Lucy @Bardessono
6528 Yount St., Yountville, CA
http://www.lucyrestaurantandbar.com 
Review date: April 2013

It's been over a year since we made our last visit to Napa. We love the restaurants but there's very little for us to do here, because we don't drink. There's no interesting bookstores, no game shops, no plant nurseries, no rock/crystal shops – just food.

But so much food! And some of it quite good.

The wine-tasting traffic is already increasing on Hwy 29, the only main route in/out of Napa and its fellow foodie towns of Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga. Although we were traveling mid-week well in advance of Memorial Day weekend, one can tell there are more people visiting than in the 2009-10 doldrums, when everybody seemed to be hunkering down amidst feelings of financial insecurity.

Lucy has been open at Bardessono Hotel since January 2012. It is never discussed much on the Chowhound boards, or even on Yelp – it has a mere 38 reviews on Yelp over its fifteen months. In comparison, Cindy Pawclyn's renamed Wood Grill has gathered 29 reviews, yet it's only been open for a little over six months. 

The Executive Chef is Victor Scargle, who updated the menu when Bardessono remodeled the restaurant and renamed it Lucy. It's very modern inside – the hotel itself is one of only three LEED-certified hotels in the U.S. The menu at lunch is short and simple, concentrated on salads and sandwiches.

It should be noted that a lot of people overlook Lucy because it's a true hotel restaurant, open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The majority of their diners are hotel guests. This is a shame, because outside of the mandatory use of (free) valet parking, this is one of the handsomest outdoor dining restaurants in the area. 

Speaking as both a gardener and someone who appreciates fine landscape architecture, Bardessono's courtyard is a Japanese-inspired masterpiece. We sat inside – I'm never a fan of eating outdoors, and there was a cool breeze blowing – but we were next to a window and the view was delightful. Not cottage-style abundance of flowers (in fact, there weren't any blooms anywhere that I could see), but rather the textural elegance of wood, stone, and grasses framing two dark-surfaced linear reflecting ponds. There was bamboo, and trees both large and small, with casual patio tables set near but not too close together. 

Like many places Bardessono is dog-friendly on the patio: the waiter brought out water for a guest's beautiful purebred Irish setter, who lapped it up happily.

Service is well-trained and friendly. And since they see mostly hotel guests, both hotel and dining room lack the indifferent tone one often senses from restaurants in tourist-heavy areas. At times we've encountered a feeling of "you're all just visitors and we know you probably won't be back, if at all, for years," from establishments such as La Toque and Bouchon (and elsewhere – Napa isn't the only place this happens). Fortunately that's rare, but eating out as often as we do, that feeling is unmistakable. Bardessono and Lucy both have the feel of good hotel staff; their courtesy and enthusiasm is unflagging.

I started with an iced tea, which unfortunately was overbrewed. As the ice melted, it diluted the extra tannins, which helped. It was a good quality black tea, so it was a shame someone left the brewing about four minutes too long.

Carlos started with the crab salad, served warm in a Thai green coconut curry sauce. He thought it was good, nothing amazing. I thought the sauce was a little harsh. It wasn't that spicy – some of the green curry pastes we've tried can literally blow the top of your head off – so either it needed a bit more coconut cream, or more likely an overnight sit to mellow out the spice blend. I thought it would have been a better sauce for fish, instead of sweet Dungeness.

I began with the beet salad, which was a terrific plate heaped with red, yellow, and Chiogga beets. All were young, either halved or quartered, dressed lightly with banyuls vinaigrette, and topped with a few sprigs of baby watercress. I was surprised how uncomposed this plate was, but pleased with how the beets had been treated. They were simply roasted, then lightly dressed with that mild, light vinaigrette. If you're a beet lover as we are, this was a winner, in a sizable portion that is enough for two people to share.

Carlos chose the Reuben sliders, and I chose the Lamb Panini. I received a generously filled panini, spread on one side with black olive tapenade and on the other with a horseradish aioli. Some mixed baby greens, with nice spicy little radish leaves in the mix, were on top of the lamb. The lamb was done to a medium with a nice hint of pink, then sliced into an amazingly tender, juicy filling.

Three things kept this from being a great sandwich. One was that the bread was a bit too dense to make the ideal panini. I prefer an airier, softer crumbed French or Italian for a panini, like (yes, you guessed it) Yanni's Sausage Grill/Penngrove uses from Full Circle Baking. The bread Lucy used is just a bit too dense in texture when pressed, which detracted from the mild lamb. If it hadn't been for the tapenade perking up the meat, the sandwich would have been too bland.

The second was the side of sweet potato fries. These were thin shreds, more like shavings than anything else. Greasy, overfried, hard to pick up and just as hard to eat, with little flavor except oil and burned edges, they were not of much interest when eaten alone, nor did they add any interest to the panini.

And the third flaw was that this wasn't a Reuben slider, LOL. Once I tasted a bite of Carlos' Reuben minis, I seriously considered ordering a plate of those sliders to replace the lamb.

Small dome-topped light rye buns were housemade, spread with Russian dressing. Really fine, juicy pastrami was cut thick but was still fork-tender. The kick of sauerkraut was just right, and the Swiss melted generously over the meat and kraut was divine. Carlos' only criticism was that by the time he got to the second mini, it was a bit too much bread for him, as the rye flour was used in sufficient proportion to make the buns a bit heavy despite their small size.

He received a much better side with his sliders, of housemade potato chips. He said they were excellent, and ate them all. I didn't get any, so I'll have to take his word for it!

We looked at the desserts but didn't find them interesting. Lucy's menu touts their Peet's coffee and Garuda espresso blend, so we both got regular cappuccinos. These were "dry" without it needing to be specified, with a fine foam on top. There was a very slight excess of grounds in the machine but neither had that 'chewy' flavor that signifies an incompetent barista. 

Overall, Lucy was good, but until we try it for dinner we can't place it at the top level here. It's not easy to be open all day for three different meals; almost none of their competitors are. But although it's understandable that they limit the lunch menu to sandwiches, their execution of same is just a touch carb-loaded. 

I loved the beet salad I got. But the small errors gave them a second place finish for this trip's lunch places. The lovely spring day and beautiful surroundings helped give Lucy an extra half-star; it is truly a beautiful place. It's hard to pick your way through an unfamiliar menu and hope you're choosing the winners. Here at Lucy (like many places), if you don't, it will be good but not great...but Lucy is one of the more expensive places to dine in the Napa Valley. That makes mistakes more costly, for example, than going to Bottega or Brix.

Still, a quiet dining room, excellent service, and that stunning courtyard – yes, we'd go back and try dinner on our next trip.

Two people, lunch: two starters, two sandwiches, three beverages, with tip was $105.