Palo Alto Restaurants
Palo Alto's Best Bites | Palo Alto Restaurant Reviews
Palo Alto: Best Bites
The following is a guide to our top picks for Palo Alto eating. The restaurants represent our dining editor's favorite eateries as well as some of the most popular restaurants in the city. Many are bookable online through OpenTable.com.
Buca di Beppo
643 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA.
Nondesigner Italian-American. $$. Like a Sicilian Christmas carnival in the '50s, this party spot blends clutter, joy, high spirits and, oh yes, huge portions. Go with several friends.
Book a table online
California Cafe Bar & Grill
Stanford Barn 700 Welch Rd.
This venerable Palo Alto favorite continues to serve fresh and inventive California-inspired food such as oysters on the half shell with gazpacho mignonette, Asian chicken salad, grilled sirloin of lamb, and creative pizza and pasta. Inventive desserts close the deal.
Book a table online
Evvia Estiatorio
420 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA
Evvia has been serving beautiful and elegant Greek cuisine since 1995. The menu, showcasing seafood and game, features many of the most sought-after traditional Aegean dishes as well as selections which have been modernized through the innovative blending of cultures, techniques and Californian fare.
Book a table online
Lavanda
185 University (at Emerson), Palo Alto, CA. 650.321.3514.
Mediterranean Grill. $$$. Chef Clyde Griesbach has left a trail of great dining wherever he's cooked, and with Lavanda he's found a sophisticated showcase. This urban grill at the top of University Avenue offers eclectic small tasting plates, along with heartier fare such as roasted sea bass with chanterelle mushrooms and guinea fowl with sautéed chard. Save room for the signature grilled coconut cake!
Book a table online
Scott's Seafood
No. 1 Town & Country Village, Palo Alto, CA
For over 20 years Scott's Seafood has been a Palo Alto tradition. Simple and elegant décor with warm wood and white linen provide an inviting balance to straightforward seafood dishes such crab cakes with horseradish cream, Australian lobster, blackened snapper, and grilled salmon as well as prime grade, dry-aged steaks.
Book a table online
Straits Cafe
3295 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA.
Singapore exotica. $$. Blending culinary motifs from India, China and Thailand, the food of Singapore is anything but timid. The menu at Straits is lavish and diverse, and desserts are artfully arranged like edible sculptures. Full bar.
Book a table online
Tamarine
546 University Ave., Palo Alto CA
New Vietnamese. If Tamarine was a book, it would be a Pulitzer Prize-winner. From a sophisticated cocktail menu and intriguing wine list, to electrifying small plates cooked with genuine inspiration, Tamarine is the answer to a seemingly unanswerable question: What is the one thing missing from the Palo Alto dining scene?
Book a table online
Trader Vics
4269 El Camino Real Palo Alto CA 94306
European. The world-famous Polynesian restaurant and bar specializes in the original perpetrator of fusion cuisine, globalization. Trader Vic's Island cuisine is an influenced mixture of French, Creole, Indian and Chinese and the bracingly refreshing Mai Tai, invented by Trader Vic himself at his thatched Oakland establishment, still steals the bar at this new Palo Alto restaurant.
Book a table online
Zibibbo
430 Kipling St, Palo Alto, CA.
Southern Mediterranean. $$$. This eye-popping remodel by the chef-partners of Restaurant LuLu in S.F. offers delectable wood-fired favorites.
Book a table online
Coupa Café
538 Ramona St., Palo Alto, CA.; Tel. 650.322.6872.
Venezuelan Café. Coupa Cafe's coffee is flown in from Venezuela every two days and their chocolate comes from a premium Venezuelan chocolate producer. Gleaming display cases are filled with wonderful-looking pastries, various salads and the cafe's signature chocolates. Don't miss the cafe's hot chocolate, especially the Mayan version, which has bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon and the flickering heat of pasilla and cayenne chile peppers. Arepas, corn meal griddle cakes, are standouts, too.
La Bodeguita del Medio
463 California Ave, Palo Alto, CA. 650.326.7762.
Cuban/Californian. $$$. With more than 30 brands of rum in stock, it's stronger in the bar department than in the kitchen, but among the pleasantries are ahi, lobster bisque and Cuban-style Caesar salad. Closed Sun.
Osteria
247 Hamilton St, Palo Alto, CA. 650.328.5700.
Italian. $$. Authentic Italian cooking done by skilled chefs from Italy--inventive men willing to explore, yet mindful of Old World standards. Be sure to make a reservation, or you'll be lucky to put a single foot through the door. Beer, wine. Closed Sun.
Restaurant Soleil
675 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA. 650.321.4422.
New American. $$$$. A mouthwatering menu and an elegant, golden-hued room shine together at Soleil, upstairs in the Westin Palo Alto. Local ingredients and provocative sauces create dishes worthy of the wine list.
St. Michael's Alley
806 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA. 650.326.2530.
New California. $$$. Reservations are a must at the latest incarnation of this smart bistro, whose menu includes inventive potato, grilled meat and seafood dishes that tilt toward New American cookery. Beer, wine. Closed Mon.
Vero
530 Bryant St., Palo Alto, CA. 650.325.8376.
Italian. $$. Vero—the Italian word for true—aims to offer truly authentic Italian food. The Palo Alto restaurant has had to make a few nods to American tastes but it mainly succeeds with its simple but satisfying dishes like ustica (fresh made linguine with swordfish and eggplant), bistecca ai ferri (grilled steak) and involtini di granchio (eggplant rolls stuffed with crab). The food is a refreshing break from the same old pasta and pizza. Open 11:30am-10:30pm Mon-Sat.
|
