Slanted Door Napa — Restaurant in Napa

Friends told us before we went to the new Slanted Door in Napa that the food was 10/10 and service is 4/10 but as frequent guests of the restaurant in SF, we were eager to try it. Turns out, they were right. Let's start out with the good stuff: The food. It was literally 10/10. It is rare that a chef hits on every dish but wow, this one does. Every single dish that arrived at our table was absolutely wonderful. I mean, mouth-watering delicious, absolutely perfect.

The ambiance is cold / stark / modern, and as fans of modern we appreciate that, but definitely the restaurant needs some cushions on the cold metal benches and something to dampen the sound. I think in the summer when the courtyard is usable it will be a very pleasant place to visit with more of an indoor / outdoor flow. More on the location later in this review.

And now the service.... there are a lot of "this is my first gig at a restaurant" types here and it shows. While very friendly and eager to please, they miss the basics like utensils during course re-sets and how to properly serve wine (hello, this is Napa!). Our white wine arrived at red wine cellar temp, then was placed in an ice bucket NEXT TO THE FIRE to chill further. Needless to say, this strategy did not work and we had to ask multiple times for the bucket (they really didn't want to leave it at our table) so we could chill the damn bottle ourselves before all the ice melted. Someone needs to connect the dots as Napans know wine and this is an easy miss to correct. When the dining room was half full, it was still difficult to get the multiple staff's attention as they were all talking to each other. At one point I had to actually get up and ask them for utensils.

Location: This is a very challenging restaurant if they want to attract a late night crowd or any street traffic. It's in an office park / hotel setting far from downtown (walking) so the parking is easy but it's away from everything. Few will have drinks at Wilfred's downtown then walk 15 mins to Slanted Door. Maybe on long summer evenings.

The owner, famed restaunteur Charles Phan, circled the dining room but only spoke to his friends (who tell him exactly what he wants to hear) instead of the "real" diners in the room who were suffering through one service mishap after another. He would be well-served to actually talk to a random sampling of diners so he knows where to focus. Or perhaps he thinks as long as the food is good, people will return.

The food is THAT good that we will likely return, but in a few months after servers have been further trained by patrons. There are too many wonderful options in Napa to suffer through warm wine and service that frankly distracts from the wonderful food instead of...

My sister called to reserve a table for a party of 12. A night before the reservation my sister emailed Sierra and reached out to them about the menu to make sure they can accommodate the size of our party and they assured us that they can. When we got there the place was nice. The people were nice, I felt so confident that we made the right choice. We were presented with two menus 1 is for a family meal (recommended for big party) and the 2nd menu is a regular dinner menu. Our server was Charlie. We told Charlie that we will go with the regular menu and everyone is ready to order per plate and that is where the experience change from amazing to beyond disappointment. If I didn’t have a guest with me I would have left. Charlie said due to the size of our party we are only allowed to order 3-4 main dish and Charlie will do us a favor by allowing us to order 1 more main dish because of the size of our party they cant accommodate our order with the size of there kitchen. First, if you cant handle our order why take our reservation with a big party? Why have so many tables when your kitchen cant handle it? How do you expect us to eat 5 main dish to be shared with 12 people? I was so embarrassed that we chose to not eat first and let our guest eat first and we will take whatever is left. I need to make sure that my guest and 12 years old niece can eat first before the rest of us can.

How embarrassing is it that I have to take my guest and offer fast food after we dine at your restaurant because we did not have enough food available. The portions based on their recommendation were not good for sharing at all.

As beautiful as your location is the service was completely horrible.

If you are looking to experience enjoyable dinner and great food for a large party, I will not recommend this place not unless you plan on going to a fast food to finished the night. If you plan on bringing your family to dine here or if you have a guest with a party more than 4 people. Be aware this will not be the place where you can enjoy good meal and great food.

I am a local in Napa and I’ve always been proud about hospitality and food that our beautiful city offers, but I will never recommend nor come back...

Let me start by saying, I was a huge fan of the Ferry Building Slanted Door - THE spot for so many special moment dinners and lunches. To find out they opened in Napa was a surprise and treat. I am bummed to say our Napa experience didn’t match our fond San Francisco memories. Beautiful place? Yes, but if you are in the dining room to the right of the front door, do not let them sit you next to the door, which is constantly opening with cold air blasting in (we were so appreciative that when we asked to move, they graciously accommodated us.) The first misstep was the water. The waitress approached with two bottles and asked if we would like bottled tap or bottled sparkling water. We all said sparkling. She then left and came back with a fancy bottled water that we were charged for. This felt very bait and switch. I am not sure what the purpose was for the ridiculously small glasses that accompanied the water but they had us scratching our heads.

Next was the food: the papaya salad was woefully under dressed. The ribs were something that could have been made at home in a pressure cooker, slathered with a really sweet sauce. The clay pot chicken was good but very salty. But the biggest miss was the $52 Peking duck. First, the rice that accompanied it: one was just unflavorful… just rice with that tack of too much fat. The other had so much black pepper in it, we couldn’t eat it. The duck itself looked amazing but one of them had been carved completely wrong, with chunks of cartilage in every single slice. The plum sauce was super cloying and grainy. And I am not sure why it is even there, because the duck came with no buns or wraps you traditionally get to use it with.

We saw two tables send back food around us as well. We should have done the same but were there for a birthday celebration and didn’t want to kill the mood.

Finally, the service just kind of disappeared the later we got into our meal. Trying to get the check took forever, adding probably 20 minutes after we were clearly done.

Really bummed about this experience and writing this review but maybe it will help them up their game. Whomever ran the Ferry Building restaurant needs to step in and get this train back...