Lunch at Cantinneta Tra Vigne

The Tra Vigne restaurant in the hearth of Napa Valley has been a destination for food lovers for long. I had a chance to spend a wonderful day in their patio with great food and good company.

A sunny Saturday in September, 2003 took me to a place a notch closer to paradise then the average food joint. I was traveling with my colleague Olli and met up with my friend Steve and his wife Sarah. Steve and Sarah two serious food lovers and from my previous encounter I knew I was in for something good.

I had never before visited Napa, even though I had been many numerous times to San Francisco area. We took off in the morning stopping at a Champagne winery. Our destination was Tra Vigne, an Italian restaurant in the heart of Napa Valley.

The atmosphere was stunning, sitting outside under a natural roof of leaves made the setting spectacular. The mood was like something out of the Godfather movies, good food, friendly atmosphere. This thought popped into my mind from one of the other parties, a bigger group celebrating ‘grandfathers’ birthday.
It was like the movie was being replayed live in front of our eyes. This group were however not the lead characters, only a bunch of ‘also starrings’ giving context to the place. In this experience the Food was in the leading role.

The food was wonderful. As antipasta I had the Pomodori antichi e mozarella, cut rough, country style, the tomates tasted like they were harvested a minute earlier, quickly stopping by in the kitchen on their way to the yard, where we were eating.
As Primi, I took Sarah’s advice and tried the Mezzaluna di Zucca. These butternut squash filled pasta covered with roasted chantarelles and garden sage was magnificent. Lots of texture and taste of the local earth. The pasta, cooked perfectly al dente was just the high score. The piquant chantarelles added colour and lots of body to the dish. For Secondi I decided to try the Coniglio con patate e olive, a poached rabbit loin. This was great, but the two first courses where even better, primarely due to their simplistic beauty. Rounding of with some dolci, and what better than to take a Torta based on fresh estate grapes, it was after all harvesting time! Mixing this with some wonderful local wine made the whole experience really moving. As we were all food lovers we did a fair amount of sharing and everything I tasted was very good, I was least fond of their risotto, which I found to be too runny and at the same time al dente.

The service was really friendly and efficient, it is certainly a place I will visit again and that I warmly recommend for anyone wishing to get a tiny step closer to paradise, if only for a day!