Best Restaurants for Wine Lovers in Menlo Park
How this list is chosen: Restaurants holding a Wine Spectator Restaurant Award or rated as having an exceptional wine program, listed alphabetically.
Cafe Vivant
Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence · Exceptional wine program
Cafe Vivant in Menlo Park redefines Contemporary French with a heritage-poultry focus and a 3,000-bottle wine cellar. Must-try dishes include Heritage Chicken for 2, Pharaoh Quail, and Celeriac Rollatini. Founded by sommeliers Daniel Jung and Jason Jacobeit with chef Jared Wentworth, the restaurant pairs slow-grown American breeds and seasonal Santa Cruz Mountains produce with precise French technique. Critics call it “a restaurant unlike any other in the Bay Area” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “a wine lover's dream” (Forbes). Expect slow-roasted jus, crisp skin, and mushroom-scented reductions in a warm, intimate dining room that rewards reservations via OpenTable.
Eylan
Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence
Eylan brings a formally ambitious take on Indian cooking to Menlo Park's El Camino Real corridor, earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2025 and a place on the San Francisco Chronicle's Best New Bay Area Restaurants list the same year. Chef-owner Srijith Gopinathan leads the kitchen, with Wine Director Andre Sydnor overseeing a 2,000-bottle cellar weighted toward France and California. Dinner runs at $66 or above for a typical two-course meal.
Left Bank
Wine Spectator Award of Excellence
Left Bank on Santa Cruz Avenue sits at the centre of Menlo Park's dining scene, bringing a French brasserie sensibility to the Peninsula's table. The format leans on the kind of market-driven sourcing that California's proximity to agricultural abundance makes possible. It reads as the neighbourhood's answer to an all-day European anchor, reliable without being predictable.
Madera
Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence · Exceptional wine program
Madera at Rosewood Sand Hill sits at the upper tier of the Peninsula's fine dining circuit, holding a Michelin Plate and ranking #522 among Opinionated About Dining's top North American restaurants in 2025. The wood-fire kitchen drives a seasonal California menu across breakfast, lunch, and dinner, while a 2,000-label wine program overseen by a dedicated sommelier team places it among the more serious wine destinations in the South Bay.
Oak + Violet
Wine Spectator Award of Excellence
Oak + Violet occupies a prominent address on El Camino Real in Menlo Park, positioning itself within a Peninsula dining corridor that runs from casual neighborhood staples to ambitious tasting-menu formats. The name suggests a certain restraint in design sensibility, pairing organic warmth with precision. For the full picture of what the kitchen is doing and how it fits the local scene, the details below are the place to start.
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