This place is all high style, with a sleek modern decor and lighting. This place pretty much defines the upscale "California cuisine" dining experience. There is a beautiful fully restored bright red 1958 Jaguar situated in the bar/entry area for visual amusement along with live music being played on a grand piano. I guess the car thing has something to do with being next to the Blackhawk Auto Museum. This place is filled with lots of the "pretty people" from nearby Blackhawk, which sport some rather elegant attire, but there were also enough folks that were "dressed down" that my wife did not feel uncomfortable even though she was wearing jeans. The tables are nicely spread apart and the noise level is just a notch above intimate. We were immediately seated on a Friday night, even without reservations at 7:15PM, but we did call first 15 minutes ahead of time and they thought they could squeeze us in if we got there quickly enough. The menu had abo ... more

This place is all high style, with a sleek modern decor and lighting. This place pretty much defines the upscale "California cuisine" dining experience. There is a beautiful fully restored bright red 1958 Jaguar situated in the bar/entry area for visual amusement along with live music being played on a grand piano. I guess the car thing has something to do with being next to the Blackhawk Auto Museum.
This place is filled with lots of the "pretty people" from nearby Blackhawk, which sport some rather elegant attire, but there were also enough folks that were "dressed down" that my wife did not feel uncomfortable even though she was wearing jeans.
The tables are nicely spread apart and the noise level is just a notch above intimate. We were immediately seated on a Friday night, even without reservations at 7:15PM, but we did call first 15 minutes ahead of time and they thought they could squeeze us in if we got there quickly enough.
The menu had about a dozen starters, ranging from somewhat mundane soups and salads to more exotic sounding creations. The main courses includ a diverse selection of seafood, poultry, meat, and vegetarian based dishes prepared with unique sauces and a few rarely seen ingredients. They clearly try to create food art.
I was not feeling very exotic tonight, so I ordered the black bean soup and the filet of beef with a peppercorn sauce. The black bean soup was pretty good, but not great. I thought it should have been thicker, and a dab of cream on top would have been a nice touch. The filet was one of the most tender cuts of beef I have ever had, but the peppercorn sauce was under whelming, and also suffered from not being "thick" enough. It simply did not have enough pepper flavor or bite to it as I expected. The filet was served on top of mashed potatoes and garnished with a ring of colorful vegetables. My wife commented that hear crab cakes were also a little lacking in the "bite" department.
You could not ask for better service. It was fast and professional. I was rather surprised how quickly our starters were brought to the table. The main dishes also came quickly. Possibly even too quickly for this kind of restaurant, but we did not mind since we had kids to get home to. After they cleared away the main dishes the pace slowed down, and I did not feel they were trying to usher us out the door. We ended up passing on the deserts, but they looked pretty good.
less