Auro
Seven courses at the Four Seasons in Calistoga, one Michelin star every year since 2023. You come in through Truss, the casual room next door, and eat beside a kitchen behind glass.
Why go
The inspectors describe a Californian menu with Mexican technique running through it: Australian wagyu with mole, sea bream crudo with mandarin-tamarind aguachile, and a tetela made with blue and yellow corn masa,
much of the produce cut from gardens on the property.1 Those notes belong to Rogelio Garcia's kitchen, and Garcia has gone. Evan Neumann runs the pass now, a chef who grew up in Provence, started in kitchens at fourteen, and worked the sauce station at Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée before going to Anne-Sophie Pic in Megève and then to Daniel Boulud in New York.2 The house counts eleven Michelin stars across the kitchens on his resume, one of them earned under him at Essential by Christophe.2 Derek Stevenson keeps 750 labels on the resort list and buys, in his words, for championing POC and women winemakers.
2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tetela. Blue and yellow masa, and the one dish on the inspector's list that tells you what the kitchen is actually doing with Mexico.1
- Order: the wine pairing. Stevenson runs a monthly Wednesday dinner series from May to October pouring Eisele, Quintessa and Hundred Acre.2
- Avoid: booking on Rogelio Garcia's reputation. His 2024 James Beard semifinal was his, he has left, and the menu you eat will be Neumann's.3
What locals & experts say
- MICHELIN Guide, California (One Star):
The cuisine offers a distinctly Californian perspective, highlighting local produce, including from on-site gardens. The cooking also displays a clear Mexican influence.
1 - The 2024 James Beard semifinal, pinned: the Napa Valley Register printed all seventeen Best Chef: California semifinalists that January, and Rogelio Garcia of Auro was the only Napa County name among them.3
Nobody has published a review of Neumann's cooking here, so I have no critic's line on the current menu to give you.
Good to know
- You enter through Truss, the resort's more casual room, before you reach the dining area.1
- The star history: first star in 2023, eight months after the October 2022 opening, and the house calls 2025 its third consecutive year. Current standing on the guide is one star.2
- Hygiene: not established. No inspection instrument for this county is on file here.
Verdict
should-visit — A star held three years running is the strongest standing in this batch, and the inspector's own notes say what earns it: mole on Australian wagyu, aguachile of mandarin and tamarind under sea bream, masa in two colors. The catch is that the cooking those notes describe was Rogelio Garcia's, Evan Neumann took the kitchen in 2026, and nobody has published a review of his food yet. Neumann brings a Robuchon, Ducasse and Anne-Sophie Pic record with a star earned under him in New York, which is a good bet rather than a tasted one. Book it for the room and the wine list, and expect the menu to move.