The Cyrus kitchen hosts the second stop of the Dining Journey.
Cyrus knows how to throw a good dinner party.
After nearly three years in Geyserville, the fine-dining restaurant is still referred to by many as the “new” Cyrus—as the restaurant reopened at its location off Highway 128 in 2022, a decade following its 2012 closure at its former Healdsburg address. The respite allowed time for owner-chef Douglas Keane and longtime business partner Nick Peyton (who serves as maître d’) to re-envision what they’d like to see in the haute cuisine experience—both from the standpoint of clientele, as well as staff (Keane is vocal about the importance of living wages and work/life balance).
For hungry Cyrus fans, meanwhile, the result has been what the restaurant refers to as “the dining journey,” a multi-course meal that progresses between four rooms, mirroring the flow of visiting a friend’s house for dinner: drinks in the lounge, tastes and chit chat in the kitchen, main courses in the dining room, followed by dessert and leaving with something sweet for the ride home. By and large, it’s how any decent dinner party should unfold, with one exception: Cyrus is exponentially better than dinner at Rob and Linda’s.
Our journey began in the Bubbles Lounge, where comfy chairs surround small tables, and ceiling-high windows offer views of nearby vineyards and beyond. We were met with a 2020 Remy Massin blanc de noir Brut and small cups of billi bi, or mussel soup with fennel, a delicious and warming start to the meal. Attentive servers freshened glasses as needed, while diners were given time to relax and thaw a bit from what had been a cold and stormy afternoon.
After the last drops of billi bi went down, we were led to the Kitchen Table, where diners sat to one end at a low-lit rectangular bar with full view of the busy kitchen, as staff prepared various canapes to which the sommelier paired matching wines. Bites of caviar-topped asparagus custard, fried chicken under truffle and top-shelf Waygu were ushered our way, with care of each eyed as much for taste as presentation. This portion of the journey closed with our group proceeding through the kitchen to engage with staff and pick their brains about the various delicacies sampled.
Having wine-tipsy diners wandering around a busy kitchen in the middle of the dinner hour isn’t conducive to most Michelin-starred restaurants, so timely organization is a must. Cyrus is open four days a week, offering four seatings of up to 12 on the hour from 4 to 8 p.m., with each cohort moving from room to room at about the same pace. As its website describes, Cyrus is trying to avoid the “confining stasis” of traditional multi-course meals served at a single table and lasting hours at a time. Such meals can tend to drag on, we must admit, and Cyrus seems to have found an antidote to that, with each re-seating lending a sense of renewal to the evening.
Next is the Dining Room, where the primary portion of the meal takes place. Couples and groups are seated separately at their own tables in a modestly lit room, highlighting grey and blonde woods and windows looking out at vineyards and landscaped ponds. The Dining Room features seven small courses—a red-chili-glazed baby back rib, Nantucket Bay scallops, a house bread and butter are among several highlights. As with one of the courses at the Kitchen Table, we’re served a platter with bites representing the so-called five basic tastes: sweet (honey nut mousse), sour (Yuzu and olive oil tartlet), salty (black sesame bon bon), bitter (Earl Grey canelé) and umami (dark chocolate seaweed choquette). Apart from the mouthwatering items themselves, this playful tastebud-prompting is part of what makes the Cyrus journey so enjoyable—the tastes, the rooms, the engagement with staff, it’s interactive and fun.
The last stop on the journey is the “mysterious chocolate room,” a deep, dark enclave where one meets a wall of cascading chocolate, levitating bonbons and departs with a sweet treat. Ball’s in your court, Rob and Linda.
Did You Know?
Chef Douglas Keane’s memoir, Culinary Leverage: A Journey Through the Heat, was published this past February. According to the restaurant’s website, the book is “about exposing the dysfunction of an industry through the eyes of a highly decorated chef and, through thoughtfulness and reckoning, finding a healthier way forward.” Find it at cyrusrestaurant.com, chefdouglaskeane.com and at other online booksellers.
Cyrus
275 Highway 128, Geyserville
707-723-5999
Cyrusrestaurant.com
Hours: Thursday through Sunday. Reservations for the Dining Journey are on the hour from 4 to 8 p.m. $325, plus 20% gratuity. The Bubbles Lounge is open for reservations and drop-in visits from 5 to 9 p.m. Private bookings are available outside business hours.
