Lucy Restaurant & Bar

Man...I LOVE Bardessono, but I'm totally bummed that Lucy just doesn't match up. We came here for breakfast on our last day, since the BF was getting tired of eating pastries from Bouchon Bakery for breakfast every morning (which is ridiculous!). We were the only party there since it was still fairly early. I ordered a duck confit hash and the BF ordered the eggs Benedict. When the food came, my dish was great, but the BF's food was cold. Didn't seem like they even put it under a heat lamp. The sauce was cold, the egg was cold. The BF is not happy at this point. He ended up really liking the toast from my plate, so he asked the waiter for some more. Fast forward a bit, and obviously the waiter totally forgot about the toast. The BF asked nicely again, and yep, waiter totally forgot. He literally ran back to the kitchen and came back out with the toast. And it's also cold. It's obviously been toasted, but probably cold because it was forgotten. *sigh* I had to talk the BF down so he doesn't get upset, because he felt like with the price we're paying, the service should be better. I got us out of there with the tempers under control, but it's not likely we'll come back to the restaurant again, even if we're staying in the hotel.

3.5 overall: 2.5 on food; 4 on service; 5 for outdoor landscaping (stunning Japanese-inspired design!). If you want to dine outdoors, there are few lovelier places than Lucy's patio area. Note they are dog-friendly, if anyone is allergic.

Like Redd, to which Lucy is often compared, the food is somewhat flawed. Some dishes are good, some aren't. We find hotel service to be generally superior (not that the service bar in the Bay Area is especially high, mind you) to the usual cheerful but not-really-professional waitstaff in tourist areas, and we were certainly pleased by Lucy's service.

Lunch is a limited menu, mostly sandwiches. We had:

- Crab salad, served warm in a Thai green coconut curry sauce. Spouse 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 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, which was overwhelmed.

- Beet salad, 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. The beets were simply roasted, then lightly dressed with that mild vinaigrette. Great ingredients are always better treated gently and with respect. 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.

- Lamb Panini. 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. Unfortunately, the bread is too dense and when pressed, makes this much too bready, turning it bland despite the spreads.

- Reuben sliders. Small dome-topped housemade rye buns, 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. Spouse's only criticism was that by the time he got to the second mini, it was a bit too much bread for him. But that pastrami - LOVED IT!

Sides were variable. Housemade potato chips were wonderful. Sweet potato fries were awful; thin shreds like shavings. Greasy, overfried, hard to pick up and just as hard to eat, with little flavor except oil and burned edges, they were of little interest when eaten alone, nor did they add any interest to the panini.

Desserts sounded ordinary; we ended with cappuccinos. Blend was Peet's Garuda, very nice, good foam, very very slight excess of grounds but not enough to send them back.

On this trip we had lunch at both Redd and Lucy. We would return to Lucy before we would go back to Redd (although Etoile beats everybody, LOL).

Each time I visit Yountville I stop in for a drink at the bar here. Some places you go for the drinks and sacrifice setting, and  sometimes its the other way around. At Lucy there is no sacrifice. Sit inside at the bar, or out in the beautiful courtyard, wherever you prefer.

My first visit, a few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Brady, one of the bar managers. He was very attentive and helpful, even though we quizzed him each drink's ingredients, his preferences, and his recommendations. We loved the dark and stormy so much that he wrote down the recipe for us.

On our most recent visit, Brady was working, and my mother-in-law happen to have the recipe in her wallet. Once again, he was awesome, and made one of his signature cocktails for us to try. It was very busy, but he made the time to shoot this shit with us for a few... the kind of service and personality that will keep me coming back.