Monday, April 1, 7:00 P.M.
Guests $95, members $120

Stunning scenery, sybartic spas, perfect produce, inventive cuisine, and some of the best wines in the world. If we're in America, then it must be Northern California. And here to represent that bountiful, beautiful region at the Beard House this month—Nestor Ramirez of The Groveland Hotel's Victorian Room Restaurant. Rated one of the top ten inns in the country by Country Inns magazine, the 1849 Grove-land Hotel boasts a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence and Ramirez's matchless cuisine. This month, Ramirez—accom-panied by wines from Napa Valley's perennial award winner Caymus Vineyards—will bring a bit of California dreamin' to our West Village home.

Modest to a fault, Ramirez resists labels for his cuisine, but Elizabeth Kennedy of The San Francisco Chronicle wasn't so shy: "The cuisine," she wrote, "is exquisite." Ramirez crafts an unpretentious menu of American classics, brightening each dish with an individual twist. Pork loin is brined in honey and chile, roasted, and paired with a lively peach and red onion salsa; a wild mushroom and vegetable ragù is served over ethereal gnocchi. Each one of his creations features produce hand-picked by the chef from local farms and complemented by herbs from the hotel's garden.

Ramirez grew up on the Monterey Peninsula, and left a career as a manager with a produce supply firm to pursue his real love—cooking. He earned a degree from Columbia College's School of Culinary Arts, in Columbia, California, interned at Columbia's City Hotel, then took a job as sous-chef at Groveland. Once home to gold miners and ladies of the night, "these days," according to the local paper, it's "Ramirez's cooking [that] is helping to put Groveland back on the map."

The wines of Caymus Vineyards—"where Cabernet Sauvignon has always been king" (Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate)—loom large on anybody's map of fine California wines. The vineyard is a two-time winner of Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year for its Special Selection Cabernet (in 1989 and 1994), and the late founder, Charlie Wagner, once appeared on a Wine Spectator cover that proclaimed Caymus Cabernet "The Best Damn Cabernet in California." Under Wagner's direction, Caymus also became synonymous with finely crafted Zinfandels and Sauvignon Blancs.

Together, these two West Coast treasures prove that there's still gold to be found in the California hills.