One eats downstairs in Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga Studio in Napa, while one practices yoga upstairs. Diners can see shadowy figures striking their asanas through high milky windows. If the juxtaposition of the plump pleasures of dining and yoga's stern body disciplines seems awkward, well, wear a broad-billed baseball cap and keep your eyes on the table. The food is worth it.
Owner Sandy Lawrence and Chef Jeremy Fox conceive of Ubuntu as something new on the Wine Country scene. (There was that clothing optional -- no kidding -- Lotus Sutra restaurant, hot tub, massage and yoga parlor that operated in Cotati in the mid- to late 1970s. Ubuntu, however, is a lot classier than that.)
Ubuntu is the Zulu word for the concept of humanity toward others, and the concept of this restaurant is wrapped around a humane ideal. The food is local, organic and even biodynamic when possible. Local supports the farming community. Organic keeps the food free of agricultural chemicals and goes easy on the land. Biodynamic connects the life in the garden and farm to the cosmos.
It's mostly plant life because Ubuntu is a fine vegetable restaurant, as opposed to a vegetarian or vegan restaurant. It's not espousing an ideology, but rather celebrating the really great seasonal crops that we're able to grow in this blessed climate. Eggs and milk products like cream and cheese are used. The concept works.
Vegetables at many restaurants are an afterthought, the sides that go with the meat. Here, they're the stars of the show, and they're rarely treated with this much respect. If, after you eat your veggies at Ubuntu, you absolutely must have meat, go to Cole's Chop House three doors south on Main Street for a pork chop for dessert. But I bet you won't want to.
For instance, it's easy to find caprese salads at many restaurants at this time of year. Slices of ripe tomato are topped with rounds of rubbery mozzarella, torn-up bits of basil, and given a squirt of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
But at Ubuntu, Heirloom Tomatoes Caprese Style
($10,**** ) achieves a higher level. Wedges of dead-ripe red and green tomatoes alternate down a slender plate. Instead of the typical mozzarella, the wedges are interspersed with creamy burrata, a cheese made from a pouch of silky water buffalo mozzarella filled with scraps of this cheese and pure cream, then tied up into a leak-proof bag. The scraps of mozzarella di bufala dissolve into the cream. When the burrata (Italian for buttery) pouch is cut, the most marvelous soft and rich cheese spills out. Instead of torn-up basil leaves, this caprese is garnished with tiny tips of basil shoots, and when you take a bite, you discover that it's been salted with a few bits of fleur de sel. Instead of balsamic, sherry vinegar is used, along with high quality olive oil. Very nicely done, and I can't imagine a better caprese salad.
As you enter the room, you're greeted by a gong. Not the sound of a gong, but an actual gong. Behind it is a sculpture of four naked women, one of them upside down. The 20-foot-high north and south walls are of native stone. A stainless steel display kitchen anchors the back of the room, with a wine bar on the left. The wine list is extensive: 25 by the glass, a dozen half-bottles and 123 bottles. The wines made with grapes grown organically or with sustainable practices are marked with bullets. The list is heavy on Napa and Sonoma wines, but there are plenty from around the world at prices ranging from $27 to $180. A 1999 Barbaresco caught my eye, but at $88, I passed in favor of a glass of 2005 Burklin Wolf Riesling from Germany for $9. Corkage is $20.
Good whole grain bread arrives in a rustic woven cloth bag. The appetizers, here called "bites," are intriguing. Olives marinated in wild fennel and orange, marcona almonds in lavender sugar, and -- perfect for early fall -- Fried Padron and Cherry Peppers ($4,*** ). Padron is a variety of pepper from a town of that name in northwest Spain. It can be sweet, as it is in this dish, or hot. (In the town of Padron, people say, "Os pementos de Padron, uns pican e outros non," or "Padron peppers: some are hot and some are not.") The red, round cherry peppers are also sweet and mild. They are all fried in olive oil and garnished with sea salt and espelette -- a spicy pepper from southwest France.
Cool Watermelon and Lemongrass Soup ($7,*** ) sounded refreshing, and so it was, even though it was finished with cream. It contained a chunk of compressed watermelon (a cube squeezed to a flat strip), goat cheese, and tiny mint tips for garnish.
To make Beer-Battered Ginger Shoots ($9,**** ), Chef Fox coats five ginger tips in a beer batter and deep fries them to a feather-light crisp. They're served with a hot and sour sauce, and ultra-thin rounds of raw baby tromboncino squash that he calls a vegetable "carpaccio." This is topped with a chive, seaweed and radish chiffonade.
A house specialty is Cauliflower in a Cast Iron Pot ($12,*** ). The pot is a small dutch oven with a lid. The cauliflower is presented three ways: slices of raw floret, cooked and pureed with cream, and roasted. It's flavored with vadouvan, a mixture of Indian spices like curry, fenugreek, garlic and others that is then mixed with olive oil and caramelized onions. It's delicious and exotic -- except that the flavor of the raw cauliflower didn't work very well with the more savory cooked vegetable.
Ubuntu gives you the provenance of the eggs for the three egg dishes on the menu. They're from Connie Norwick's flock. And with Farro with a Slow Egg ($13*** ?), we learn that the farro grain is from Anson Mills in South Carolina, a firm so into their grain products that Glenn Roberts, one of their executives, described his Carolina Gold rice to me this way: "The aromas are hay, alfalfa, caramel, lemon blossoms, floral; a high nuttiness, from sesame to pecan with walnut in between; beyond that almost herb-like aromas, green, then into lilac, violet, jasmine -- seductive, deep, floaty stuff; finally: mushroom." Well, their farro is superior, too, and comes with roasted baby root vegetables and a slow-cooked and tender egg.
A Mushroom Pizza ($14*** ?) was excellent -- thin crust perfectly baked, topped with Bellwether Farms crescenza soft cheese and plenty of small, delicate mushrooms. A cheese list contained Epoisses ($6 * ), my favorite cheese. Would it be rich and runny and ripe? Nope. It was stiff and flavorless.
But Deanie Fox's (Jeremy's spouse) desserts included a delightful Brioche French Toast with Coastal Huckleberries paired with sweet corn ice cream and bee pollen and honey sauce. It was very sweet and very welcome.
To sum up: For light fare consisting of the choicest vegetables handled with great respect and insight, this is the place. And you can do yoga.
Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for A&E. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.
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