Baseline Vegans in Napa: A Culinary Adventure Outside the Home Kitchen

The only really easy choice was Ubuntu (www.ubuntunapa.com/), a snazzy twofer of vegetarian/vegan restaurant and yoga studio that everyone inevitably mentioned when we asked around for dining options. A warm semi-industrial décor of rich wood and metal accents offered a modern, but comfortable, setting for an organic cuisine rooted, quite literally, in Ubuntu’s own biodynamic garden. Foregoing the staples of many vegan restaurants – tempeh, seitan, tofu – chef Jeremy Fox lives on the cutting edge with fresh, innovative dishes that bring the restaurant accolades to high heaven and write-ups in The New York Times. Herbed chickpea fries with a romesco dipping sauce, marcona almonds sweetened with rose geranium sugar, and castelvetrano olives marinated in a carrot pesto started the meal with unconventional, tasty flair. Dishes like carrot gnochetti flavoured with tarragon, almond and mace – as warm and comforting as any mac and cheese, but surprising too – and tantalizing homemade fregola with sweet onions, leek ash and spinach, offers something extraordinary for the gourmet foodie. The only complaints, minor as they are, involve the dizzying abundance of servers and a menu presented like tapas, but not quite. The plates are small – many live up to the joke about paying a lot of money for a little bit of gracefully-presented food in a sea of white space – and not all are of equal substance. A menu divided into lighter fare such as greens dressed with lemongrass-infused olive oil and heartier dishes like a delicious spinach pizza topped with borage would have made tailoring the meal to appetite easier. Still, Ubuntu was a gem that reinforced our view that it’s not necessary to eat meat in order to experience transcendental cuisine.

In fact, Ubuntu is just the high-end example of how it’s possible to create flavourful meat-free dishes; there’s no need to get quite so fancy. Which means that there’s no excuse for classy restaurants’ to offer token veggie dishes bereft of imagination. Ristorante Allegria, for example. The jam-packed Italian restaurant in downtown Napa also came with enthusiastic recommendations, enough to think that Allegria was the embodiment of divinity. A look at the menu, though, revealed meat, meat, more meat, and a mushroom risotto. After eating a disappointing wonderbread-like baguette with flavourless olive oil, my wife and I had the risotto, which proved to be rather boring and bland, as if they had forgotten to add herbs and spices. Perhaps other dishes live up to the hype, but when an Italian restaurant can’t deliver on bread, olive oil and risotto, let alone a tasty veggie dish, I worry. For all its hype, Allegria was nearly outdone by a nearby competitor, Tuscany, whose spotty service and ordinary but decent entrees (an overly-vinegared papaya and greens salad, a kabob of vegetables, cannelloni) at least aimed beyond the same-old same-old.

Staying Down To Earth

Of course, sometimes it helps to stay close to the earth to find a wholly satisfying meal. Armadillo’s in St. Helena, an unpretentious, festive Mexican restaurant, proved a pleasant surprise with lard-free cooking and earnest vegetarian options. The enchilada I had came stuffed with avocado and other good stuff, with a side of mixed grilled vegetables to accompany the usual rice and refried beans. Fresh, savoury, and notable for holding back on the cheese. All too often, a bucketful of cheese drowns out the vegetables, presumably in an effort to make up for a lack of veggie oomphs, but Armadillo’s puts its trust in the ingredients and comes out on top. And in Sonoma, we had great success with Taste of the Himalayas, a Nepalese restaurant located off the historic downtown Sonoma Plaza. With wait staff wearing traditional Nepalese dress and offering warm greetings, the veggie-friendly cuisine akin to North Indian cuisine – samosas, curries, paneers, and so on – translated to a hassle-free, happy-tummy experience. The lesson: if you look hard enough, there’s something for everyone, and it doesn’t have to cost a body part or two.

Squeaky Wheels Get the Veggies

There was another lesson to be learned, however. After much hemming and hawing over how to usher in the New Year – we wanted to do something other than stay in our room at the B&B – some online research yielded Silo’s (www.silosjazzclub.com), a freshly minted wine bar/jazz club situated in downtown Napa’s historic Napa Mill. As a venue, which also doubles as an art gallery, Silo’s proved charming, elegant, lively – everything you could want in a jazz and wine sanctuary. And the music? Smokin’, snappy, utterly wonderful. Vocalist Wesla Whitfield performed with a bright, clear voice and a sassy stage presence, accompanied by nimble and kickin’ Mike Greensill on the piano and John Wittala, who played a mean bass like it was nobody’s business.

But what really cinched it for us was that we were able to get around the fact that the New Year’s Eve festivities came with a buffet of shrimp cocktails and other non-vegan dishes. Before I reserved our place, Bar Manager Keith Stansberry took the time to call and personally talk with me about our dietary preferences. Professional, accommodating, friendly, Mr. Stansberry added that little bit of extra oomph to customer service by offering us an alternative. The result; we were treated to a vegan pizza made expressly for us from a recipe Mr. Stansberry is experimenting with; rosemary-flavoured flatbread, fresh bell peppers and onions, dressed in a balsamic vinegar glaze. Delicious. Succesful. And we were able to feel included in the celebration of a New Year, not kept apart because of our nutritional choices. Silo’s proved to be another lustrous Napa gem, well-worth enjoying for the outstanding music and service, and the lesson to be learned when vegans go out for food is that, in the end, it never hurts to ask.