Ritual at Manresa — Restaurant in Los Gatos

I've eaten at Manresa a number of times, and love it, but my kids have not. So took my son Josh and his GF Aran for their 25th birthdays, along with my Sweetie Teresa (her 2nd time) on Feb 12th. We all had the tasting menu with the wine pairing, which came to a total (with bubbly and still water, one G&T, and 3 coffees to about $2700 including a $500 tip, which sounds steep but was SO worth it!

Started with 2 Amuse Bouches: a petit fours of red pepper gellee with black olive madeline, and an incredible multi-seed granola "crisp" filled with goat cheese. This was followed by two small plates: iced geoduck clam with kolrabi and turnip, and an exquisite sunchoke royale, with roast chicken jelly and Ossetra cavier. My only small critique of these 4 starters, all of which were both beautiful & delicious, was that they probably would have been even more heavenly if accompanied by champagne. This alcohol-deprivation was soon rectified, however.

The next course was a delicious abalone chowder with poblano chile mouse (sp?), paired beautifully with a 2017 Alzinger Gruener Veitliner "Smaragd - Steinertal" (a somewhat grassy, superb Austrian white.

The "salad" course was a complete knock-out (see photos) - with crunch, savoriness, just wonderful, paired with the same Austrian white.

The next course was fabulous, a Romanesco, Dungeness crab concontion with koji butter, which we all gleefully sopped up with the sourdough (one of three never-ending Manresa-baked bread choices), paired with a superb 2013 Comtesse Bernard de Cherisey Meursault "Genelotte".

This was followed by Kinmedai and squid with grilled onion jus, paired well witha 2017 La Marca di San Michele, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi "CapoVolto (a grape I've never heard of - delicious!). This squid course, while delicious and satisfying, was probably the most "one note" flavor palate of any of the courses due to the grilled onion jus.

The 1st meat course was another knock-out: roast veal sweetbreads with coffee potato & black garlic, paired beautifully with a 2009 Michael Gros, Vosne-Romanee "Clos des Reas".

The final meat course was the far and away the "meatiest" fowl course I've ever had, and pushed all of my "beef" buttons. It was a roasted (rare) squab breast and a confit squab leg & thigh in an incredible foie gras sauce "Albefera", paired with a lovely Syrah, the 2013 Clusel-Roch, Cote-Rotie "Les Grande Places".

By this point we were all satieted and a bit tipsy, but had room for most of the 3 dessert courses, paired with a wonderful old Port, a 1962 Muse Wines, Banyuls "Pietri-Geraud". The 1st was Kafir lime with pistachio & squash, combining sweet & savory notes with the citrus of the kefir lime. The 2nd was a amazing tower of roasted pear hidden below a chocolate crisp with fennel, followed by strawberry petit fours with chocolate madeleines, tying into the 1st amuse bouche.

Coffee was excellent, as expected, and happy we all Lyfted there and home. Meal began at 5:30, and ended at 10:15 with a dessert "doggy bag", plus a couple handfulls of their butter carmels and individual clear boxes of their homemade granola for breakfast the next day.

If you've never eaten at this "local" 3 Michelin starred gem, you owe it to yourself to try it for a special occasion. The ambiance, the decor, the service, the presentation, and especially the food, with amazingly contrasting colors, textures, and temperatures within a single dish, are all fantastic and worthy of 3 Michelin stars. To my mind, Manresa is botb closer and better than the...

Since I have a foodie friend who speaks highly of Manresa, I decided to make reservations here for me and my parents for my 23rd birthday. The restaurant is a little harder to find because it is in the alley way of a bank and looks like a small cottage, not a restaurant. I do love the ambience of the restaurant when you walk in as it has a classy, but homey feel- not to mention that the service is impeccable. However, the food was not as expected for the price. We ended up getting the October Manresa tasting menu w/ my friend's recommendation. I personally prefer seasonal tasting menus since the menu consists of special ingredients - this time- it included on of my favorites, yuzu! I do like how the our waiter took his time to explain each of the ingredients to us - he was also very patient in answering questions for noobie foodies like my family and I. He had quite a sense of humor too, which definitely made our entire dining experience a lot more enjoyable :)

After we ordered, the waiter brought out Manresa bread for us. For those of you that don't know, Manresa has a booth at the farmers market that sells their bread. I hadn't had the chance to try it out beforehand so I was excited - it definitely did not disappoint. I can't remember what they had... wheat bread, brioche, white bread, baguette.. all quite yummy and I love carbs! Who doesn't!! Hahah.

I would normally go through every course of the meal, but its been a couple months so I wouldn't be able to describe each dish in detail. I do remember the meal starting out strong and ending weak. My favorite course of the meal was the oyster dish. It was an Alaskan oyster (I believe) served with meyer lemon and shiso leaf w/ yuzu. The oyster was perfectly shaped and placed on a big oyster-looking dish, haha! There was crushed ice on the oyster that chilled the oyster to a perfect temperature and slid into my mouth with ease. This was probably the highest point of the meal, and then everything went downhill/not as expected.

I was most disappointed in the dessert, actually. It was thoughtful of Manresa to bring out a surprise small (more like tiny) chocolate cake w/ a candle for my birthday - thank you! However, each of the dessert plates that we tried - all were too sweet! The last dish was a Gouda ice cream w/ a chocolate cake w/ huckleberries - Manresa could have done a much better job with this but the flavors together were too sweet and too sour, nothing balanced out! However, I would like to mention that the wine pairings were perfect for each dish, and made each dish seem better in comparison to what it would have been without the pairings, the dessert wine especially :)

Overall, I did enjoy my experience at Manresa but not primarily because of the food. I do believe the service and of course company made up the great experience. I wouldn't highly recommend it to others and probably wouldn't come again due to the high price but I do recommend that everyone try this place at least once! Rounding...

Food: 4 Decor: 5 Service: 5 Michelin: **

My gf made a reservation here to celebrate my early birthday and anniversary. She requested my napkin be made into a dinosaur (stolen from Reddit), and lo and behold, there was a dinosaur napkin waiting for me when we were seated

Since we had a large lunch in LA, we opted for the prix fixe (125 pp, 8 courses) instead of the tasting (175 pp, 10-12 courses). Sadly, I didn't see their famous egg or into the garden dishes on either :(

Garden beignets and crispy leaves ~Pretty good.

Tomatoes, barely cooked, flowering coriander ice ~Very good. Coriander ice worked surprisingly well with the tomatoes.

Summer clams, lightly smoked, tomato and lemon ice, savory granola ~Delicious. I have a sweet tooth, and the lemon worked beautifully with the tomato and clams.

Abalone and roasted sunchokes, seaweed persillade ~Pretty good, although I was surprised by the persillade texture.

Salmon marinated with herbs and citrus, beets ~Pretty good, although a bit of the salmon got stuck in my teeth.

Duck roasted in salt crust, fig, and wild fennel confit ~Pretty good. Duck was a bit too fatty for my taste, but I liked the fig component.

Chamomile and mint tea ~Pretty good. Decent palate cleanser after main courses.

Reine claude plums with buckwheat and Crescenza, saba ~Delicious. Loved the plums, and it went surprisingly well with the Crescenza cow's milk-cheese.

Chocolate cake with caramel ganache for birthday and anniversary ~Pretty good. Thought it was funny that they gave us this dessert, since we received an identical one at another restaurant a day earlier in SD.

Raspberries and yellow peach curd, basil and peach leaves, old-fashioned vanilla ice cream ~Pretty good, although I think it would have been better with some fresh peach slices.

Chocolate and lemon verbena macarons ~Pretty good. Nice finish to meal.

Loved how they had continuous bread service throughout meal until you said you were done. The baguettes were so good I had at least 4 of them

Service was excellent and was reminiscent of Alinea's in terms of attention, although I did find the multiple servers rather unusual.

To top it off, they also give everyone a muffin to take home, as well as a handful of caramels. I had both the day after, and they were...