Patrick David’s Restaurant & Bar

Had brunch on Mother’s Day. The food was creative and tastey but I expected more from a restaurant in Danville.

Emphasis on on food from «sustainable populations and healthy ecosystems,» although I am not sure what that means.
I enjoyed my food here. It wasn’t overwhelming but it wasn’t disappointing either. I feel like it was well prepared and tasty.
I do not recommend getting dessert here. My husband had a mousse that was dense and more like a flourless tort than an airy mousse. I had a pear dessert that came with a crust. I could not cut the crust. I’d give the crust an F.

Just went back to Patrick David’s for Tri-​Valley restaurant week and all I can say is wow, what a meal. First thing I should call out is the very expensive (but worth-​it) cocktail at the bar; it was SMOKIN’…no really it was smoking because there was dry ice in it. Who doesn’t love themselves an inventive (and delicious) martini now and again. Second of all, I had this roast chicken with a sage bread pudding (stuffing) that was to die for. When I was in the restaurant I checked to ensure it was on the regular menu, but I just looked at their online menu and can’t find it… PLEASE: PATRICK DAVID STAFF: for the love of all customers that cried a little when they tasted this, you must ensure it’s orderable all the time! Third, when at Patrick David’s I always get the chocolate soufflé, but last weekend I tried the apple tart with vanilla bean icecream thingee (yes that’s the technical term). Who shoved raindrops, roses, kitten whiskers and everything that makes people happy into one little dessert!
All in all, great night magified by exquisite food, inventive drinks and a dessert that changed my mind about what to get when at Patrick David’s!

I’ve been to Patrick David’s twice now and had opposing experiences. The first time I went was for dinner. It was a two star experience.
The waitress who served me dinner was inattentive, slow, and dismissive. For dinner I ordered the Tamale Silver Dollar Pancakes with Chicken Salad and Guacamole ($ 10) and the California Crab Sushi Roll with Avocado. I found neither of them impressive, imaginative or tasty. It was a under seasoned mediocre meal.
The second time I went to the restaurant was for lunch. Why I was willing to go again… I have no idea.
The second experience was a three star experience. The waiter was nice and attentive. He stopped by the table a few times to check on us, which I appreciated.
I had an Organic Leaf Lettuce Salad with apples, pears, cheese, walnuts, chicken, a touch of pepper and a raspberry vinaigrette. I was delicious. ($ 16)
I would only recommend this place for brunch.

After swearing I would never go back to PD’s, I let time heal wounds and went back with my wife and another couple last Friday night. I must say, I was quite surprised. The menu and wine list have changed and a new chef adorns the kitchen. The food was fantastic, especially the new pork chop entrée and the paella. The signature chocolate soufflé was still on the menu and as good as ever.
I met the new owner, Al, and expressed to him my dissatisfaction over the way the issue with the Costco gift cards was handled. He gave me what I considered to be an honest and reasonable answer, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, there are two sides to every story.
Adding to the good news was that Doree, my favorite food server, was still on the job and provided her usual excellent service. Until the Costco fiasco, I probably ate at Patrick David’s at least twice a month. After a 1 ½ year hiatus, I can say that I will be a regular again. Those of you, who like me were irate over the handling of the gift cards, should think about giving PD’s another try. I think you will be very happy with your decision.

Just had dinner here tonight before my Groupon expired. The food was great and the service was great too!
I was dining alone and sat outside on the patio. It was about 95 degrees but it was really nice in the shade.
For tapas I ordered Sea Scallops with Kaffir Lime Beurre Blanc. There were cooked perfectly and the sauce was delightful. Slightly sweet and buttery with just the right mix. Loved them. Then had the Spinach Salad. The smoked chicken and bacon bits and eggs gave it a bit of a hearty feel so as not to be just spinach alone. The dressing was just right. Not too tart or vinegary. For the entrée I had the Miso Marinated Butterfish. It was cooked perfectly and the vegetables were perfectly cooked. Al dente not mushy.
I have a strict grain free, sugar free diet. So no bread, dessert, rice, couscous, potatoes, etc. They were very accommodating by adding some vegetables in place of the sweet potato ravioli’s.
My waitress Regan was attentive but not obtrusive. She was sharp and quick and made no mistakes throughout my visit. Everything arrived perfectly on time. Another wait staff brought my entrée as Regan was busy at the moment and he wanted to make sure it was hot. Regan was very familiar with using the Groupon and even knew how to use my HTC Inspire to get what she needed. She quickly grasped my dietary needs and adjusted my order easily and accordingly. I would definitely ask for her again.
Another great plus was that none of the wait staff that I encountered including the young hostess, 3 waitresses, 2 waiters and a busboy wore fragrance. I have severe reactions to fragrance and it was really nice to be able to enjoy my dinner without getting ill. There were some diners entering and leaving the restaurant who left fumes in their wake but it dissipated quickly.
Upon leaving 2 of the wait staff greeted me with «Have a good evening», etc as I left.
I don’t know why some of the early reviews were poor but I had great food and great service. Yes, it’s a bit pricey but nothing out of the ordinary for the area.

My hubby and I went here for a Saturday night date night & had dinner out on the patio. We thought the food was Amazingly good (we’re foodies and have eaten at various nice restaurants throughout the tri-​valley area). We think Patrick David’s is on par with some of our other regular favorites.
We ordered for appetizers: scallops (best scallops we both agreed we’d ever had, better than Maui!), and sliders; my husband ordered the pear salad and said it was excellent; for entrees, I ordered the hawaiian butterfish & my husband ordered the beef tenderloin, both dishes were top notch & very tasty. chocolate soufflé for dessert, again, delicious.
I don’t really have much else to say except that the food (and service) was excellent and we can’t wait to go back!

I highly recommend this restaurant if you’re ever in the Danville area. My friend was 2 weeks away from giving birth to her baby. So, I drove out to San Ramon to catch up with her and her husband.
We grabbed lunch here. It’s located in a small shopping strip right by Piatti’s Restaurant.
We went ahead and ordered the seared ahi-​tuna, sushi rolls, lobster potstickers, burger, miso marinated Hawaiian butterfish, and chocolate soufflé. Definitely order a couple of dishes to sample. I really enjoyed the sushi rolls and the lobster potstickers.
Great service and our waiter was awesome!

Let me keep it simple.
The Prix Fixe menu is $ 28 and I think well worth it. I got a fantastic tomato basil soup, a generous roasted chicken, and a great tart for desert.
I cant speak to the rest of the menu or the prices but i think the PF is well worth it, especially for Danville prices.

I went to Patrick David for dinner with my family in a rainy Sunday’s night. My first impression was how small it is. It’s called Patrick David Café.
We had Spicy Ahi Tuna Avocado rolls for appertizer, Organic leaf lettuce with Raspberry Poppy vinaigrette Salad, Miso marinated Hawaiian butter fish. Overall, the food was decent, tasted just fine, not something special. Service was merely acceptable because there were only one server who served the whole restaurant. For a small town like Danville, this restaurant works just fine, a bit overpriced but blamed it onto geographical monopoly.

We’ve walked past Patrick David’s many times on our way from Jule’s Thin Crust to Cold Stone when out with the kids and have always wondered, so tonight we went out with some friends and gave it a try.
Eh, well, eh.
It’s good, nothing wrong with it, but nothing spectacular.
The most annoying part of the night was our waiter who was more like a used car salesman than a waiter. He was pushing things on us left and right trying to get us to spend more money.
We started with a $ 100 bottle of Frank Family Cab, which was wonderful and originally decided to just get a bunch of the mini plates to share.
He was not happy about this and kept bringing entrées by our table just to show us how wonderful they looked. It was obvious he wasn’t concerned about our tummies, but about his tip.
So after we had a ton of mini plates, the men decided to order the steak special each and I had a bowl of the butternut squash soup and my friend had the beet and goat cheese salad.
Her salad was tiny. Like pathetically tiny. My soup was good, but not amazing.
The steak was once again good, but not amazing.
We decided to get another bottle of wine and this time decided on a $ 50 bottle. All of a sudden the waiter brought a glass of another wine to my husband to try. We were all confused. He tried to tell us they were out of the wine we chose and this was similar. Turns out this was also $ 50 more and when we pushed, turns out they weren’t out of the original bottle at all. He was just trying to up the bottom line.
We opted for the original $ 50 bottle.
Also, both times he came to refill us, he refilled 3 of us, leaving out our friend both times.
I just didn’t like the pushy salesman behavior. It was a total turnoff and made it hard to enjoy anything.
On top of it, the bathrooms were having major sewer issues. The Men’s bathroom was out of order and when you flushed the toilet in the women’s, water actually came out of the drain in the middle of the floor. There was a big puddle of dirty water in the middle of the bathroom floor.
In the end, we had a nice evening with friends and enjoyed a decent meal.
But for all our waiters hard work in trying to up his tip. We decided to only tip on the food, not the wine, because he was so annoying with his desire to raise our bill. So his greed backfired on him in the end.
Too many good restaurants in Danville, with quite a few I have yet to try. I doubt I’ll be back anytime soon.

Mixed reviews all the way around.
I had read most of the reviews — the good, the bad, the ugly. Luckily, I wasn’t sporting a Patrick David gift card from Costco. I was however, running out of Danville restaurants to try.
As a previous review or two stated, the place should be easy to find, but isn’t. The sign looks like it should be advertising a small mom and pop deli, and if I wasn’t looking for it, would’ve easily passed by and ended up at one of the other dining establishments in The Livery.
I digress… we found it. Seated right away in a very tight dining room. I wouldn’t want to come here with more than 4 people.
The patrons were very typical Danville — a weird mix of men dressed in suits on a Saturday night because their wardrobe no longer includes any jeans, droves of middle-​aged women dressed 10 years younger than their faces suggest and basically just a general air of snobbery.
Drinks took a little too long to arrive, even for prime time Saturday night, but were well mixed. Bread came shortly after and was good — soft butter.
The menu, striving for an asian fusion, is fairly well rounded. I was leaning towards the New York, until it arrived at the table next to ours. Though well presented, it looked like an appetizer portion. I opted for an appetizer of Lobster Potstickers followed by the Miso Marinated Hawaiian Butterfish. My girlfriend opted for the New York, despite it appearing to be a $ 30 tapas plate.
The Lobster Potstickers were good, but not great. The lime beurre blanc sauce underneath was the highlight. The potstickers (2) equated to $ 2.50 per bite. I would’ve rather have paid the $ 10 for a larger portion of the sauce. Costco (irony) has lobster potstickers.
The Hawaiian Butter fish really was excellent. The portion appeared a little small, but was a very meaty cut and paired perfectly with shitake mushrooms, spinach and a couple of sweet potato raviolis. I cleaned my plate and was full and satisfied.
My girlfriend’s New York entrée was good, but not great and was laughably small. The strip had been sliced, with individual slices having been grilled separately. She orders medium well (ugh) and with this grilling style, it was dry, but well seasoned.
The service was nothing that stood out as amazing. I don’t need, nor do I want my hand held, but at this pricepoint, I expect not to question if my drinks were forgotten about. On the other hand, we saw our server a couple of times throughout the meal, our waters were filled quickly, we were given more bread without asking and the table promptly cleared when it was obvious we had finished.
Given the option, I would’ve given 3−½ stars. Had the Butterfish not been really good, it would’ve been a solid 3. Had my girlfriends New York been a little closer to really good, I would’ve pushed towards 4.

If you come here for breakfast, get the blueberry pancake! It’s super fluffy and tasty especially with the whipped cream they put on it. If you come here on Sundays, they do a little 3×3 tray of things like cinnamon buns, croissants, etc.
On a dinner note… all of their dishes have excellent presentation. the caesar salad especially!
PS. The chocolate soufflé… to die for!

First off, I have to admit that I got confused by the signage out front. It has a «Patrick David’s Café» sign, but this is apparently also the Restaurant and Bar… No big deal, but just don’t get it confused with the catering service that’s located nearby.
So we came here the other night and had a great time. Three people, and we totally stuffed ourselves. Details to follow.
Service was excellent. Our waiter knew his stuff and was very respectful of our conversations, but also knew how to break in and break the ice. Quick and frequent drink refills, plates taken away in a timely fashion, new utensils arriving with every course. More than I was expecting, definitely better than any other service I’ve had in the Danville area.
There was live music playing somewhere by the bar area and it was a nice added touch. At first we thought it was some sort of acoustic music track that was playing over the speakers… so yeah, pretty good! We didn’t know it was live until people started clapping about halfway into our meal. I couldn’t quite catch all of what they were playing, but they were playing renditions of classics like Hotel California.
small plates:
sea scallops: great, cooked to perfection, but you only get three of ‘em.
ribeye over sweet potato: deliciously skewered and cooked to order.
72hr short rib over polenta: very tender and went great with the polenta
main courses:
ribeye: cooked to order and had a crazy deconstructed onion fried into rings stacked on top of the meat, and with some delicious chard underneath.
pork chop: grilled to perfection, however the sauce was a smidge too salty, but still far better than I can make at home. The pork chop was about 1″ thick, a great cut.
butterfish: the portion looked a little small, but it was tasty. My friend wiped out his plate, nothing left behind. The presentation was perfect too: Nice looking ravioli on top of a bed of greens, all topped by a beatiful piece of fish.
dessert:
soufflé (30 min to prep): yum
peach cobbler (30 mins to prep): yum
The bill was a little higher than we had anticipated before showing up, but worth it for the experience. We’ll be back for special occasions.

We came back here for Sunday brunch and it was delightful. They open for brunch at 10 am, which is nice. We got a lovely table outside and there was a nice cool breeze. There were not a lot of people there so it was nice and quiet.
They brought out a gorgeous sampler of biscuits and muffins (I’ve attached a photo), which was a nice touch. I devoured the spicy ahi tuna roll and they cucumber avocado roll. I love the fact that they use big chunks of cucumber instead of seaweed.
They brought skewers of fruit for dessert, which was another nice touch. I highly recommend it for brunch — great variety of egg dishes as well.

Came here because Bridges was closed when my grandma wanted to celebrate her birthday there. Bridges folk recommended Patrick David’s Café.
First off, the positives: The servers were so great! They made sure water was filled, plates were cleared, and they accommodated special requests for a noodle dish (even though there was none on the menu) to help entertain a Chinese traditional way to celebrate long life. They were also very accommodating trying to help figure out air conditioning levels…
but that brings me to some of the negatives. To make room for our large party, they attached a couple tables off the end of a booth table. But the venting system was not situated to have tables in that spot so there was a large gaping vent hole that blew a constant strong breeze keeping me either freezing or too warm, but if they turned off the air, then the whole restaurant got warm. Also, the food wasn’t that great. Everything looked pretty, and the descriptions sounded good, but the execution was really flavorless. None of the flavors seemed to marry. And every piece, the garlic the potatoes, the chicken etc seemed like they were not cooked together. They all stood on their own, without imparting any of their flavor to their plate companions. Very strange.
Finally, what a horrible font for the restaurant sign. We drove by this place looking for it several times before someone realizing that the sign read Patrick David. It is sooooo hard to read.

The extended family met here for Father’s Day brunch this morning. The setting is beautiful and the menu sounded terrific. The Livery shopping center has both mature trees and more recent plantings and the view out the window was lovely.
Two small divided trays (think white porcelain tic tac toe board) holding a variety of small sweet breads were brought to our table. The sweet breads were tasty and helped stave off hunger while we decided what we wanted for brunch. I was torn between the mushroom omelet and the crab omelet and settled on the former. Alan ordered Green Eggs and Ham, a Benedict type dish w/​poached eggs, prosciutto and arugula served on a maple butter biscuit. Rob ordered a chorizo omelet, Elissa ordered poached eggs, another Benedict type dish. DGD ordered a pulled pork sandwich, Kevin ordered a hamburger, rare and Tam ordered lobster potstickers. We caught sight of fruit on skewers being brought to someone’s table and ordered a couple of plates of that. The fruit was good, sweet and fresh, particularly the strawberries.
The kitchen may have been overwhelmed by the Father’s Day crowd. One of Alan’s eggs was poached too hard, while the other was poached properly. Both of Elissa’s eggs were overpoached, although the hollandaise saved the dish. When DGD’s dish arrived it bore no resemblance to a pulled pork sandwich as we all understood it. It was cut up pieces of cooked pork in a wrap. She returned it for a crab omelet, which was very good. My mushroom omelet was tasty. The potatoes were nicely seasoned and cooked. Alan tasted no maple butter on his biscuit. All in all, brunch was a pretty mixed bag. Tammy will share her observations in her review. We have had much more satisfying meals at Piatti and Forbes Mill, also in The Livery. I know Tam has had much better meals here, so it’s possible the holiday just threw the kitchen off its stride.

This was my first visit to Patrick David’s Café. I came here last night to celebrate one of my Danville friends’ birthday.
My friends have come here often and knew the wait staff very well. They were pleased that their favorite waiter was working last night. This earned the 4 star rating. We started off with drinks; Malbec (me), Scotch and a Cosmo for my friends.
I had the Salmon with Risotto and my friends had the Short Ribs. The salmon was very good, but the short ribs were just okay — 3 stars on the food. We shared the Crème Brulee.
I understand that the quality of PD has declined since the new owners took over. Gift card customers may be interested in knowing that although the new ownership of PD does not honor the gift cards, Costco will buy them back.

Hubby and I walked into Patrick David’s at 2:30p for a late lunch… Saem greeted at the door and was very courtesy and showed us to our table,
Husband ordered the Hawaiian Butterfish and I ordered the Petrale sole… OH so good!!! You cannot go wrong with either dish!!!
We split the Organic spinach salad, which was perfect. I had a glass of the Rombauer — Chardonnay… devine!

It’s been at least 7 years since I’ve eaten here, but went back for their fixed price menu. The value I think is good — for $ 26 you can pick soup or salad, a wide variety of entrees and any of their desserts. Otherwise, I think their menu is overpriced.
I chose the Tomato Basil Soup in Puff Pastry to start. I haven’t ever seen this kind of presentation so I had to give it a shot. It was good and tasty but took a long time to cool down to eat.
I had the Dijon Mustard Chicken Breast as my entrée. It was cooked perfectly but lost most of the flavor when I removed the skin (sorry I don’t eat fat on purpose). The white truffle polenta was quite good though.
For dessert I had the Warm Chocolate Soufflé. It was goey and chocolately and quite big for one person — and I can certainly put away the desserts.
So based on this, you may ask why only 2 stars? Well, because it was just okay, not spectacular. I remember this place being better. Perhaps they’ve slipped a bit or other restaurants have caught up/​passed them by.
I don’t think I’ll be back anytime soon.