Restaurant Review: Julia's Kitchen at COPIA, Napa, California

We were in the San Francisco area a couple of weekends ago and decided to drive up to Napa for the day to visit COPIA, the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts. My husband had never visited COPIA before, and it's an amazing facility at the gateway to Wine Country. There was a small wine tasting scheduled for that day, featuring Australian wines.

It was a beautiful spring day, hot and sunny. We noticed that Julia's Kitchen, the restaurant at COPIA, was open for lunch, so we decided to give it a try. It was such a gorgeous day, we elected to sit outside and enjoy our lunch al fresco. Luckily, the restaurant wasn't busy, we didn't need reservations and were seated right away.

Our waitress was attentive, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The menu appeared to be Californian with French influence, which was exciting to both of us. Once seated, we asked our waitress for her recommendations. She rattled off the specials menu of the day, but she right away pointed us toward trying the Tasting Menu ($55, $75 with optional wine pairing). This menu features the four special entrees, but in smaller course portions. The Tasting Menu is perfect if you have not had the occasion to dine at Julia's Kitchen, as it gives the diner a morsel of everything.

We opted for the Tasting Menu with accompanying wine pairing. The chef did a fantastic job of matching each course with the wine. We started out with fresh Kumamoto oysters, which were fresh, sweet and delicious. These were not part of the Tasting Menu, but I would highly recommend getting them if they are on the menu. After that came an amuse made with the smallest squid I've ever seen, resting on a bed of greens. It also was incredibly tasty.

Our first course was duck confit with salad greens. The duck was perfectly prepared, and the salad was made from crisp greens from the adjacent COPIA gardens. The dressing was light and delectable. The next course was the bouillabaise in a light broth, seasoned with fennel and leeks, saffron, and accompanied by crostini. The dish was incredibly pleasing!