Wine Country Restaurants: Cyrus and Market

The best restaurant, and also the most expensive, restaurant in Sonoma County has to be Cyrus in Healdsburg (easily $300+ for a couple for dinner).  And I will admit that I think it’s worth every penny.  BUT, you can get the same attention to detail and excellent food, if a little different in style, for much, much less at Market in St. Helena.  The only reason I bring up Cyrus and Market together is because Douglas Keane, the chef at Cyrus, and Nick Peyton, his partner in Cyrus, are the ones who started and still own and manage Market.   

Now Market is definitely not Cyrus.  Cyrus is a top-end, elegant restaurant with two Michelin stars and is second only to the French Laundry in wine country restaurant destinations.  Cyrus is a special occasion restaurant – a restaurant you visit for a birthday or anniversary or to impress your Valentine big time.  Unless, of course, you happen to be a multi-millionaire, in which case you might eat dinner at Cyrus any time.  Even then, too much of such high-quality food may be overdoing it more than once a month.

Market is an everyday restaurant.  You could easily have lunch there every day, stop in for a drink after work if you live or work in St. Helena or are just passing through, or have dinner there whenever you decide to pass on cooking at home.  It’s a sort of friendly neighborhood restaurant.  It’s long and narrow with a pretty narrow frontprint on the main drag in St.  Helena.  It has a beautiful bar that goes half way down the room on the left side.

Market is down home American food.  You have not had macaroni and cheese ‘til you’ve had Market’s mac and cheese (they call it adult macaroni and cheese ); there is absolutely no better mac and cheese anywhere. But they have many other great dishes at reasonable prices.  The menu changes often, but they always have a raw bar for those of us who love oysters.  For lunch, there is a great BBQ Pork-Pulled Sandwich that is scrumptious and that tends to stay on the menu, as do the fish and chips and buttermilk fried chicken, both of which are on both the lunch and dinner menus.  The wine list is not huge, but the selection is nice and they pride themselves on not pricing any wine more than $14 over retail, which is definitely not a large markup in the restaurant business.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t find an expensive wine, the price range is quite varied, but it also means that there are wines in the $25-$30 range as well as more expensive wines.  As is to be expected, the wines are mostly from Napa and Sonoma with a few other California wines thrown in and a few wines, particularly white wines, from other parts of the world.

So go to Cyrus if want to show off your foodie credentials BUT ONLY if you’re also ready to taste extraordinary food.  They don’t give two Michelin stars for hamburger, even good hamburger.  Start off with the champagne and caviar and then take your time and your palate through a three, four or five course dinner.  It will be a dinner to remember.  By the way, there is a less expensive, less elegant bar menu with some of the same dishes.  Food is just as extraordinary, but you can buy a la carte and spend a bit less money on dinner.  If you’re just hungry for some good, down home cookin’, head for Market.

~ by bubblytrail on February 7, 2008.