 |
Kenwood Restaurant and Bar California French Cuisine
|
Set just south of town, Kenwood Restaurant and Bar provides a relaxing, picturesque setting for an enjoyable meal. Styled like a farmhouse—French doors and all—it’s surrounded by Kunde Winery’s vineyards and looks onto the Sugarloaf Mountains to the east. There’s a bar and lounge with tables inside and a small patio area, then there’s a private dining room and a main dining room that opens onto a larger patio surrounded by a gorgeous, colorful flower garden.
We started our meal on a hot summer night with a lemon drop and a glass of Gloria Ferrer Brut. Our first course consisted of the soup of the day, which was shrimp gazpacho, and a mixed greens and crudité salad. The soup was served traditionally chilled, with a spicy, pureed tomato/vegetable base topped with cilantro, pepper and a small mound of bay shrimp in the center. Very tasty. The salad came with shaved carrots, sliced cucumbers, sweet baby tomatoes, shaved jicama, a sliced beet and a tart vinaigrette. It was topped with creamy, crumbled goat cheese that brought all the elements together with ease.
For an appetizer, we shared an order of steak tartare. It was ground fine, spiced with capers, peppers and horseradish, and served in a large patty surrounded by crostini—and there was enough for several people to share.
For our entrées, we had the fresh fish special, which that evening was ahi, lightly seeded and peppered, seared rare, then served in medallions atop a mound of sautéed spinach and surrounded by sliced sweet pineapple and spicy pickled ginger, accented with an Asian-style plum sauce. The fish was very fresh, with crisp seared edges and a very tender interior.
The second entrée we tried was the wild prawns, which were perfectly cooked, having been simmered in a delightful, rich saffron/pernod sauce, then placed around a mound of wild rice that soaked up the sauce and added a nutty, neutral element. We enjoyed both dishes with a glass of Kunde Sauvignon Blanc.
The impeccable, knowledgeable and friendly service throughout the entire meal deserves a mention. Every detail was cared for, down to removing crumbs between courses and replacing silverware as needed.
For dessert, we shared the pineapple carpaccio (yes, you read right) with coconut ice cream. The fruit was sliced as thin as I think would be possible, then fanned into a circle that covered the plate and drizzled with a light sauce. The ice cream was more like a sorbet, and a scoop of it was placed at the center of the dish. A garnish of fresh mint added a refreshing touch—and a fine ending to the meal.
