A new museum opened last month in St. Helena with an interactive exhibition on the life of famed chef Julia Child — yet the café next door may be an even bigger draw.
Under-study, the highly-anticipated bakery and tapas spot from the Michelin-starred team at Press Restaurant, opens May 26. It’s adjacent to the Napa Valley Museum of Arts & Culture, or the MAC, an expansion of the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville. Intended as the antithesis to the stereotypically underwhelming museum café, Under-study will bring a fine dining approach to the grab-and-go experience, without the tasting menu price tag, owners said.
“It’s some of the most highly-trained cooks in America in a café setting,” said Philip Tessier, chef-partner of Press and Under-study.
Under-study and the museum have taken over the former home of Dean & Deluca, which, more recently was Gary’s Wine & Marketplace. Yet Under-study (607 St. Helena Hwy., St. Helena) is a major departure from its predecessors. Tessier described the interior, designed by Studio Terpeluk, the team behind San Francisco’s buzzy new French bistro Bon Délire, as “Willy Wonka meets Hermes.” It’s a mix of sophisticated and playful: Sleek marble and Douglas fir finishes merge with bold pink, yellow and teal walls and accents. Instead of deli sandwiches and pre-made salads, the café will serve fancy tapas like Wagyu steak tartare ($18), hamachi crudo ($14) and a caviar-topped lobster corn dog ($32) on luxe Hestan cafeteria trays. Customers can dine inside at translucent, yellow resin tabletops that flip up from the wall and people-watch through a window that peers into the museum, but most of the seating is on the patio around a fountain…