Napa Rose is Disneyland’s top fine-dining destination. But does its magic need a refresh?

You’re considering a special-occasion meal while visiting Disneyland, and you’ve never been to Napa Rose in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel. You learn, with not much surprise, that dinner slots at this pinnacle of the Disneyland Resort’s fine-dining options often book up two months in advance. Should you set calendar alerts and strategize a reservation?

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Let me throw out a few questions first:

Are you, or will you be in the company of, a Disney completist? Are you up for a splurge meal where a four-course dinner costs $125 per person or an a la carte filet mignon rings in at $62? Have you scanned a recent menu and found that the broadly Cal-Ital theme of the cooking appeals? Are you keen to indulge in a deep list of California reds with bottle prices that quickly escalate into the three digits? Is unusually attentive and polished service a priority when you’re dining in this kind of setting?

If you’re already checking for availability, allow me to ripple the waters: I find Napa Rose to be a gracious experience, though as a 22-year-old hotel restaurant it also falls back on some pointedly outmoded notions of upscale dining.

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Walking past the Grand Californian’s sliding stained-glass doors and being enveloped by the building’s spiring lodge design inspired by the American Arts and Crafts movement feels fantastically Disney — an enterprise that comes as close as any entity on earth to creating parallel universes in which our realities and their illusions can become all but indistinguishable. Part of me eases into its flagship restaurant’s face-value pleasures, yet another part keeps my eyes on the exit sign, chewing over the context in which the restaurant exists in the larger world.

Open the Grand Californian’s sliding stained-glass doors to its lodge design, inspired by the American Arts and Crafts movement, through the lens of Disney fantasy.

(Doris Cain / Disneyland Resort)

Napa Rose opened more than 20 years ago, with ambitions to be a destination for seasonal California cooking, billed as “Wine Country cuisine.”

(Doris Cain / Disneyland Resort)

When Napa Rose opened in January 2001, it had been designed with the ambition to distinguish itself beyond the resort’s framework — to be a turn-of-the-millennium destination in step with the seasonal notions of California cooking, specifically billed as “Wine Country cuisine” as a way to frame the restaurant’s impressive cellar overseen in its first years by industry veteran and master sommelier Michael Jordan. He procured costly cult rarities from Napa wineries like Harlan and Screaming Eagle among his selection of nearly 1,000 bottles (heavy, of course, on Golden State producers) and also focused on in-house education, preparing cooks and dining room staff to pass the Level 1 exam from the Court of Master Sommeliers.

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To lead the kitchen, Disney execs recruited Andrew Sutton, a chef they hired away from Auberge du Soleil in Napa and whose résumé included the vaunted Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.

Sutton filled his menu with the California ingredient signifiers of the day: grilled meats, pizza with smoked salmon a la Wolfgang Puck, spinach salads, pasta and risotto, Laura Chenel goat cheese, desserts bright with citrus in the winter and sun-drenched with stone fruits in the summer. He designed dishes with evident pairings in mind: vanilla-scented lobster sauce with scallops to complement Chardonnay; meaty entrees with potent herbs and rich reductions that could stand shoulder to shoulder with big, smoky reds.

The wine list at Napa Rose showcases California bottles, including Napa Cabernets that quickly ascend into the hundreds and thousands of dollars.

(Disneyland Resort; Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

More than two decades later, Sutton has risen to culinary director. In addition to Napa Rose, he oversees Carthay Circle in Disney California Adventure Park, as well as private spaces for the ultra-privileged — among them 21 Royal, the hideaway in New Orleans Square for which up to 12 people pay $15,000 an evening for a coursed dinner with lots of Disney bonuses, and members-only Club 33, with its famous years-long waiting list for aspirants.

Sutton and Napa Rose’s executive chef, Clint Chin (who has previously been chef de cuisine for both 21 Royal and Club 33), keep gentle pace with evolving tastes. Produce grown across California comes and goes in step with the calendar. A dinner in March captured the teetering winter-to-spring moment: tangerine slivers scattered over tuna crudo, asparagus spears sheathed in tempura batter and lightened with Meyer lemon vinaigrette, English peas dotting roast chicken and butternut squash accenting grilled filet mignon. Executive pastry chef Jorge Sotelo assembled a collage of Harry’s Berries strawberries, anchored by an almond cake stained with candy-red juices.

The asparagus starter might not have needed the extravagant sauce labeled as “asparagus panna cotta.”

(David Nguyen / Disneyland Resort)

Among the meal’s standouts was a mainstay that looks beyond the menu’s Italian-leaning baseline — a riff on the northeastern Thai grilled beef dish suea rong hai, a.k.a. “crying tiger.” Of course, in classic Disney fashion, Napa Rose turns the frown upside down and christens its version “smiling tiger,” shrouding the beef strips marinated with chiles, fish sauce and lime juice under salad greens and pairing them with appealingly bouncy lemongrass shrimp fritters.

Cooks decorate the smiling tiger plate with splatters of coconut milk vinaigrette in a pattern not unlike the brocades of fireworks one might glimpse bursting over Sleeping Beauty Castle. Much of the plating recalls a faded 1990s era of busy, architectural aesthetics: ingredients stacked and bunched for maximum height; sauces and purees swooped, dotted and artfully pooled; leaves and stems perched atop just so.

Within a strict Disney prism, the bygone theatricality makes a timeless sort of logic: Whether it’s Mickey-shaped waffles or a turkey leg that could double as a club or a pyrotechnic display forged from salad dressing, some sort of wow factor comes with the territory. There’s a good reason, though, that the more-is-more style receded in fine dining: Extravagant saucing and garnishing tends to muddle flavors and textures. The asparagus starter didn’t need a thickened ribbon of cream mis-advertised as “asparagus panna cotta.” On one entrée, an unexpected heap of vegetables with stray lentils and a spoonful of diced poached rhubarb obscured the direct pleasure of blushing, beautifully seared duck breast.

A riff on “crying tiger,” the northeastern Thai grilled beef dish suea rong hai, turns the frown upside down: The Napa Rose version is called “smiling tiger” — salad greens that top marinated beef, paired with lemongrass shrimp fritters.

(David Nguyen / Disneyland Resort)

Jordan left Napa Rose in 2009, but the program he established continues to impress in its commitment to showcasing California winemaking. By-the-glass options include a few pricier favorites like Silver Oak poured from refrigerated dispensers that preserve their freshness. Bottles of Napa Cabernets quickly ascend into the hundreds and thousands. A 2012 Gandona Winery Encosta — a selection on the relative low pricing end for $190 — delivered the kind of structured, earthy-jammy joy on which the region built its reputation. It hit the same receptors as eating a righteous cheeseburger, and I mean that as a compliment.

The front-of-house staff maintains the practice of doubling as sommeliers. They’re well-versed in describing the flight of $60 wine pairings that can accompany the tasting menu; recently most of the glasses veered away from California to France, Italy, Chile or Australia. Since this is a more affordable way for diners to be exposed to new-to-them wines, and California winemaking has so much breadth these days, the choices could lean closer to home.

Our server that night was wonderful: informed, kind, just chatty enough. She also had plenty of tables to take care of. I really wanted to talk shop about wine, this element that defines the restaurant; she was patient, but I wish there had been someone in place like Jordan to come over and pick up the conversation, perhaps to steer me toward some California winemakers pushing new boundaries or styles, or even an unfairly maligned merlot that didn’t cost a month’s car payment.

For the Disney Princess Breakfast Adventure at Napa Rose, Jasmine from the Disney animated film “Aladdin” stops by the table.

(Joshua Sudock / Disneyland Resort)

I linger on the subject of wine when mulling over the restaurant’s reach beyond the realms of Disney. For someone wanting a top-of-the-line night out in Orange County, I’d direct them first to Taco María or Knife Pleat, both in Costa Mesa. An alcove in the corner of Napa Rose’s immense dining room exhibits awards for its wine program over the years; it’s probably time to reinvest in the tenor of wine service if the accolades are to remain relevant.

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But also, Napa Rose’s one-foot-in-the-past vibes have me wondering about what’s next. I saw the future in the kids scattered through the dining room in March, some of them wearing princess dresses. I remember my own young Disney dining moments, the tablecloths and the ornately arranged ingredients during the rare vacation splurges to which my parents treated me and my brother. I retain the feeling — the thrill of the ceremony — more than memories of the food.

That was 40 years ago when Americans had different relationships to dining out, before food moved to the center of popular culture. I ask myself what I hope these kids lucky enough to be eating at Napa Rose might remember. Certainly not some vague theme of “Wine Country cooking.” What does that even mean? Tacos are as meaningful as tasting menus in the culinary landscapes of Napa and Sonoma. I’d want the flavors on their plates to tell them a story of California’s cultural pluralities; I’d wish them an “aha” trace of cumin or cardamom or sansho that might make them curious about tastes they don’t know, about the thrill of trying new things.

I left Napa Rose thinking about the sense of possibility inherent in Disney narratives. The restaurant’s 25th anniversary will arrive in a few years, and Disney loves an occasion to celebrate — and also a savvy reinvention. The time is right for the resort’s marquee dining destination to spin a fresher, broader and, yes, truer narrative of the moment in California dining, probably spelled out in a few less saucy squiggles.

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