By Michael Cuffe
There are places you go to eat, and there are places you go to remember who you are. Tucked into a wooded canyon just outside St. Helena, Meadowood is the latter. The resort, long known as one of Napa Valley’s most exclusive stays, isn’t a destination that clamors for attention. And its newly reimagined restaurant, Forum, continues in that same voice: intimate, elegant, and quietly ambitious.
With just a limited number of suites and rooms spread across the expansive grounds, Meadowood was always built for guests who value space—not just physical distance, but the psychological kind that comes with knowing your footsteps won’t echo someone else’s. There’s a serenity to it, a kind of cultivated slowness that feels radical in a world obsessed with immediacy. You don’t stumble into Meadowood. You arrive with intent.
The same could be said of Forum, the restaurant that has quietly taken root in the aftermath of devastation. In 2020, the Glass Fire tore through this pocket of Napa, reducing Meadowood’s former crown jewel – the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant at Meadowood – to embers. In its place, Forum isn’t attempting resurrection so much as reinvention. It doesn’t wear the weight of stars; it wears the humility of a house that knows what it means to lose everything and begin again.
At the helm is Alejandro “Ale” Ayala, a chef whose story is threaded into the fabric of the property. He arrived at Meadowood three decades ago as a dishwasher, and worked his way through nearly every position in the kitchen before assuming the role of executive chef. The Traditions menu, his newest offering, is not so much a statement as it is a memoir in dishes – considered, balanced, and personal.
Take the rock cod tacos, for instance. They arrive deceptively simple: crisped exterior, avocado’s richness, the subtle heat of Fresno chili. But the layering is precise, almost architectural. Elsewhere, Akaushi beef is paired with olive oil–potato purée and maitake mushrooms – luxurious, yes, but not showy. The restraint is the luxury.
Afternoons at Forum drift into what the staff calls Golden Hour, a nod not just to the light but to the feeling. Between three and five o’clock, guests gather for cocktails, small plates, and conversation. It’s casual, but not careless.
That’s the trick Meadowood manages to pull off, again and again: a balance between warmth and formality, tradition and evolution. Nothing is overexplained, and nothing is left unattended. The resort doesn’t need to be flashy to justify its price tag. It just needs to be what it is: a place where attention is paid – to flavor, to detail, to the curve of an arched doorway or the silence between courses.
The Forum restaurant, like Meadowood itself, has entered a new era – one that doesn’t hinge on accolades but on intention. In the end, people come here not for spectacle, but for stillness. And in that stillness, something rare happens: you remember what good hospitality really feels like.
