable as it is beautiful. Service here is warmer and more friendly than you might expect, and the dining room gives airy high-ceilinged rustic elegance without feeling stuffy. Next door, a new project called under-study slated to open later this year includes a café, patisserie, butcher shop, seafood, wine shop and world-class teaching kitchen in the former Dean & DeLuca flagship.
Ready to go? Reservation are available on Tock.

The Charter Oak

St. Helena
What if the acclaimed chef of a three-Michelin-starred restaurant opened a casual spot centered around open-fire cooking, with a similar focus on excellent ingredients, an indoor-outdoor space, and one of the better cheeseburgers and brunches in Napa County? Not only does this place exist – run by chef Christopher Kostow of The Restaurant at Meadowood– but there’s all of that, plus cocktails and wine, and a weeknight happy hour where you could eat chef-blessed chicken wings with a margarita or a beer and a shot. There are plenty of enticing options for vegetarians too, including raw veggies from the restaurant's own farm served with fermented soy dip to grilled koji eggplant.
Ready to go? Reservations are available Resy.

Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch

St. Helena
Long Meadow Ranch is the real deal when it comes to sustainability. The Ranch raises grass-fed, pasture-raised Highland cattle, along with chickens; grows wine grapes, olives, and heirloom fruits and vegetables; and raises bees, while also being a solar-powered example of full-circle organic farming. Farmstead, the Ranch’s restaurant, is a wonderful place to taste the delicious fruits of their labor, particularly any and all dishes that showcase the grass-fed beef (looking at you, tartare and steak frites). Anything involving their orange-yolked eggs is a good idea, too.
Ready to go? Reservations are available online.

Pizzeria Tra Vigne

St. Helena
A beloved local favorite, Pizzeria Tra Vigne is an obvious go-to for wood-fired sourdough pizza, mozzarella “al minuto” (hand-pulled fresh mozzarella served with garlic grilled crostini), and an affogato pick-me-up. It’s also a stellar place to go with kids, a group, or anyone who likes a very good nightly happy hour—after a glorious day of wine tasting, what could be better than to tuck into some oysters, arancini, and chicken wings?
Ready to go? Reservations available for parties of six or more are available online; all other tables are first-come, first-served.

House of Better

Calistoga
This being California, we remain confident in our ability to eat healthfully without sacrificing flavor. That’s absolutely the case at House of Better in Calistoga which happens to be housed at Dr. Wilkinson’s Backyard Resort and Mineral Springs, a retro-fabulous hot springs destination and hotel. The menu at House of Better is designed by Trevor Logan, previously of San Francisco’s beloved Green Chile Kitchen and Chile Pies & Ice Cream, and he brought his New Mexico-inspired, green-chile-appreciating fare north to Napa Valley. In addition to fresh takes on tacos and enchiladas, find grain bowls, salads, and wood-fired flatbreads aplenty, plus house-blended medicinal teas, herbal elixirs, and wine—plus pie. Our favorite part of wellness is definitely the pie.
Ready to go? Reservations are available via OpenTable.

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Amber Gibson is a Thrillist contributor.

Lauren Slossis a San Francisco-based travel, food, and music writer who has done stints in Philadelphia, New York, London, Istanbul, and aboard a 32-foot sailboat. Follow her onInstagramandTwitter.

15 Restaurants You Can't Leave Napa Without Trying (2025)
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