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At the north end of Big Basin Way in Saratoga Village, the charm of Sent Sovi restaurant beckons through the windows. Stained-glass chandeliers hanging from high ceilings catch a subtle light. Walls lined with copper wainscoting are buffed to a reflective glow. Guests seemingly soothed by the surroundings and sufficiently delighted by the food are unconstrained enough to stay up to three hours to dine— and so they will this New Year's Eve, as they taste their way through eight courses.
"I suppose we're being overly indulgent, but it's New Year's Eve," smiles owner/chef Josiah Slone, referring to his menu for the occasion. Slone and partner Rolando Locci, who runs the front of the house, bought the restaurant in April from chef David Kinch, who subsequently opened his Manresa restaurant in Los Gatos.
Slone has designed the holiday menu to bring together tastes uncommon in their union. For instance, in the third course, scallops—right off a Massachusetts day boat—are paired with a foie gras (duck liver) "steak." In the fifth course, a palate cleanser of lavender, fresh from a small local farm, is combined with blood oranges in a frothy sherbet, or spuma. A meringue mixed into the spuma creates its distinctive airy texture.
"The structure and format of this menu is similar to our regular menu, but with an extra level of luxury," Slone explains. Normally, his tasting menu, which changes daily, has five courses for $50. But on New Year's Eve, the extra courses bring the total to $85 with tip (not tax). Wine may be included as an extra.
To start the evening—and there are three staggered seatings for 35 guests each at 5 p.m., 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.—quail eggs stuffed with caviar will be served, followed by lobster bisque with local Dungeness crab (it's the start of the crab season here). After the scallops come wild mushrooms with Hobb's applewood smoked bacon. Slone oven roasts the one-inch thick bacon so that it caramelizes and maintains a flexible texture.
One of the two holiday entrees is a breast of a duck glazed with tamarind and served with haricot verts (green string beans) stir-fried with dried shrimp. "It's just insane, it's so good," says Slone, attributing the duck's flavor to the coddling it gets on Liberty Farms in Sonoma Valley. The other entree is an herb-roasted lamb chop with tomato fondue and butter-poached Yukon gold potatoes. Dessert is a chocolate espresso mousse and crème brûlée.
Josiah Slone, 26, has known since he was in grade school and was called "Joe" that he was meant to be a chef. Too small to reach the sink as a child, he would stand on a chair to cook. He learned on his own, since his mother didn't like cooking. At 10, he asked her for Julia Child's The Way To Cook. Already he had absorbed Child's Joy of Cooking and, instead of cartoons, he was entranced by PBS cooking classes. He became the cook in the household. When it came time for college, pressure was on him to choose something math related since that was where his highest test scores were concentrated. At UCLA, he studied electrical engineering.
But cooking called him back. And he seems to have found his place in Saratoga. "Here, we're thought of as a neighborhood restaurant," Slone muses. "We provide a great experience and a lot of little extras for the money—and people do care about money these days."
Sent Sovi is located at 14590 Big Basin Way in Saratoga. Call 408.867.3110 or visit http://www.sentsovi.com.
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Photograph by George Sakkestad