AKA Bistro

Saddened to hear that the restaurant is closed but I am afraid that I am not surprised. On weekends and during busy events the restaurant would be full but I happened upon this restaurant during a week day around 4:30pm and the place was relatively empty.
I sat down at the bar in the middle of the restaurant and waited to be greeted for over five minutes. I looked around and couldn’t seem to get service. Finally when someone greeted me, they didn’t seem all that energetic or excited to be there.
I ordered a glass of wine from the decent wine list I was given. Between the near empty room and the less than cheery greeting I left to find another place to eat.

Food was okay, highly recommend the tuna tartar. My husband built his own burger which he said was fantastic. I had the croque monsieur which was just okay.
They were fairly busy for lunch and only 2 waiters working. Took a little longer then I would have liked to get our food, but overall a good experience.

With its upscale comfort food, good wine selection, and friendly service, AKA Bistro was a welcome respite from the rain on my recent trip to St. Helena.
I started with the portabello fries served with truffle aioli, a creative and delicious twist on regular fries. The meaty texture of the mushroom and salty panko deep-​fried crust worked well together. For my lunch entrée I had the croque monsieur with a side of lobster bisque and my boyfriend had some kind of game hen with stuffing and a tasty sauce.
All the elements were flavorful and nicely presented. My one main complaint was that everything seemed incredibly salty and a tad greasy. Admittedly, fries and a croque monsieur aren’t the most health conscious of options — but the grease was actually visible on plates, fingers, and napkins, oil was floating around my boyfriend’s roast poultry and we were exceedingly thirsty the rest of the afternoon.
I would still recommend AKA Bistro for a nice, decently-​priced meal with a pleasant ambiance. I would, however, urge patrons to look for menu options likely to be lighter on the salt.

Good food, nice people but but we had two problems:
1. My father ordered a red wine flight. They were out a particular wine and replaced it with a really cheap brand. The other two great wines were overshadowed by how terrible the 3^rd was. Update your wine list!
2. We ordered a plate of their «doughnuts» that supposedly came with nutella. They cam with no nutella (burnt Hershey like syrup instead) and the doughnuts themselves were charred and near inedible. They also weren’t really doughnuts, more cake-​y and gingersnap shaped.
Aside from those two drawbacks, the food is generally fresh. The waiter talked into the portobello mushroom fries which were tempura battered then fried. They were to die for! A perfect blend of salty, crispy coating then you dip it into truffle aioli. It was a truly unique start to our meal.
For my main dish I ordered the roasted chicken salad. It was served with pearl barley, avocado, cucumber, golden raisins and roasted tomato’s. The dressing on it was a sort-​of lemon olive oil… pretty light and healthy tasting. I would order it again.
Instead of the usual bread and butter, AKA gives it customers flat-​bread with a white-​bean and bacon dip. The flat-​bread is served warm and the dip was a good, creamy texture.
Overall we had a good experience, if you go, just steer clear of the doughnuts at all cost and ask if they even have the wines they claim to have before you order to avoid disappointment!

Went on a rainy night last week. Indifferent greeting and the three-​fourths empty restaurant were not encouraging signs. A bewildered staff of at least eight at my count wandered about ignoring us; and I wondered who else they were expecting.
As the night wore on, we waited 48 minutes for a toy-​sized salad and toy-​sized flat bread. After two reassurances that our food was coming out «momentarily,» we waited another 102 minutes for what turned out to be salt-​embedded, salt-​encrusted, salt-​permeated dreck called food. The «macaroni and cheese» consisted of eight fusilli pasta pieces drenched in bacon, and need I mention, salt. Inedible. The brussel sprouts were mush and the meat blood red which I had to send back. We could hear the chef screaming from the kitchen and more staff scurried about doing really not-​very-​much.
At least, the bartender kept busy by polishing the vodka bottles waiting for someone to show up at the bar.
Don’t bother, don’t bother, don’t bother. There are many other well-​run eateries throughout the area.

After a night at Manresa’s in LG and touring wineries in Napa I was ready for a simple, inexpensive lunch.
My husband had been here before for a Monday special dinner when the restaurant was closed to the public. He recommended the portobella fries which were excellent and looked like huge fried oysters served in a paper cone. I had a hamburger with lettuce and mayo with butternut squash soup. My husband had a reuben and his brother had a cheeseburger with lobster bisque. There were also home made sweet pickles and peppers which were like my grandmother’s. They also make a good blackberry ginger drink with refreshing flavor on a late fall day.
The downtown restaurant has an elegant bar and and fall décor. I loved the grapevines wrapped around drum lights in the entrance which transformed a 60’s look into contemporary design.
The service was excellent and I highly recommend it for a meal after a day spent in the valley.

We stumbled across this little gem while driving through downtown St. Helena with some friends. At 12:30 on a Saturday we expected the crowd to be big but to our surprise we were the only table seated…
The girls had a roasted chicken salad with a barley base, avocado, cucumber and no mayo that they absolutely raved about. Us guys went with the BYOB (build-​your-​own-​burger) burgers which were solid.
Service was very attentive (though again, we didn’t have much competition for their attention).
A great find in St. Helena.

Whoever invented portobella fries is a GENIUS!!!
We stumbled across this cute little bistro when we were walking though St. Helena. Looking at the menu and seeing the portobella fries we knew we had found our lunch spot. After debating between lobster bisque, an heirloom tomato salad, a couple other items we decided to go along with our mushroom appetizer and have the portobella sandwich.
Service was awesome, and very attentive, and the bistro itself was so cute!

I love Reuben’s, so when I saw they make their own corned beef, I had to try it. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations…
Ambiance: Contemporary, «bistro» feel and very nice interiror
Service: Since we were the only ones in the restaurant, it was hard to mess up, so for our visit, service was great.
Food:
Portabello Fries: Sliced Portabello mushrooms battered and fried. Although there was quite a bit of grease, I still found them to be very tasty. The aioli could have been a bit more tasty, but it was fine.
Hamburger: The burgers here are really good. Good quality meat, well prepared, on a nice fresh roll. We were offered some crispy onions (normally reserved for the award winning St. Helena Burger), which really made a difference.
Reuben: The corned beef, although probably home made, didn’t have the «corned beef» taste I’m accustomed to. The sour kraut was far from sour (more on the sweet side) and it was hard to tell there was any cheese on the sandwich. On top of that, they prepared it «pannini» style, which compressed the hell out of a sandwich, which should normally be «stacked» high. Sorry guys, you should probably take a trip to either Carnegie Deli in NYC, or East-​West Deli in SF (On Polk St) to try a real Reuben.

Went on the 3^rd of July and despite Napa being overall crazy, AKA maintained a nice, not-​too-​busy-​to-​help-​you ambiance. Love the location in St. Helena, it’s easy to do a little window shopping if you are trying to kill time before your reservation.
Food and service were both above average– I had the game hen which was delish (had to refrain from trying to deconstruct it with my hands!); my husband had the St. Helena Burger, which was a little more overdone than he ordered (it was probably sitting while my game hen finished). The onion rings were good but nothing special. Food quality overall was very good!
As for drinks, the blackberry lemonade was especially refreshing and they also served a black lager which was interesting. Extensive wine list; $ 8 corkage.
Overall, not too formal, not too casual, good food and a great way to wrap up an day in the valley.

I had the St. Helena Wine Center Burger at AKA Bistro today. It was the winner of the St. Helena portion of the Napa Valley Burger Battles (you can find it on facebook!). The burger was one of the best I have ever had complete with bacon, crispy onions, and pickled jalepenos. It’s a $ 17 burger, but I can see why it won Napa Valley Burger Battles: St Helena
I also had the corn soup. which was delicious. The last time I was there they had a ginger tomato soup that was equally wonderful.
If I had any complaint it would be that service seemed a little slow, but to be honest, I didn’t notice because I wasn’t in a hurry and I enjoyed the company I was with.

The positive first:
Nice interior with reminders of the colonial look, high ceilings, open bar, etc… that’s it!
No for the bad part:
Service was horrible, «our» bartender if you can call him that was a joke!
We sat down and waited to get some help, the guy seemed to be busy but somehow was not doing much… Piles of dirty glasses sitting at the end of the bar, patrons with empty glasses which did not seem to be a priority for the clown at the bar… We also noticed an older couple running & walking around the place, very confused and disoriented, obviously signs of not knowing what they were doing!!!
And this is the heart of Napa where dining should be an experience?
Good luck with doing business that way!

Didn’t make it with me
I got off on the wrong foot because I had spied Coq Au Vin on their Saturday Special list and was really looking forward to it. It was the night before Valentine’s Day and they had replaced their normal special with a Valentine’s Day set menu. Pity they didn’t put that on the window the day before (or on the website for that matter).
I must say that the owner bent over backwards apologizing as did our waiter. Some of the other reviewers have given the servers bad reviews. That was NOT a problem. Our guy was a nice local kid who was right there when we needed him.
The replacement for my Coq Au Vin was a cornish game hen meal, which the owner assured me was the «same hen with a different set-​up.» Alarm bells !!! A «coq» is not a hen, and a Coq Au Vin with a cornish game hen would be odd to say the least, so maybe I dodged a bullet there. What I had was just ok with a bit of a gamey taste from something.
Unlike the other reviewers I thought the wine list was pretentious. Nothing under $ 40? Ok, so I am cheap. I was perfectly happy a couple of days before with my $ 28 bottle from Market. Here, I had no options. The wine I did have ($ 48) was a nice Del Dotto merlot which the owner recommended. It was fine.
In the crowded St. Helena restaurant scene I would skip this one.

On a recent trip to Napa, stopped by with a larger party for a nice lunch to recharge for the next wine tasting (and to enable more alcohol consumption). The restaurant was rather empty, which is not a great sign for any place, but we gave it a try. I ordered a reuben sandwich, which was deliciously made with fresh corned beef, gruyère cheese, and sauerkraut. It wasn’t one of those giant New York style reuben sandwiches where you need to unlock your jaw to eat the sandwich, but it was tasty (in part because of the extra unhealthy buttered and grilled rye surrounding the juicy meat).
I had bites of some other entrees, including a fennel & bacon soup, an eggplant sandwich, and a salad – all entrees were nicely prepared. The joint has excellent steak fries – crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.
Service, on the other hand, was not great. This place seemed new, and you could tell. The server had a bit of trouble explaining some of the entrée options, and service was otherwise slow. I would have given this place 4 stars for the food, but because of the slow service, I had to dock a star. Assuming service improves as the restaurant matures, this place will be filled up soon enough!

Recently dined here for a friends birthday on a Saturday night. The interior is nice and upscale without being pretentious. Our group started our with a few orders of the portobello fries (thank you fellow Unilocalers for all the recommendations)… These fries are the king of the fungus kingdom. Hands down the best part of the night. I even contemplating ordering them for dessert.
I ordered a pork chop, which had good flavor, but was overcooked and dried out. The wife had Chris’ Pasta, which had a deep red beef ragout on it. The flavor was great and the meat melted in your mouth (unlike the pork chop which actually required chewing). Other dishes our group had– the burger, which looked great; a Blackjack Plate, which had 21 differently prepared veggies; Rack of Lamb, which was nicely cooked; and a few orders of the Halibut. Everyone cleaned their plates and then we proceeded to order every dessert on the menu (everyone raved about the desserts, which I opted not to try… I’m not a big sweets fan).
Our server was efficient, but not exactly friendly. The kind of guy who comes over and says «Ready», you give him your order, then he walks off. Overall, definitely a 3.5 dining experience and as everyone else has said, the wine list is impressive. I’ll look forward to trying AKA again.

OMG, the portabello mushroom fries were to die for. The onion rings were also pretty awesome. I also tried the Cured Meat Board (Bresaola). It was the best I’ve tasted.

Tuesday night is a special night for me. It’s the night that AKA Bistro in downtown St Helena hosts a local winery and offers a tasting of their wines for $ 9. Tonight featured wines from a winery that I didn’t get the name of. I didn’t get the name because the reps of the winery were dicks. Best I could tell without my glasses is that name on the bottle wasHalliburon but I am sure I am spelling it wrong.
After I sat down at the bar I was greeted by Robert the owner of AKA as he pointed out that it must be Tuesday because I pledged to him last week that I would be at AKA every Tuesday until the day comes that I have to leave St Helena. He told me that the winery was offering CabernetSauvignon from various vintages 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005. After further discussion with the bartender I found out that I would get 2 pours of 3 ounces each of the wines I chose. So I walked over to the table and asked the reps (one being the winemaker) which of the 4 vintages they recommended. One of the other reps said «You should never ask a winemaker which wine to choose».
What the hell is this guy’s problem? Did they not want to sell any wine? Why were these people being dicks?
Well I was here and I wanted to try the wine so I went for the older vintages and got a glass of the 2001 & 2002. The 01 was rather blah but the the 02 had really benefited from bottle age, the tannins had smoothed out but the fruit was still powerful. I enjoyed a sample of a delightful tomato purée soup with a touch of spice with my cabs. I followed this up with a sampling of the 2004 & 2005 vintages (even though they were dicks they still got my business) and paired this with the AKA burger medium rare with bacon. NICE! The 04 & 05 showed their youth and I really thought that tasting the 01 & 02 with the 04 & 05 was a good learning experience as you could tell the significant differences in the young verses the older vintages.
Since I didn’t get the name of the winery I can’t tell you who they were or where to get their wines which is cool because they were dicks.
I am a big fan of AKA Bistro and I recommend their Reuben sandwich, vegetable pasta and of course the killer burger. If you decide to drop in one Tuesday around 6:30pm feel free to come by and say hi to me at the bar.

Yes, this is the place for delectable dishes your taste buds will devour every last morsel. Well, I did. After 3 wineries, we decided to stop in St. Helena for a look around. AKA is an medium-​upscale restaurant that is dog friend. I couldn’t believe it. I had the Prawn salad that was divine and the lettuce is so fresh and light. Definitely worth a try!

In St. Helena, there’s always the pressure of making your way to Terra, Press or any one of the dozens of gourmet finds. But what if you’re looking to fill the belly in the middle of a wine-​tasting day for lunch? What then? The options seem to cut down a bit as you pass bakeries and small cafes.
And this is how we came upon discovering a|k|a bistro. (
). The restaurant is comfortable and feels like a place that sits not as stuffy and French, rather, well-​designed and inviting.
The food was a surprise as I wasn’t expecting too much as we walked in. The flatbread and white bean dip/​spread was flavored perfectly. A little kick with some white pepper and a perfect starter to get the taste buds rolling. Honestly, this was one of my favs of the meal.
We ordered a bit of an eclectic mix but none of it disappointed. We went for a make-​shift charcuterie spread by ordering the cheese and meat boards. Friends ordered a cup of the red pepper soup, the Reuben sandwich and the chicken salad. (The latter two being the winners!!!)
The meat and cheese boards were very tasty, but didn’t feature cheeses or cured meats that were hidden unknown gems. Just your basic very tasty salami, prosciutto, etc and a spread of Pt. Reyes, Pecorino, brie, etc. I would’ve appreciated a bit more of a gourmet turn on the cheese selections and on the meats.
The wine spread was impressive as we all flighted different wines — sparkling, whites and reds.
I’ve read about some spotty service, and although I don’t think it’s bad service, I do see everyone’s point a little. Sure several people wait on you but you certainly don’t feel unloved. You just feel like they’re a little frenetic. (She gave my wines to my friend and seemed a bit «behind» — that sort of thing.)
But for me, the food and the ambiance was just what we needed. And AKA in that regard turned up to be a great find between a $ 300 meal and a café stop in the middle of the day.

Easily 3.5 stars earned.
I couldn’t believe the wine list at this bistro. Probably close to 40 wines offered by the glass! Yeah, talk about choices. More than a handful of half-​bottles with prices ranging from $ 32 to $ 75. The list goes on and on for different local and imported reds and whites.
The bf and I were going to share a half a bottle 2006 Napa Valley «Pride» Merlot but they were sold out, so we opted for half bottle of 2005 David Fulton Petit Sryah which turned out to be excellent. (wine notes: blueberries, not too inky, pleasant feel on the mouth)
There was a certain disconnect, but not entirely disconcerting, when you have 5 different people serving you. We had the same girl seat us and bring us complimentary flatbread and white bean spread. The sommelier talked to us a little bit about their wine list and told us about their specials. A different guy actually took our order. Another girl filled our waters and poured our wines. We also had the manager who stopped by our table to see how we’re doing.
Talk about getting attention. You certainly won’t feel ignored over here.
Things NOT to ignore on the menu are
The Reuben sandwich — housemade corned beef, with onions and gruyère cheese on a thick wheat toast
BYOB — No, it doesn’t stand for «bring your own beer!» Rather, it’s a build your own burger option on the menu. You’ve got your basic ground beef patty and you can choose, mushrooms, blue cheese, etc as your topping.
The soup of the day was a minestrone, but I ended up getting a cauliflower bisque which came with my sandwich. It was on the watery side, so I was wondering why the waitress would call it a bisque? In any event, it tasted fine.
When you’re in St. Helena, AKA bistro is not a must, but definitely not a skip either.