Napa Rose at the Grand Californian Hotel was closed for much of 2025 but returns this Friday
Wild Japanese seaweed? Mushroom cappuccino? Rack of lamb? At Disneyland? If anyone can reinvent the theme park dining experience, it’s the Happiest Place on Earth. A new version of Napa Rose restaurant at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel debuts Friday and it is magnificent. Los Angeles was invited to preview the lavish dining experience, and we were floored. The restaurant was closed for nine months for a top-to-bottom reimagining but was magically able to retain 100% of the original staff, who collectively bring centuries of fine dining customer service to the room.
Napa Rose 2.0 will open with a chef’s counter, new exhibition kitchen, expanded lounge area for walk-ins, elegant outdoor seating and a completely rebuilt dining room. The dramatic new interior is finished in velvet, leather, cork, bronze and dark wood and filled with custom artwork that references Northern California wine country. “They’re walking with their shoulders back a little bit more and their chins up higher,” General Manager Jess Soman remarked at the event. “I have no doubt we’re going to get that fifth Forbes star. It has always been my goal to bring a Michelin star here.”
When Napa Rose opened with the hotel a quarter century ago, their massive wine collection was locked away in a cellar. Today, it is visible in climate-controlled glass cases that run all the way up to the custom plaster murals of wine grapes growing on the vines.
Most servers are certified wine sommeliers who can guide you through the hundreds of choices from international and California vintners. The choreography of servers gliding through the dining room is a show in itself. They swarm any dropped napkin or empty plate like ninjas, making problems disappear before you even notice. Ours let us in on the secret of how condensation from your water glass is discreetly wiped away as servers coast past your table.
More than two dozen kitchen staff come together to craft the architectural gastronomy of culinary director Andrew Sutton in a grand dance visible throughout the whole dining room. They rise and fall with the courses – and the prix fixe menu had at least six if you don’t count the passed canapes or the “parting nibble,” a sort of post-dessert dessert of house-made candies.
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Chef Sutton was able to accommodate the vegetarian at our table with a completely separate and even more avant-garde menu and noted that he was prepared for any allergy or preference, and even hinted at a secret and completely different vegan menu. The entire dinner experience is meant to last a lingering two to three hours, and the room can accommodate just over 100 guests, plus another 35 seats in the lounge available for walk-ups. Prices are about 15% higher than last year at $188, with a standard menu available in the lounge.
A docent-led tour of the art and architecture might take just as long as the dinner. The collection includes everything from hand-carved bronze grape leaves depicting the top ten varietals of the Napa Valley to a car-length assemblage of gloves, spigots, corks, and artifacts from the wineries to a surprisingly colorful wall of the terroir itself, colored earth collected from different regions of Northern California.
“We at Imagineering have always been at the forefront of storytelling, it’s what we do best,” creative director Katrina Mosher said at the event. “There’s lots of love and lots of details going into the space. Here and at the Grand Californian we celebrate California heritage and history and our Disney legacy as well as a sense of place from the Napa Valley.”
Mosher said that the showcase chandelier in the main dining room, inspired by California’s first vineyards at the missions, brought tears to her eyes the first time it was turned on. “We focused on the nature, people and history,” Mosher said. “Which is really our trifecta that inspired design choices throughout the restaurant.”
Napa Rose has been compared to the private clubs 1901 and Club 33 as the finest fine dining option available at the entire resort, but those are closed to non-members. Reservations at Carthay Circle Lounge and Blue Bayou, the only other fine dining options, fill up far in advance. It’s hard to imagine what the crowds of yesteryear would think of such a grand and elegant escape set against the Monorail track.
As the park has evolved, there are more luxury experiences available than ever before (Haunted Mansion weddings and an evening at 21 Royal, above Pirates of the Caribbean, will set you back five figures) not to mention newer ways to buy your way to the front of the line.
A magnum of Screaming Eagle at Napa Rose can cost $25K, and the restaurant is tucked into a corner of the park’s most luxurious lodging where the priciest rooms command up to $10,000 a night. The Grand Californian would be a destination in itself even if Disney California Adventure wasn’t next door. There is definitely an eager audience for the best of the best in our new Gilded Age – we understand reservations for the next few weeks were snapped up immediately.
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