I’m sitting in the middle of Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth, and I can’t help but share what we experienced last night! Michael and I are on a road trip from Sonoma County, and let me tell you, our first stop was nothing short of magical.

The culinary experience we had at the Napa Rose Restaurant in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa was out of this world! I woke up with my travel mic in hand, ready to dish all about our AMAZING dinner. It was the Chef’s Counter experience, and trust me, it’s the kind of meal that deserves its own podcast episode.

I'm so excited to share with you:

• How the chef's counter at Napa Rose offers a unique dining experience tailored to guests' preferences.
• The uniqueness sitting at the counter at an open kitchen, watching the chefs in action as they created a custom menu for us
• Tips on how to snag the chef's counter experience, which is hard to do!
• A surprising and great value wine that was a perfect pairing with multiple courses

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Our Sollevato Sangiovese is available to be shipped to most US States. Use the code PODLISTENER for 10% off. It's a delicious, medium bodied, aromatic red wine that is perfect with pizza, pasta and your charcuterie spread!

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Michael made a comment about not liking, quote, fishy fish, which always makes me think of Nemo. And yes, I'm sitting in the middle of Disneyland right now, so I probably have extra Disney references more than normal.

But when he says fishy fish, I always think of Nemo. Fishy. Hello. Welcome to Sip with Nikki. I'm Nikki Lamberti and I am not coming to you from Sonoma County, California today.

I'm coming to you from Disneyland. Michael and I are in the middle of a road trip and our first stop was down here at the Happiest Place on Earth.

And we had such an amazing culinary and wine experience last night that I woke up and put my travel microphone on and I was like, this needs to be a podcast. People need to know about this.

So today I'm highlighting the chef's counter experience that we had at the Napa Rose Restaurant at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa. And first and foremost, I have to say that this is not a promotion. Even though I work for Disney, I do not work for Disneyland.

I do not work in food and beverage.

This is literally just Michael and I as guests and as visitors having an amazing experience that I just want to make sure that you know about if you are in the area.

So I'm going to share with you what it is, what we had, why it was so special, a very surprising and really nice value wine that we ordered off their extension, extensive wine list, and how you can take advantage of this experience for yourself. So here we go with the chef's counter at Napa Rose.

So we are in the middle of a road trip and we drove from Sonoma county down to Anaheim, the home of Disneyland, of course. And it's about a seven to eight hour drive, depending on wonderful LA traffic.

And I wasn't planning on making this an episode, but we had such a phenomenal dining experience last night that I just had to tell you all about it.

We did the chef's counter experience at the Napa Rose Restaurant, which is in Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, which is one of my favorite Disney resorts. We had eaten at the restaurant before. It's fantastic. We try to eat there anytime we're down here.

But we had never done the Chef's counter experience and apparently it books up pretty far in advance. But we were just calling to confirm our normal reservation and I happened to ask, hey, do you have any cancellations?

And it was like two days before and they did. So it was meant to be. And so if you are a super foodie Watch the Food Network.

Interested in culinary either as a hobby or, of course, that's what you do. I cannot encourage you enough to try to set up this experience.

First of all, the restaurant is beautiful, and they are actually about to close for a few months and have a renovation. And I believe they'll be reopening back in October.

But my understanding is after that renovation, they will still be offering this chef's counter experience. And I just can't even imagine how this space is going to be even more beautiful than it already is.

But they have a big open kitchen, and for the chef's counter, they have 12 spots broken up into sets of four in three different positions around this big sort of semicircular counter.

And we were right in the middle where the executive chef, Chef Chin, was expoing, and they were toweling off the plates before they left the expo line to head to the tables.

And it was just the coolest thing to be sitting there looking into the kitchen, watching this well orchestrated choreography happening in front of us. And everyone was so friendly.

Chef Chin came over right away and started asking us about our preferences, and not just do you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies, but what do you like and what do you enjoy and what excites you?

We didn't pair the Sangiovese with caviar, but pretty much anything that came after that, it was really versatile.

And we were telling the chef about our wine, and he was asking about the label and the name, and I mentioned, oh, so lovato is Italian for joyful and uplifted. And I'm Italian, and that's why I love to drink and make Sangiovese.

So he filed that little tidbit away, and then literally one of the courses that he set down in front of me was a mushroom course. And then there was almost like a thin log, for lack of a better word.

First I thought it was foie gras, but then turns out it was a mushroom panna cotta. So panna cotta being that, like, Italian custard style dessert.

And he's like, yeah, I thought because you were Italian, I would do some panna cotta for you in a savory style. And I just thought that was so cool that he really took everything into account.

He mentioned that he loves talking to the people that are sitting at the counter and learning even just where they're from, even just east coast versus west coast versus Midwest in the US and how that influences people's preferences and styles of what they like to eat. And he will literally factor that in. We were talking about, I pretty much eat all fish and Michael eats most.

But Michael made a comment about not liking, quote, fishy fish, which always makes me think of Nemo. And, yes, I'm sitting in the middle of Disneyland right now, so I probably have extra Disney references more than normal.

But when he says fishy fish, I always think of Nemo fishey. And so he actually was asking, do you like mahi? And do you like snapper? And then he said, have you heard of John Dory?

And of course I'm like, dory, the fish. That's a Nemo reference. But John Dory is apparently a fish that neither one of us had before. It was vaguely familiar to me.

And we talked about it, and he talked about how it's not extremely fishy and then presented that to Michael in a course like 20 minutes later. Just phenomenal.

I have to give a shout out to Cresslin, the wonderful server and sommelier, who took great care of us because we knew that we were going to enjoy our Sangiovese, which we asked her to decant at the start of the meal.

But we knew even though the menu was choose your own adventure by the chef, we figured there would be some fish and some lighter courses that we would want some white wine with. We were looking at the extensive wine list, pages and pages, and we were like, let's try some cava, which is, of course, Spanish sparkling wine.

Cava's a region in Spain where they make a lot of beautiful sparkling, and we love cava because it can be really great value compared to, of course, traditional champagne or even California sparkling wine, which we drink a lot of. So they had two on the menu, and I didn't know either one of them. And Kressland guided us to the Gelida G E L I D A, their reserve.

And it was fantastic, especially when the first course came out that was shrimp and caviar and the most beautiful plating on a rose gold plate I've ever seen. And the pairing was fantastic.

I won't take you through course by course, but really I just wanted to get this experience on your radar, because if you are going to be in the Anaheim area, whether you're visiting Disney or not, you can just make a reservation and come to the resort just for dinner. If you're in the area, it is definitely worth a trip. The other. Wow.

Standout course for us was a kolache, which I've learned is a traditional Czech pastry. It's like a puff pastry with a triple cream cheese inside. And then it was in some type of a lavender honey.

And the pairing of that and the sparkling kava, which was. I'll say the kava was off dry, so certainly not sweet, but it wasn't bone dry.

So we call that off dry, where there was just maybe a tiny hint of what we call RS residual sugar or sweetness in there. But paired with that beautiful warm pastry with ooey gooey cheese on the inside. And that was towards the end, like before the dessert.

And that's what I love. I love a cheese course. And that was really a fun, delicious surprise.

And as we would have expected, the sangiovese was a beautiful pairing with the homemade tagliatel pasta with wild boar ragu. And then I had a beautiful filet. The preparation was perfection. One of the best pieces of meat that I've had in a long time.

So the Sangiovese really sat very nicely in the pocket with that.

And I know I'm a broken record if you are a regular listener, but we just keep talking about how Sangiovese in general, and ours specifically from sola vato, is just like a chameleon and can be beautiful purring with all of those sort of stereotypical things that you assume, like margherita pizza, which I always talk about, but was really interesting to see her shine. And yes, she's a her. She's a strong her, but she's a her and.

And see her partner with and pair with and be elevated by and elevate some of the other dishes that we had last night that were not your traditional sort of red sauce Italian fare. Okay, one more nerdy call out of a course.

It was a beautiful scallop, but it was in a broth that he said was inspired by the chef who created this dish. I believe he said the times as a child that he and his grandfather would be in the tide pools. And it just like you expect from Disney.

There was a story, there was storytelling, even to this two bite dish that was set in front of me. And I don't know about you, but Michael and I eat that stuff up, literally and figuratively.

We just love when there's a story and to know everything about it. I'm sitting here recapping this all for you and I'm like, can we go back and do it again tonight? I mean, the experience is $225 a person.

Well worth it. Especially when you think of any fine dining multi course experience, whether it's the French LA or single thread or any of those types of things.

I think this is absolutely worth it.

Especially just the experience of sitting there facing the kitchen, watching everything prepared as the chef talks to you and creates a menu right there on the spot tailored to you. So very cool.

So next time you know that you're gonna be in the area, call ahead, make some time, and if you can't reserve it, cause again, there's only 12 spots at the counter each night, call, make a regular reservation like we did for the dining room, which is also fantastic. But then as it gets closer, see if you can call and get in on a cancellation, which is what we did literally the day before.

And whatever you do between now and your next fantastic glass of wine or gorgeous meal, I hope that you sip well.