Fine dining without the pretense—that’s one of the ways La Toque positions itself, a tall order when one considers all the Napa restaurant has to offer. Welcoming and uber-efficient service, warm ambience, Michelin-level cuisine (it was awarded a star for 14 years straight through 2021). Heck, its wine cellar earned a Grand Award from Wine Spectator, recognizing restaurants with the finest curated wine programs, one of only 11 bestowed currently in the Bay Area. La Toque’s reputation as one of Napa’s destination restaurants is hard earned.
Still, there’s modesty to La Toque that’s refreshing among Wine Country’s many well-heeled restaurants. It’s calm. It’s cozy. And it doesn’t rest on its laurels. That no doubt starts with chef/owner Ken Frank, who founded the first incarnation of the restaurant in Los Angeles in 1979, before moving to Rutherford in 1998 and, a decade later, to its current location at the Westin Verasa hotel in downtown Napa. More than 45 years in, Frank still leads the kitchen—you’ll see him and the crew working away through the dining room windows to the kitchen—and chatting with guests when he finds a moment.
La Toque offers a choice of a tasting experience or ordering from the a la carte menu—where twice-cooked octopus and red snapper share space with tenderloin carpaccio and New York strip Wagyu. The tasting menu, which we sampled, kicks off with amuse bouches, including chickpea fries (with a tangy labneh dipping sauce), cauliflower velouté, bluefin tartare and pachuca pasty—delightful small bites to whet appetites for the six tasting courses to follow. The tastings on our visit began with matsutake mushrooms in a savory kombu broth, followed by roasted New England monkfish, the latter served in a decadent lobster sauce (the table sourdough from Acme Bread in Berkeley came in handy for polishing off the lobster sauce). A bowl of tagliatelle followed—bolstered by duck confit in a rich brown butter espuma, a foamy sauce that livens an already succulent dish…