The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

Address:	2555 Main St, St Helena, CA 94574, USA
Phone:	+1 707-967-1100
Site:	ciachef.edu
Rating:	4.1
Working:	10:30AM–6PM 10:30AM–6PM 10:30AM–6PM 10:30AM–6PM 10:30AM–6PM 10:30AM–6PM 10:30AM–6PM

Location

Photos 100

Reviews 10

Linda C

Extremely disappointed. After hearing and reading about the CIA we were very excited to be going to the Greystone for dinner Thursday, September 25, 2014. For a restaurant with the notoriety that it has, the service was pathetic. We waited and waited, waitress after waitress just kept on walking by. Finally a waitress shows up to take our drink order. Not even water was delivered. When we asked her about the menu she couldnt even tell us what the food was or how it was prepared. When she walked away my husband and I said to each other...she doesnt even know whats on the menu. After we placed our order, she walked away and left us holding the menus. Class Act—NOT! For the price of a bottle of wine....no one even bothered to pour our glasses. My chicken was dry and the vegis were prepared with a liquid smoke flavor, but to the point they were not edible. To many other places to go in the Napa region, so go to one of them and pass the CIA up.

A Private User

Was in Napa on a Trip with the Wife. She wanted to see the Culinary Institute of America.. They have a reputation of Having their Noses pointed ever Northward to Olympian Heights, and they did not dissapoint. In addition to a rather ostentatious setting, they had cookbooks on subjects so selective that only one person in 10 thousand would consider purchasing them...The Campus store was full of over priced items that one could buy at Target. Even their own Signature Cookbook was a full twenty dollars more than online at AMAZON...(yes I purchased it online using my smart phone and it will be waiting for us when we get back).. I give it the three stars because it was clean inside, they didnt give you dirty looks if you werent wearing brooks brothers shirts, and there was this gal making chocolates and placing them in the display case with such care that it showed a pride of place. You dont pay to enter so I will not rate service or Value.

Rick Bakas

This review is for the wine education at CIAs Rudd Center. I recently took a few wine intensives there and keep thinking about how valuable they were. These 3-day classes focus on specific regions like Bordeaux, Burgundy or Italy and theyre taught by Master Sommeliers (there are only 187 of these wine experts in the world). The content and instructors are literally the best on the planet. But the bonus is all the wines you get to taste in each of the classes and the delicious lunches prepared by CIA students. In the Burgundy class for example we got to taste about 40 wines from the low end all the way up to 10-year old Grand Crus. The wine alone was worth the price of admission. Although its a bit of a journey to get there its well worth it. You wont find any place with better instruction or better content anywhere. Im already looking at the next round of classes. See my posts and checkins at this location for more. #ReviewsDay

Jacob Monahan

I will not go into to much detail about the overall school but what i can say is that it is excellent. The bakery inside is amazing, they always have fresh things, there is a great amount of space in the main hall to walk around in. They have lots of display cases and photos telling about the history inside. You can also access most parts of the school, as long as you get a visitors pass. The restaurant (Wine Spectator) on the northwestern end of the school has amazing service. The waiters are training students but you can hardly tell (there good at what they do). The food is exceptional and the decor is absolutely beautiful. The only complaint i have about the restaurant is how long the food takes, mine took about 20 minutes, but it was amazing all the same. The overall look of the exterior of the school resembles an old stone vineyard manor. It has lots of history including how it was made and why.

Rebecca Luce-Kapler

We signed up for one of their Saturday cooking courses. The description made us think that we would be learning some new cooking skills while making Italian cuisine. Instead we were given almost no instruction except for the direction that we had to choose a group and follow the recipes given to that group. The mise en place was disorganized and we had to find some of our ingredients ourselves. There was almost no oversight and instruction, so the results for most dishes were less than spectacular. The promised critique was never given, no feedback provided and no skills taught. We walked away after spending $250 each with a wooden spoon, a chefs apron and no new learning.

A Private User

IN other words a horrid place to eat and terrible value for your money...unless you are on a corp card and want to brag to friends you ate there. Dont even know where to start. Do yourself a favor and not take kids there. Temptations sample a joke. Salad a nightmare with overdose of rock-salt poisoning your taste-buds for the rest of your meal. Portions laughable. Priced ridiculous. As you can tell I am not ver impressed this time (10 years ago was reasonable with real students of the institute cooking, now just another restaurant with regular employees, only more pretentious). I would never ever go near it again! Just a joke of a place.

Matt Bergman

Worst experience ever! First of all coming out with a party of 16 and book reservations at this so called desirable location. After not receiving any update or email from the restaurant decided to call back in to make sure we were good to go. I was just informed that they do not take reservations for a party of 12 or more - funny as I booked them two weeks ago and the individual on the line didnt inform me of this. We knew rules in Napa were crazy at restaurants, hence why we tried to book reservations across the board. Thanks to CIA for starting my wifes 40th birthday celebration on a crappy note.

Kenard Puchalski

This review is for the cooking school. I took a week long boot camp cooking course. I enjoyed the experience very much. Although I consider myself an experienced home cook the course was very informative and a treat to be able to work in a professional kitchen and hone my skills. It was cool to be in the same kitchen with all the professional student and see what they were working on. They have a wide variety of course for the home cook. It was also enjoyable to be able to wake up every day to the beautiful smell of grapes as it was during harvest season.

Samantha Berg

Review is just for the Illy bakery/deli at the CIA. Pretty limited menu, 2-3 sandwich options, a salad option or two, and thats about it. The food took quite awhile to be made/arrive, especially given most of it was cold ingredients, and the snotty service left something to be desired. Our plates all arrived with chips, despite having asked for salad with most of them, and the staff didnt seem pleased to make the exchange. The food itself was good, but given the prices and the service, Ill eat elsewhere next time.

M Sophia

We had a large party & decided to eat at this restaurant with high expectations. We were all very disappointed, not only is the food subpar to bland but is also EXTREMELY over priced. Our bill was over $1,300.00 for 7 people. The food wasnt very flavorful, except the one oyster stuffed ravioli they served that tastes of seawater mush. The reason I gave 3 stars instead of 1 is the service was excellent, but that doesnt make up for the large bill and very small servings of bland food.