6 Best Restaurants in Menlo Park, The Bay Area

If there’s such a genre as refined camping fare, then that is what chef Greg Kuzia-Carmel offers guests at his warm, bustling restaurant. Local fish, meats, and produce are highlighted, with dishes that beautifully blend pastoral with contemporary. Pastas are a particular strength, as are cocktails from the fun bar. It’s a big city–feeling restaurant where it’s possible to have an ambitious meal of charcoal-stained spaghetti with Dungeness crab, but it’s also a relaxed spot for a casual date night or to come solo for a quick cheeseburger (with an incredible “secret sauce”). 

This Woodside institution actually is a Michelin-starred fine dining destination; the only similarity with an actual pub is that the bar has its own casual menu (the main dining room is prix-fixe with multiple choices per each course) and is frequently a gathering place for well-heeled regulars. The suave dining room with red velvet chairs and booths is a beautiful backdrop for intricate dishes that often feature produce from the nearby organic SMIP Ranch. It's the flagship restaurant for a local group that includes the acclaimed Spruce in San Francisco,

One of the Peninsula’s best-known restaurants is this funky, family-friendly brunch specialist in the heart of tiny downtown Woodside. The restaurant is a gathering spot for the tech company executives and venture capitalists who live nearby, but it’s ultimately a blend of a saloon and a diner, where many hungry locals come looking for omelets and tuna melts. You can also get decent beer and wine. It has an outrageously eclectic design full of knickknacks and odd curiosities, like license plates on the bar, planes and bikes hanging from the ceiling, old maps and artifacts of Bay Area history, taxidermy, and about a hundred other bizarre pieces of memorabilia that would never be brought together anywhere else but here.

Restaurants in Berkeley and San Francisco tend to get most of the credit for launching the local ingredient–focused farm-to-table California cuisine movement in the 1970s and 1980s. However, chef Jesse Cool played an enormous role in that as well when she opened this venerable restaurant in 1980. It’s a formal restaurant that also manages to be relaxed, where the menu changes frequently and always mentions many acclaimed Bay Area farms, ranches, and gardens. Pastas are a big strength for the restaurant, but the most excitement tends to come in the first course section, which includes vegetable preparations and a few compelling local seafood creations. Make sure to save room for the always satisfying, unfussy desserts. 

On sunny weekend afternoons, the enormous tree-covered, creekside beer garden of this countryside dining icon feels like the epicenter of Silicon Valley. It’s a popular destination for professors and graduate students to enjoy brews and sandwiches, located just beyond campus in the pastoral town of Portola Valley. And over a century ago, it was a saloon that lasted through California's rapid growth in the late 1800s and then Prohibition. Nowadays, it's a gathering spot for local families, out-of-towners looking to eat in a quintessential Northern California setting, and the many cyclists who go on rides around the nearby rolling hills.

It’s a trip back in time at this elegant retro sibling to the Village Pub. Dishes are grand and elaborate, often with luxurious flourishes, yet deeply rooted in the seasonal focus that is the hallmark of California cuisine. It’s a delicious tie between the sensational black label truffle burger and the honey-lacquered duck breast for what is considered the signature dish here. The main dining room serves a three-course menu with several choices in each category; the bar menu is à la carte. The handsome mid-century modern design is worth a trip alone with impeccable details like perfectly smooth white tablecloths, miniature lamps on tables, a roaring fireplace, and a dramatic arched bar backdrop in the lounge.