Nightlife in Napa has taken a giant step in the right direction with the arrival of Bistro Sabor, Ariel Ceja’s affordable new eatery on First Street, downtown. Instead of aiming for well-heeled tourists, Ceja is betting on the hospitality industry’s after-work crowd with his no-frills “contemporary Latin American street food restaurant,” open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, and until midnight on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.
“I’ve worked in the industry for 10 years, as a waiter, busboy, manager, som [sommelier],” says Ceja, 27. “You get off your shift, it’s midnight, you want to go drink and you want to go eat.”
And after a night of serving expensive meals, you don’t want to pay through the nose for your own; which is why Ceja is pricing his tacos, pupusas, salads and ceviche at or below $10 a plate. Diners order at the counter, pay and take a number to display on the table so their food can be delivered to them when it’s ready. The beverage menu offers beer, wine from some of Napa’s leading producers (including the restaurateur’s parents’ Ceja Vineyards, and his maternal uncle’s Campesino line), and still and sparkling sake.
“We want to break stereotypes for sure,” says Ceja, who’s already been livening up downtown Napa with his Saturday night salsa dance lessons at the Ceja family’s nearby tasting room. “Where can you enjoy a good menudo for a late brunch, and have a great glass of Merlot?” he continues. “Where can you do posole and have a great glass of Carneros Pinot Noir?”
Located at the southwest corner of Dwight Murray Plaza in the former home of First Squeeze (a popular breakfast and sandwich joint), Bistro Sabor has seating both inside and out. Lively Latin music plays from ceiling speakers and a wide-screen television shows sports events—during the World Cup, it remained on even when the restaurant was closed, so passersby could watch through the plate-glass window.
Promoted only by word of mouth and online social networking, the restaurant’s soft opening in mid-June was a hit, says Ceja, who documented the event on Bistro Sabor’s Facebook page: “At 1:45 a.m., it’s still going strong and the place is packed. People are eating tacos and pupusas and having different drinks until the wee hours of the morning.” Closed Monday and Tuesday, Bistro Sabor is at 1126 First Street, (707) 252-0555.
New and relocated restaurants are popping up in other downtown locations as well. Not far from Bistro Sabor, locals’ favorite Zinsvalley relocated some months ago from its secluded Browns Valley shopping center location to the long-untenanted Dwight Murray Plaza space formerly held by Peter Halikas’s n.v.
Further West on First Street, the owners of Azzurro Pizzeria & Enoteca, with chef Reed Herrick, have made a hit with the Norman Rose Tavern, while the rustic, Southern Italian menu at neighboring Oenotri has been winning raves from the foodie press and well-fed Napans alike. And that’s just on First Street; two blocks away, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto is opening his Morimoto Napa—(707) 252-1600—in the spiffy new Riverfront complex along Main Street at Third. TV chef Tyler Florence and the Lark Creek Restaurant Group are also setting up shop at the Riverfront, with former BarbersQ chef Stephen Barber taking on the kitchen at the Lark Creek enterprise, Fish Story.
Restaurateurs and merchants in the nearby Oxbow District got to sing another chorus of “Take Me to the River” in mid-June, when the patch of First Street that linked their businesses with downtown Napa was reopened following months of flood control work. This was the second time the Oxbow Public Market and its neighbors had been essentially islanded by construction—First Street, east of the area, was closed for a year while a bridge was replaced, and Napans had barely adjusted to the changes when the road was closed on the west side instead. The Army Corps of Engineers is still encamped in the area, working its way upriver to combat the catastrophic flooding that has bedeviled the valley for so long; but all roads to the Oxbow District are finally open.
While it may seem that all the action in Napa is taking place up and down First Street, some local business owners are gambling that their customers will find their way to more far-flung locations. Rancho Gordo, “agripreneur” Steve Sando’s heirloom-bean showroom at 1924 Yajome Street, is rapidly becoming a sort of culinary salon, with enthusiastic audiences turning out for appearances by prominent cookbook authors. Along with dozens of varieties of old-fashioned dried beans—there’s even a basin full of loose beans for you to plunge your arms into, with a sign reading “Go ahead, you know you want to”—the shop carries clay cooking pots, authentic Mexican molcajetes, cookbooks and chocolate. The Food Network recently spent an afternoon taping there, which should send even more foodie pilgrims to Sando’s door: (707) 259-1925, www.ranchogordo.com.
Further north, at 1403-A Lincoln Ave., Napa native Lynn Campagna is in her second year of running Napa Valley Kitchen Gallery (like Bistro Sabor, the shop also has a Facebook page; or call (707) 253-2828). A former surgical nurse, Campagna is a devoted home cook who has retail in her bloodline: Her grandfather owned a little Italian market on Third Street in the 1950s. Campagna’s own shop is filled with covetable kitchenware, knives and other culinary tools from well-regarded makers like Kuhn Rikon, Le Creuset, Shun and Mauviel, which Campagna calls the “All-Clad of France.” She also has the city’s exclusive on the Culinary Institute of America line of cookware.
“I want to be Napa’s Williams-Sonoma,” Campagna says. “I want our tax dollars to stay here.” And while Campagna is off to a good start in her mid-Napa location across from the local school district headquarters, she’s already looking ahead to her next location. “This is my stepping stone,” she says. “I have big dreams. Napa is changing.”
