Best French Restaurants in San Francisco and the Napa Valley

Maurice Graham Henry on French and French-influenced restaurants in San Francisco and the Napa Valley
San Francisco has long had a well-deserved reputation as one of the world's best fine dining locales. More recently, the Napa Valley has also become a first-rate fine dining destination in its own right, where the cuisine and wines of France are not neglected. In fact, at The French Laundry the are reinvented under the designation "American Cuisine with classic French Influences", with sometimes spectacular results. It remains the only restaurant in the greater San Francisco area to be awarded three Michelin stars. I encourage you to frequent these restaurants on this short but carefully chosen list when visiting San Francisco and the Napa Valley.

Maurice Graham Henry
October 22, 2007

The French Laundry: reviewed by Francis Bown
"The meaning of the superlative has been undermined by the mass media. On television, in newspapers, even nowadays on the wireless (which in Britain, at least, has a couple of channels which have managed to maintain some semblance of decency and order), it seems that every story must scream at us in the language of extremity. Many, clearly, believe that this is the only way to attract and hold our attention. Such debasement of our public discourse is vulgar. And it creates a real difficulty. What words are left when one encounters something which truly needs to be described with superlatives? This is my current problem. For I have just been back to what might well be the best restaurant in the world – The French Laundry."

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