Nice space and story at The Thomas
Every restaurant benefits from a story, and the mystique of The Thomas tops just about anything in the Bay Area.
For more than 40 years, the weathered red neon Fagiani’s sign hung over the red and blue tiled building in downtown Napa, but the bar remained shuttered even as the dining scene in Napa exploded.
The space was coveted, but the owner, Muriel Fagiani, declined to sell. In 1974, her sister, Anita Andrews, had been murdered while closing down the bar. Eventually Fagiani cleared out the perishables and locked the doors; people who went inside said it was a time capsule. Everything remained as it was when the bar was closed, including cases of bottled Coke on the shelves.
The building was sold, and in August a New York hospitality group, AvroKO, best known for the Public, took it over, restoring the place and adding a floor.
The bar is now vibrantly alive. While it looks as if it never
closed, the cocktails are 21st century creations, and the entire space has an electric vibe.
To get to the dining areas, which seat about 125, patrons walk up a narrow staircase (there is an elevator in back for other access) into a room with an open kitchen framed by a subway tile arch and fronted with a raw bar filled with fresh vegetables from the restaurant’s garden at Copia.
The dining-room wall is lined with a glass-covered wine rack, extending like a canopy over tufted banquettes. Directly above are dozens of lace napkins and cloths that look as if they’d been hung out on the line to dry. In the center of the wood-slatted ceiling is a chandelier that looks as if it was installed when the building was built at the turn of the 20th century.
The third floor includes a second bar and a great patio that looks over the Napa River and the rolling hills and mountains beyond. Again, you know everything is probably new, but the entire space looks as if they’d simply dusted off the walls, except maybe the kitchen, of course.
California fare
Chef de cuisine Jason Kupper, who has worked at Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer restaurants, is orchestrating the eclectic American menu, under the guidance of executive chef Brad Farmerie.
The menu is standard California fare — oysters, heirloom tomato salad, roasted bone marrow, roast chicken, braised lamb shank — but most dishes have enough of a twist to keep them interesting.
Carrot ginger soup ($9), for example, is topped with a toasted chile marshmallow; warm Brussels sprout leaves ($11) have the obligatory bacon, but they’re dressed up with hazelnut, poached egg and truffle yuzu hollandaise. Heirloom tomato salad ($12) is mounded onto a thick slice of toast slathered with a ricotta yogurt spread and then topped with several types of tomatoes and little balls of mozzarella; interest comes in the tiny basil sprouts and the green jelly-like seeds splattered over the top.
Not everything works, however; the grilled Monterey bay squid ($13) wasn’t propped up by the sweet chile sauce that seemed to dominate everything. A similar sauce didn’t do any favors to a side dish of Brussels sprouts ($5), either.
The rings of squash that accompanied Moroccan-braised lamb shank ($30) still had inedible skin, and the meat tasted as if it had given up everything to the sauce underneath; it was tender, but didn’t have the expected intensity of flavor.
Interesting touches
While the main courses are straightforward, they often include interesting embellishments such as quince aioli on the pork chop ($28) with roasted potatoes and Tuscan kale.
Roasted half chicken ($24) is tucked into a castiron casserole and served on a cutting board with a napkin. It looks pretty, especially with the wedges of orange skin, charred fennel and whole cherry tomatoes, but it’s difficult to eat and there is so much grease pooled in the bottom of the dish that the combination ends up tasting tired and sloppy.
And that seems to be the problem with The Thomas: Good intentions are evident, but the execution often goes awry.
Wood-grilled salmon ($29) was beautifully cooked, and the precisely cut slaw of fennel and green apple, mixed with pistachio, was an unexpected addition, but chunks of avocado added nothing to the blend.
Vegetarians will have to content themselves with beet gnudi ($21), but the gnocchi-like pellets unfortunately were way oversalted. However, the presentation was fantastic, with thin slices of beets that looked like advertisements for Target among the mound with cubes of beets, fried chips and dollops of smoked almond celery pesto.
Some disappointments
Roasted bone marrow ($13) was also beautiful, with the Parmesan-crusted bone propped on a cutting board, a refreshing cauliflower and watercress mix and a stack of brioche toast; the problem was that the bread was dry, as if it were stale.
Stacking ingredients was problematic in the dessert cobbler ($9). The ramekin was mounded with halves of still-firm plums, with a few sprinkles of topping and berries that mostly melted into the blend. It didn’t seem like a cobbler, and it was impossible to cut the contents of the overflowing cast-iron casserole without having much of it fall to the table. Underneath I identified a layer of dough— the cobbler reference, I guess — but it was soaked with juices and tasted like raw dough.
Warm monkey bread ($12) was barely above room temperature, and it, too, was dry, like the brioche toast, though the espresso ice cream and the caramelized bananas were good. The best dessert was the fruit tart ($9), which on my visit was fresh raspberries over a passion fruit custard.
The best meal to eat at The Thomas might be brunch, with a spicy Bloody Mary ($11); a bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwich ($12); or tea-smoked salmon with a poached egg and spinach ($14). The restaurant also serves a good hamburger ($15), a blend of Angus and Kobe-style beef on a brioche bun with bacon-onion jam.
Service lacking
The staff is welcoming, but their exuberance can be annoying. When we asked a question about one ingredient in a dish, we got a dissertation. On another visit, the waiter seemed to roam aimlessly, ignoring the fact that diners were sitting with empty plates in front of them that needed clearing. It seems they haven’t learned the importance of surveying the situation and reacting. If you remove a straw from a cocktail at the beginning of a meal, odds are the straw will still be on the table when you leave.
While the service can be slipshod and the food somewhat disappointing, the place itself — both the interior and the wonderful roof deck — makes The Thomas an exciting place to be.