Where to eat in Mendocino

Our innkeeper recommended what he thought were the four best restaurants in Mendocino. We tried them all. Two stood out.

Cafe Beaujolais surprised us by the quality of its food. On the Chronicle scale, it would rate at 3 1/4 stars. When you think of what to compare it to, the first name that comes to mind is Chez Panisse which it closely resembles as far as cuisine is concerned. For starters, Katherine had a simple salad of mixed greens with an oil and vinegar dressing. Because of the quality of the ingredients, we both agreed that it was the best green salad we had ever had. I started with diver scallops. Just two scallops on a plate with a simple sauce. Some simple sauce! It tasted as if the chef had deglazed the pan that the scallops were sautee'd in and then added a bit of fresh tomato. Not just any tomato. A perfectly ripe heirloom tomato. My main course was local wild King salmon "steamed" and served over braised cabbage. It brought to mind the poached salmon we had in the Loire Valley in 1970. Katherine had duck which said was excellent.

As far as food is concerned, Cafe Beaujolais is probably better than all but five restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area. The ambiance and service is good but comparable to a hundred good restaurants in the Bay area. Our dining area was crowded and noisy. (You can say the same thing about Chez Panisse!) The hard working waitress was efficient but obtrusive.

Stevenswood is located two miles south of Mendocino on the coast highway. The strong points at Stevenswood are the ambiance and service. The dining room is well decorated and opens on to a wonderful garden. Tables are not crowded and the atmosphere is calm and relaxed. There is a larger service staff. The food was excellent, but lacked the sparkle of Cafe Beaujolais. Taken as a whole, however, Stevenswood was the better dining experience.

The other two restaurants, by the way, are the Moosse Cafe and 955 Ukiah. Not quite as good. Not quite as expensive.

Service is much less formal in Mendocino than in the City. At Cafe Beaujolais and two others we learned the name of the waiter/waitress and were asked, "Where are you folks from?" Perhaps that is because Mendocino is a resort area. It reminded me of the old Fred Harvey restaurants in the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone where the first thing the waitress said was her name and hometown and then asked, "Where are you folks from?"