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Creole and Californian together at last

Bleaux Magnolia

Bleaux Magnolia assures its worried spicy-food-fearing customers that the California influence on the Creole dishes keeps just enough spice to stay true to the dish, but not enough to offend your taste buds.

There is Louisiana Creole cooking, and there is California cuisine. One has been around for centuries, the other for a few decades. At downtown Napa’s Bleaux Magnolia the two happily come together.

Open for lunch and dinner (and for a deservedly popular Sunday brunch) this attractive restaurant has proved to be a favorite of locals and well-informed visitors. A couple of blocks from First Street, it blends the casual dining experience with high-end service. The brainchild of general manager Philip Schuster and chef Matt Mermod, the restaurant brings the rich flavors of Creole cuisine to Napa in grand style. Both have worked, managed or cooked at several outstanding restaurants in the Bay Area—all part of the reason that Bleaux Magnolia has been such a success in the North Bay dining scene.

While much of the menu is made up of traditional Creole dishes, such as the jambalaya with duck confit and a made-to-order seafood gumbo that may be the ultimate comfort food (though the Niman Ranch osso bucco is right up there), there is very often something of a California bent lurking nearby, such as the marvelously marinated drunken skirt (steak) with a surprising ‘bon bon’ of cheese and port that explodes over the tender beef when you cut into it. Salads and appetizers are also worth having even if you split them. My favorites are the fried green tomato Caprese salad; the butter leaf salad, along with their special baked oysters and the dirty rice cakes; and the crab cakes that quite literally melt in your mouth. Then again, the sarsaparilla-braised pork belly and the panko and pistachio seared scallops are impossible to pass up.

At brunch the offerings are anything but those boring choices usually offered under the tired guise of Sunday Brunch. For instance try the gater tater tots (oh go on, live a little!), the crab cakes Benedict, the grilled hamachi kama marinated in a house ponzu sauce or the perfect jambalaya breakfast burrito—which I wish was available daily at a drive-thru window to grab on the way to work. And if I had to drive an hour for their pulled pork sandwich, so be it.

As long as pastry chef Richard Perot continues to produce an array of desserts, including bread pudding with fresh seasonal fruit and house-made sassafras root beer floats, it will not be hollow advice when your server suggests that you save room for dessert. For an old favorite, Bleaux Magnolia’s version of a flambéed bananas Foster is first rate.

In addition to offering dining in a pleasant and well-designed environment, with seating both inside and outdoors, the wines on the list are a perfect foil for the cuisine and the prices are reasonable, ranging from $29-85 per bottle. They also have a no-corkage policy and a handful of carefully selected wines by the glass. The restaurant proves that Creole and California cuisine can sometimes be better together than they are apart.

Bleaux Magnolia, 1408 Clay St., Napa (707) 252-2230; bleauxmagnolia.com.
Open for lunch Tuesday-Saturday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner, 5-9 p.m.; Sunday Brunch, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner on Sunday, 5-8 p.m. Reservations are accepted but not required. Appetizers: $9-12. Entrées: $21-24. Desserts: $7-23.

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