Boon Fly Café | really good local Napa restaurant

Boon Fly Café (c) 2016 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

Boon Fly Café is quite popular with the locals, always a good sign for a restaurant. We enjoyed three meals there while guests at Carneros Inn — two breakfasts (Virtuoso guests get a daily breakfast credit, currently $40 per day and going up to $60 per day in 2017) and our Thanksgiving dinner.

If you arrive for breakfast between 8 and 9 a.m., you'll likely have to wait for a table because, as noted above, the place is extremely popular with people who live in and around Napa. Restaurants are usually crowded because they're good, and this is certainly the case with Boon Fly Café. The extensive breakfast menu includes the Boon Fly American Breakfast ($18.40) that includes two eggs any style, sausage or bacon, bread, juice, and tea or coffee. You can also order order a la carte — unique choices such as Bloody Fly's Spicy Bacon Bloody Mary, Poppa Joe's Eggs in a Hole, Green Eggs and Ham, Boon Fly Benedict, or the restaurant's own homemade donuts (which seemed to be quite popular).

Carneros Inn guests can also enjoy breakfast at the guest-only Hilltop Dining Room (open on weekends). While there's no waiting for a table and a more serene setting, I enjoyed the friendliness and bustling energy at Boon Fly Café.

How was the Thanksgiving dinner? Yum ... from soup to turkey to the bourbon pecan pie with vanilla ice cream, one of the best Thanksgiving feasts I've had. 

copyright (c) 2016 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

Visit Napa Valley | iPhone app

A free Visit Napa Valley iPhone app has been announced. According to the publisher's description, the app uses an interactive GPS map to help you visit Napa Valley - with directions to the top vineyards, updates on culinary and wine tasting events, exclusive offers, and over 100 places to stay. You can download the app here.

Where to stay in Napa Valley? Let me shorten the list from 100 to three Virtuoso properties in the wine country north of San Francisco.

Meadowood Napa Valley is a beautiful resort with 85 cottages, suites, and lodges set on a wooded hillside just outside of St. Helena, a small town with great wine shops and restaurants. Virtuoso guests receive a $50 daily breakfast credit, $100 spa credit, bottle of Napa cabernet sauvignon, and an upgrade if available on arrival.

The Carneros Inn is a contemporary resort intended to create the impression of living in a working vineyard. The 83 guest cottages resemble the simple wooden buildings provided to vineyard workers (on the outside), but you'll step inside to your own supremely private and luxurious suite. Virtuoso guests receive a $40 daily breakfast credit, $50 spa credit, VIP wine tasting passes, and an upgrade if available on arrival.

Calistoga Ranch has 47 cedar-shingled guest lodges located on a 157-acre site outside the town of Calistoga. The resort features a great Spa and a private restaurant, the Lakehouse, open exclusively to owners and resort guests. 2011 amenities include Daily full breakfast, bottle of wine and seasonal gift, sparking wine served with dinner (or on second night in room), and upgrade if available on arrival.

If you've never heard of Virtuoso, it's the best way to get outstanding values at nearly 900 five-star hotels and resorts in the Napa Valley and around the world — free daily breakfasts, room upgrades, and more. You pay the same and just get more when you make your reservation through a Virtuoso travel consultant.


Napa Valley (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2010 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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Carneros Inn | Napa Valley luxury resort

Carneros Inn is a very different kind of resort in the Napa Valley wine country. Located in the midst of acres of rolling farmland, guests get the sense of living on a vineyard. Rooms on the perimeter of the property look out over the fields - a spectacular sight during the growing season.

From the outside, cottages look like accommodations that might once have housed farm workers. The simple architecture features wooden porches and corrugated steel roofs. But once you step inside your 450 square foot cottage, you enter a world of refined luxury. Floors are made of Brazilian cherry wood. Beds are made with Frette linens. Inside and outside showers in all accommodations are a trademark feature of Carneros Inn. Your own private courtyard offers the utmost in privacy and seclusion.

Spa, anyone? Conde Nast readers voted the Spa at Carneros the 16th rated spa in the US. The resort offers two pools, expansive fitness facilities, 5000 square feet of meeting space, as well as shopping opportunities on the resort.

Only 45 minutes from San Francisco or the East Bay, Carneros Inn is a great place for a quick romantic getaway - or even for dinner at The Farm, one of three fine dining establishments on the resort. Virtuoso guests receive a 10-15% discount off the published rates, a complimentary Full Breakfast daily, and upgrades on arrival if available. These and many other valuable amenities offer exclusive values to clients of a Virtuoso luxury travel consultant.


Carneros Inn (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2008 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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