What Wine Country taught me about dinner

Late October is one of my favorite times to cook.

A lot of the grape harvest is winding down, but there is still so much to work with. Grapes, apples, mushrooms, squash. I walk the farmers market and look at what is good before I start thinking about what I want to make.

That is how I cook at home, too. It is not something I save for a restaurant.

I learned to think that way in a lot of kitchens over the years. Hawaii, Italy, Roy's, and the places that came after. But there was one kitchen that brought so much of it together for me.

Napa Rose.

Around the summer of 2000, I was the executive sous chef at Roy's in Newport Beach. My brother Dave was working the pizza station when a guest came in alone and sat at the chef's counter.

Dave came over and told me the guest was talking about food and wanted to say hello.

It was Chef Andrew Sutton.

We started talking across the counter. I invited him into the kitchen and gave him a tour. He told me about a restaurant he was building at Disney, inside the new Grand Californian Hotel. It would be called Napa Rose.

He invited me to come down for a cooking interview, and I ended up joining the opening team as a sous chef.

I did not know it that night, but that conversation would become one of the turning points of my career.

Chef Andrew Sutton and me at the James Beard House.

Andy had come from Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley, and the idea behind Napa Rose was Wine Country cuisine.

For me, that never meant cooking everything with wine. It meant starting with the season, respecting the ingredient, and understanding what belongs with it.

We had the freedom to cook. The menus changed with the seasons. We worked on tasting menus, talked about ingredients and technique, and built dishes around what was at its best.

And wine was part of the conversation from the beginning.

I remember sitting with our sommelier team, led by Master Sommelier Michael Jordan, and tasting several different wines with one dish. Sometimes we would try five before we found the one that made everything come together.

A bite of food. A sip of wine. Then back to the food.

You start to understand what acidity can do, how richness changes the way something tastes, and why balance matters so much.

You do not need to drink wine to understand any of that. The dish should be good on its own. Wine, when you choose to have it, is another way to enjoy those flavors.

Andrew taught me a lot about being a chef, not just being a cook.

We had talented people in that kitchen and a lot of creative freedom, but that freedom came with responsibility. We had to train our teams, communicate clearly, write menus, keep our standards, and make the food right every day, even as the dishes changed.

Those lessons stayed with me.

So did the friendship.

We cooked together at the James Beard House during our Napa Rose years. Later, we went back for a collaboration dinner. Andy was representing Napa Rose, and I was representing The RANCH, with my brother Dave cooking alongside us.

I had once been one of Andy's sous chefs. Now I was standing beside him as the executive chef of another restaurant.

That meant a lot to me.

We used to sit together and talk about dishes we wanted to make, the ingredients we could use, the techniques that might work, and the wine we would put beside them. I still enjoy that part of cooking as much as I ever did.

But SEASON is not just Napa Rose. It is everything I have learned from the chefs and cooks I have been lucky enough to work with, and all the places food has taken me.

That brings me to the Balsamic Chicken & Grapes on this week's board.

I would have cooked a dish like this at Napa Rose. I would cook it at The RANCH, at The Beach Club, or at home for my family.

It is chicken, shallots, grapes and balsamic. Nothing especially complicated.

Balsamic Chicken & Grapes

But think about what each ingredient is doing.

The chicken and shallots bring the savory side. The grapes bring sweetness. The balsamic gives you acidity along with a little more sweetness. When those things are in balance, the dish tastes complete.

That is the part I want you to pay attention to.

Taste it. Does it need a little salt? Does it need a little more brightness? Are the grapes giving you enough sweetness against the savory chicken?

Those are small decisions, but they are what make a simple dish really good.

And if you enjoy wine, this is the kind of dinner that could work with a beautiful white or red. If you do not, you are not missing the point. The food should still have that balance on its own.

This week's dinners travel through ten wine regions, from Napa and Sonoma to Piedmont, Rioja, Oregon and beyond.

There is Wild Mushroom Tagliatelle with chanterelles on the Plant-Based side, a dish that lets a beautiful seasonal ingredient do a lot of the work. There is French Onion Soup, where time and proper cooking turn onions into something rich and deeply flavored. And there is Spanish Garlic Shrimp, a reminder that a few ingredients, handled properly, can make a wonderful dinner.

French Onion Soup · Plant-Based, with vegan Gruyère

Spanish Garlic Shrimp

The wines are there if you enjoy them. They are never a requirement.

What connects the whole week is the same thing I look for when I walk the market: what is good right now, how should I cook it, and what will make it taste its best?

That is a way of thinking you can take into any kitchen.

You do not need to have cooked at Napa Rose. You do not need a wine cellar or a complicated recipe.

At 5:30 on a Tuesday, you need a little organization, a good understanding of what you are making, and the confidence to taste and adjust as you go.

That is what I want SEASON to help you do.

Before I go, hit reply and tell me: what is one ingredient you look forward to cooking every fall? I really do read the replies.

Michael

Chef Michael Rossi

Have a question or just want to say hello? Write me anytime at [email protected].

P.S. If this made your week a little easier, forward it to one person who's staring down the same 5:30 question. That's the whole way SEASON grows, one cook telling another. Send them here: tonightsseason.com/dinner