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February is Restaurant Month in Walla Walla (that link is for 2025; if it breaks, just search on wallawalla.org). We came for it last year as well. The deal at participating restaurants is a 3-course dinner for $42. All the restaurants - and we have tried most of them over the years - are quite good.
The special menues seems to be for full-sized portions, really an excellent value. To me, it doesn't leave much room for the included dessert. But I didn't let a little thing like that stop me, and just suffered my discomfort later.
If you want to go, check each restaurant's site for hours and whether or not you need a reservation. We were not able to get into Abeja but we did get the other reservations we wanted by booking a couple weeks in advance.
When we drive to Walla Walla, we like to stop in Lowden, the home of some of the first winemakers in Walla Walla Valley. This time we decided to try Waterbrook since they have a kitchen and we could also get lunch. We were greeted by Mary, who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about wines. She gave us the run-down on the tastings and the menu.
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| The bottle of Barbera we took home from Waterbrook. |
For lunch, we had a seasonal appetizer of mushroom-risotto balls lightly breaded and fried and a mushroom Philly sub with onion rings. The risotto was tender and flavorful, a small portion filling enough for a light lunch. For the sandwich, the bread was exactly what you want - fluffy inside, crusty outside, but bite-able without tugging and destroying the rest of the sandwich. I would aspire to make bread like that. The mushroom filling was delicious, and the cheese sauce was good but was poured over the top rather than inside the sandwich, so it was hard to get a mouthful that had all the flavors together at once without resorting to knife and fork.
Now, let me give these onion rings their own paragraph! I really like onion rings, but I only have them once every few years. Being in the home of the famous Walla Walla Sweet, I had to go for it. The menu listing for the sandwich included choice of side, and I was expecting something like 5 or 6 rings. No, there was a whole order of them, taking up 2/3 of my plate. And they were. so. good. Breaded, not battered, though battered is also fine in my book. Crunchy on the outside, with a little hint of some sweetness like honey. Mostly al dente inside so you could bite through the onion instead of pulling the long strand out to flop down your chin. They came with some sort of dipping sauce. I tried it, it was good, but I basically ignored it because these rings did not need anything more. So I ate 5 or 6 rings (ok, maybe a few more than that) and took the rest to go. Spoiler alert: even cold out of the fridge for the next 2 days, they retained some crunch and remained satisfying.
Wow, presumably we go to Walla Walla for wine, but I just wrote more about onion rings than ever about any wine, I think. Moving on...
At Waterbrook, the wine tasting featured 2 Waterbrook wines and 2 Canoe Ridge wines. I was saddened to learn that those two are owned by a conglomerate with 25 wine and liquor brands. Waterbrook is one of the oldest wineries in the area but it was bought by Precept Wine in 2006. Maybe that is better for them and is ok for the industry as a whole, what do I know? They are a Seattle company so at least relatively local in the grand scheme of things.
As far as the tasting goes, I can't say exactly what bottles we tried, but there were 4 reds. Nothing particularly stood out except for a 2021 Waterbrook Icon Barbera with a delightfully fresh and balanced taste. We took a bottle of this home.
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| The impressive wine library at Woodward Canyon. |
Next, on to one of our favorites, Woodward Canyon. This was our third visit to their tasting room and we always have liked everything they pour. We are discussing what club we can drop in order to join theirs, but fortunately we are able to get a couple of their cab sauvs in stores locally. On this visit, we got a tour of the library, a beautiful cellar housing and displaying their wines aging back 20 years or more. Club membership allows you an annual visit to the cellar and purchase of your selected bottle.
We needed to get into town in time to make a screening of Macbeth filmed onstage in London, at the Gesa Powerhouse Theater. Once the Walla Walla Gas Plant, today it is a performing arts venue with traveling and local theater, music, arts, and community events. Be sure to check their calendar when you visit, if you are looking for something to do unrelated to food and wine.
But first, dinner. We hadn't checked in to the hotel yet, but street parking was easy to find. We had chosen Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen for that night due to its proximity to the theater and our hotel. From their interesting cocktail menu, my huband had an old fashioned and I tried the "Southside of Rose" (the restaurant is on Rose St.). From the menu, this was "Empress Elderflower Rose gin, Gabriel Boudier lime leaf liqueur, minty syrup & lime" and it was delicious, if you like rose flavoring.
Saffron was participating in the restaurant month and had some terrific looking menus. But for our meal we ordered off the regular menu and shared a sausage flatbread (very good) and the Turkish hummus and sukuc sausage, and this was a great hit with us. It was served hot and was unlike any hummus I had ever had. I will certainly have to try to make this sometime. Or just go back and have it there again.
We finished up and headed over to the theater, only to find it deserted. On the door was an apologetic notice canceling the event due to issues with the heating system. Disappointed, we walked back to the car and drove the few blocks to the hotel to check in.
We have been to Walla Walla several times. We like to stay at the Finch, but they were booked on our previous trip so we tried the Marriott Courtyard. For this visit we elected to stay there again. The Finch is very fun, with a picnic area with outdoor games and a big fireplace for the evenings. But with February weather, we wanted to be in a hotel with a gym in case we couldn't do much outdoors.
At the Courtyard, the hotel is reasonably nice. The bed was comfortable and the room was clean. It was relatively quiet, even though our room was facing the street. There is a nice lounge area downstairs with indoor and outdoor gathering places. But the wine selections at the bar are IMO pretty terrible, and we recalled from our last stay there, the breakfast was also not very good and was way overpriced so we avoided that altogether.
Looking at a Walla Walla map, you might that the Courtyard is away from downtown. But really it is quite walkable to all the downtown shops, restaurants, and events. We go to Walla Walla for wine and food, so we need to incorporate as much walking as possible anyway. Though we learned from last summer that it might be helpful to have a sun umbrella -- in the heat and sun, we were strategically crossing the street back and forth based on where we could find shade.
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| Mill Creek, churning through town. |
In the morning we wandered down Main Street to a breakfast joint we have enjoyed in the past: Bacon and Eggs. They have a lot more than just that, though. We had a breakfast scramble and á la carte sausage and biscuit. The food is good, with hearty portions, and the service is always friendly. Visiting midweek, we were seated right away, but they can have a long wait times on summer weekends.
We had some time to kill before our first tasting appointment so we wandered to see what had changed since we were here last. The city has added some nice pedestrian plazas which I'm sure are packed in the summertime. We noted some new shops and restaurants but there remains plenty of vacant commercial space as well.
We followed part of the sculpture walk down Main Street between Crawford Park and Xeriscape Park, then cut over to the Whitman College campus. Mill Creek runs through town and it is fun to follow it and listen to the water at this time of year - in the summer the level drops and it has a slower and quieter presence in town.
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| Telling the story of Corkrum, Derby, and Elvin families through wines. |
We arrived at the Spring Valley Vineyards tasting room a little early but were able to get a table right away. We first tried this place on our previous visit and it will likely be a staple for us. It's fun - the wines are named for family members and the tasting is a walk through multiple generations of history of the wheat farm and vineyards. We sampled the rosé of Cab Franc, quite nice, and we will pick this up when the weather warms since we are out of storage space for rosés and whites.
The rest of the tasting featured reds, and we especially enjoy the Katherine 100% Cab Franc and the Frederick Cab Sauv blend. Spring Valley also offered special pricing on a wine and cheese pairing for Restaurant Month, but having just come from breakfast, we passed on it.
We had planned a walkable, downtown day, but there was an event schedule change so we had to shift our planned next visit to The Walls until tomorrow. Fortunately, Caprio Cellars was able to move our reservation to this day. Caprio is another winemaker who focuses on hospitality and the family story.
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| View of Blue Mountains from Caprio Cellars. |
Though you have to pull up to a gated entry (appointment only), you will be greeted at the door with some welcome bubbles. And often some friendly dogs. The tasting covers only 3 wines but each is presented with delicious pairing tastes from the kitchen. The food is so good, but unfortunately, zoning does not allow them to operate a restaurant.
I made better tasting notes here than anywhere else on this trip, as you will see. It's hard, since to me it impedes enjoyment of the experience. But in this case I wanted to try to reproduce some of the recipes.
The first taste, the Estate White Blend of Sauv Blanc and Semillon, to me, hit the mark on crispness, sweetness, spice, and mouthfeel and paired beautifully with the lamb ragu and tender pasta, where I thought I detected nutmeg, cumin, and cinnamon. Next, the Red Label Cab Sauv was presented with a cauliflower bisque topped with fried mushrooms and mint-infused oil. I am not sure how to recreate this, but I noted that I might try to come up with my own take using cashew butter to give it the same body and richness. Finally, the Eleanor Estate Red Blend. This bold red includes Cab Sauv, Cab Franc, Malbec, and Merlot and comes paired with Eleanor's own family recipe Italian meatballs.
We are members at Caprio so we picked up our club order. Caprio is now a standard for Walla Walla trips.
Dinner involved a standard for our visits as well: Hattaway's on Alder. I think this might have been our first trip to Walla Walla that we didn't go to Hattaway's twice! We did take advantage of the promotional menu. My selections were a celery parmesan salad with hazelnuts and smoked steelhead fettuccini, while my husband enjoyed the roasted duck spring rolls and chili braised pork with polenta. Dessert was a little pot of butterscotch pudding which reminded me of my dairy-farming grandmother's scratch-made one, only better. Honestly, what was most memorable to me was the salad - it was unusual and surprisingly good. But everything there is always top-notch!
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| A couple of the murals you can spot around town. | |
For breakfast, we hit up Bacon and Eggs again. This time we ordered the biscuit and gravy meal and the "breakfast sandwich" (literally called that). Again, very tasty and portions that required a box for leftovers.
So, why the repeat for breakfast? Well, one of our other favorites, the Walla Walla Bread Company closed. And in fact, Bacon and Eggs is soon moving to that location so they can add outdoor seating. There is another place that is highly recommended - the Maple Counter. We tried this a few years ago and other than the giant portions, we were not impressed. But people continue to rave about it so maybe we will give it another try next visit, and plan to share a plate! There are also some decent places a short drive from downtown, but we prefer to walk when the weather allows.
We took a ride back out of town toward Caprio to visit Deux Soldats, run by a husband and wife team who met serving in the Army. The wine tasting room is on the estate where all their grapes are grown. We were the only people there on this early season weekday so we had a friendly chat with hostess Renee. We sampled the rosé of sangiovese which was very nice, but again, I am not allowed to buy any more until the weather warms up, as we have no place to keep it. I liked that they offer Cab Franc and Petit Verdot varietals. Their wines were nice, all having a fresh and clean taste. Renee told us they do the free run wines, something we have been learning about. I believe this is where the fresh taste is coming from, but they could perhaps use a little more complexity in my opinion. You can visit and taste for yourself.
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| It's fun to check out some quirky buildings around town. | ||
Next we headed back into town for our appointment at The Walls. We have been there once or twice, but our recent travels to Spain and Portugal gave us a couple reasons to re-visit. First, they are known for offering Portuguese grapes like Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Cão and others featured in the Stanley Groovy. They also make bold Rhone blends and other wines, as well as their PÁŠXA line that gives a nod to the history of the Rocks District water, land, and people.
And second, as I was planning this trip, I saw an opportunity for a bi-lingual tasting, and I was excited to have a chance to keep working on my Spanish. I had expected a group tasting where people would struggle equally to speak Spanish, but instead we had a private tasting with Andrea, who mostly spoke to us in Spanish but also clarified when we couldn't understand. The bi-lingual tastings are motivated by a desire to make wine more approachable to the many Spanish-speaking farm and industry workers in the region. I was disappointed in my language ability, but certainly not by the wines!
This evering we finally got to try The Marc, in the historical Marcus Whitman hotel, which was closed for remodeling (I think) during our last visit. We arrived a little early and were seated right away. We made full use of the tasting menu: my husband had the soup while I had the salad, then I ordered the mushroom ragu with papardelle while he took the buttermilk-cured chicken and potato puree. I was a big fan of the pasta. I was so full that I tried to turn down the crème brulee, but was told the chef already started it. I should have asked if our server wanted to take it for herself, but no, you guessed it, I ate it all.
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| Forged iron items at the market (photo linked from the market's site). |
This was a quick trip, now it was time to head home. But we had a few stops to make along the way.
After checking out, we headed for the Persistent Local Market in the Showroom on Colville event space. I think this is the same, or a subset of the farmers' market that meets outdoors by the transit center and Crawford Park once the weather permits. In fact, one of the photos on their site is of some worked iron items. When we were here in the summer, the blacksmith was actually forging items at his booth and it was fun to watch and talk to him, and to come away with a cool bottle opener. He was at this indoor version, sans forge. There were also some gorgeous mushrooms that I certainly would have bought if my kitchen were nearby.
We set upon the path home, with a stop at Bartholomew Winery in Kennewick. We are members of this winery that presents many Italian varietals grown in Columbia Valley, Horse Heaven Hills, and Red Mountain. They have a new tasting room in Walla Walla, but we were stopping here to pick up a couple cases of their Cab Franc that I picked up on close-out. I had a mix-up of their opening time, so we took a walk along a path that follows the Columbia River. The trail follows the river on both sides and it's flat so it would be fun to come back with bikes and do the 20-mile loop. We only walked a mile or so down, and when we returned, the tasting room was open and there was another couple at the counter. We all chatted about the area, local skiing, and funny stories about ornery parents. We even learned that the fellow pouring the wine shares our alma mater.
Back on the road, with one more stop planned: Hightower Cellars in Red Mountain. This was also for a club pick-up, but we also always enjoy having a tasting and a charcuterie and cheese plate while we are there. We love their Cab Sauv and on this visit, we even snagged a bottle from their library. But we better drink it soon, because at home we are full to overflowing and even found a couple bottles we had kept too long. I suppose it's time for a wine tracker app for us! I don't have a wine drinking problem, but I may have a wine buying problem that I will have to curtail until we catch up to our inventory.
Where we find wines we like, we have had good luck asking where else we should visit. In Walla Walla, and really in all the smaller towns through the Yakima Valley and into Walla Walla Valley, the wine makers and growers seem to be very collaborative and supportive of each other. Some new-to-us recommendations for next time include:
Restaurant suggestions included Yama's Greek and Salted Mill. We also heard great things about Passatempo and they do Restaurant Month but we haven't made it in there yet.
We were also pointed to the Walla Walla Valley Wine Guide. You can pick these up in town, but I really like having this link to the online one. In addition to maps by area (downtown, southside, airport, etc.), it includes charts of varietals and the wineries that offer them.
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