The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone — Attraction in St. Helena

We had an incredible 5-course dinner at Gatehouse Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa. We started with the Duck Scarpetta—pâté with cherry mostarda, kumquat, chives, and grilled bread. For our pasta course, Brent had the Ravioli Fonduta with fontina and ragu bianco, and I had the Garganelli Carbonara with guanciale, pecorino, and egg yolk. For the main course, Brent chose the Red Snapper Arrosto with rustic potatoes and garlic aioli, and I had the Lamb Meatball with tomato passata, broccoli rabe, and caciocavallo. We finished with the Chocolate Budino—rich, creamy, and topped with candied walnuts and malted chantilly. Every dish was prepared and served by CIA student-chefs nearing the end of their program. The quality and execution were impressive across the board.

The real standouts, though, were the focaccia bread and the porcini consommé—both absolutely packed with flavor and perfectly executed.

If you visit, be on time—they seat tables exactly 15 minutes apart and run like clockwork. We arrived early and had time to explore the beautiful Greystone campus, including the shops and small museum. My advice is to skip the wine pairings—most students are too young to taste, and the wine selections didn’t quite match the caliber of the food. Next time we will select a nice...

Greystone was also the first California winery to be operated and illuminated by electricity, produced by a boiler and gas generator located in a mechanical room below the building's central front wing.

Architect George Percy built a 117,000-square-foot stone building, known as Greystone Cellars as a cooperative wine cellar in 1889. Hamden McIntyre designed the gravity flow winery. This 3 story building includes a basement. The length is around 400’ long, 76‘ wide, and 66‘ tall, with 22-inch thick walls. As a wine cellar, it held 3.5 million gallons. The building was designed in the Richardson Romanesque style, with an arched entrance way and tower, stone mullions and transoms, a low sweeping roof, well-fitted stonework, and a large and simple stone façade.

The cornerstone was laid on June 15, 1888; beneath it was laid, several bottles of wine, a copy of a St. Helena Star and San Francisco newspapers, and foreign and rare coins.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

The building changed ownership several times in St Helena and was notably owned by the Christian Brothers as a winery from 1945 to 1989. It was used as a winery until its sale to the...

Extremely disappointed. After hearing and reading about the CIA we were very excited to be going to the Greystone for dinner Thursday, September 25, 2014. For a restaurant with the notoriety that it has, the service was pathetic. We waited and waited, waitress after waitress just kept on walking by. Finally a waitress shows up to take our drink order. Not even water was delivered. When we asked her about the menu she couldn't even tell us what the food was or how it was prepared. When she walked away my husband and I said to each other...she doesn't even know what's on the menu. After we placed our order, she walked away and left us holding the menus. Class Act—NOT! For the price of a bottle of wine....no one even bothered to pour our glasses. My chicken was dry and the vegi's were prepared with a liquid smoke flavor, but to the point they were not edible. To many other places to go in the Napa region, so go to one of them and...