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Fine dining
Yountville is the home of the French Laundry, a gourmet restaurant with a three star rating from the Michelin Guides, owned by chef Thomas Keller. Keller also owns another restaurant in Yountville, Ad Hoc. Michelin one star restaurants in Yountville for 2011 are Bouchon, Richard Reddington's Redd and and Étoile at Domaine Chandon. Two other Yountville restaurants have achieved Michelin's "Bib Gourmand" rating, Philippe Jeanty's Bistro Jeanty and Bottega.

The chef at Bottega is Michael Chiarello, who said: "For those of us that have to commute or run to the airport and back, it’s nice to come to a community that has almost everything you need within 300 yards."

"To stroll downtown Yountville today is to thumb through the pages of a Zagat guide." Gourmet dining in Yountville dates to 1977, when Philippe Jeanty opened the restaurant at Domaine Chandon, owned by French champagne house Moët & Chandon.

Sunset
four Yountville restaurants have collectively earned an unprecedented six stars in the 2008 Michelin guide. Given that Yountville has only 3,200 residents, it boasts more Michelin stars per capita than any place on Earth.

The odd thing is that for decades, Yountville was deemed déclassé by the rest of the Napa Valley. If it was famous for anything, it was for the big state Veterans Home on the hill above town, and for its 17 seedy bars.

By some accounts, the new Yountville was born June 6, 1977. "My own personal D-Day," says Philippe Jeanty of the morning he arrived from Epernay, France, to help open the restaurant at Domaine Chandon. The next year, Don and Sally Schmitt started the French Laundry, and in 1992, Keller bought it and launched it into the culinary stratosphere when he reopened it in 1994.

To stroll downtown Yountville today is to thumb through the pages of a Zagat guide. There's Richard Reddington's Redd and Philippe Jeanty's Bistro Jeanty, with one Michelin star apiece. Then come Keller's informal Ad Hoc, one-star Bouchon, and three-star French Laundry. You think that while other towns zone land "RH" for residential, Yountville must zone "PF" for prix fixe and "AB" for amuse-bouche.

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Michael Chiarello, who was then running Tra Vigne, seven miles north in St. Helena. In time, a number of hotels and inns opened up, as did tasting rooms for boutique wineries along Yountville’s main drag, Washington Street.

“For those of us that have to commute or run to the airport and back, it’s nice to come to a community that has almost everything you need within 300 yards,” added Chiarello, who’s now cooking at Bottega as well as running his own tasting room and retail operation in historic buildings that date back to 1870. (Bottega was named by Michelin inspectors as a Bib Gourmand restaurant, signifying great value.)

The three Yountville eateries on Michelin’s one-star list are Bouchon, Redd and Etoile at the Domaine Chandon winery, where in the late 1970s a 21-year-old cook named Philippe Jeanty landed from France.