Hurley's Restaurant and Bar Review

Hours: 11:30 am to 9-10 pm. Late night dining menu from 9 pm to midnight

 (Warning: These pictures absolutely are The Suck. Guess we'll have to go back for better ones. I wonder if my bad picture taking isn't some subconscious excuse to keep on going back)

Hurley's Restaurant and Bar Food

Appetizers

The calamari mixes things up more than other calamari dishes in the area by having fennel, shrimp, onions, and cauliflower (actually, Bistro Don Giovanni does something similar) with a caper remoulade. We've also had their oakwood grilled mussels which we thought were delicious but oyster purists who want the natural taste of the oysters might not agree. It sits in a tasty red wine sauce with chorizo, leeks, garlic, and tomatoes. If you don't like the smoky flavor of a wood grill permeating through your oysters, then you should probably skip it.

We've also had the roasted, stuffed squash blossoms fritters which I liked a lot more than my wife who has some scarring memories of eating too many squash blossoms in her childhood.

Entrees

Interestingly, Hurley's is probably home to probably our favorite steak dish in the area. It's an aged ribeye in a red wine reduction sauce, a potato puree, and some vegetables. Steak purists just want some salt pepper and let the meat do the talking. But their ribeye (pictured below) is one of the tastiest and most satisfying dishes in the area. It comes with three types of mashed potatoes. A yummy garlic one, the red one might be beet, and I'm not sure what the green one is.

I've had a sole special which was lightly floured, fried, and placed in a potato puree with chanterelle mushrooms which was also quite good. Their grilled scallops with gnocchi is also delicious. Supposedly, Hurley's claim to fame is wild game. I've heard people rave about their braised wild boar, and I finally got a chance to try it, and the dish is very hearty. If you've never had boar before, check it out. The top off the boar had thin onion strings and some strands of boar that were almost jerky like with the actual braised boar underneath. Between the rich jus, the polenta, and the braised boar, this dish was terrific.

Hurley's desserts are overall fine, but they can't keep up with Hurley's entrees. Here's a shot of strawberry shortcake we had. Strawberries were just starting to come into season at the time. The shortcake was still nice and buttery, and the strawberries were a nice welcome that spring is here. Nice light dessert to finish off a heavy meal.

Hurley's Restaurant and Bar Setting and Service:

Big windows, lots of deep earth tone wood (floor, chairs, tables), but still bright overall. They have a decent outside seating area, but the primary view is looking at the front of the cars that are in the parking lot. :-P So, the ambience is nicer if you're in the restaurant unless you want to enjoy the weather. One of the annoying things about their parking lot is that some cars also directly face those big windows. One night, we had one of those raised monster truck/SUVs fire up the massive lights and fry the corneas off of the first set of tables.

We've never had problems with the wait staff, but sometimes the pre-seating process can be spotty. We've always had to wait at least 10-15 min, even when we had a reservation. The place is usually pretty full, but their reservation system could use some better tweaking (then again, perhaps being that full consistently does say something about the quality of the food.) Sometimes, the hostess of the month is MIA. So maybe it's the luck of the draw.

Price of our meal

Appetizer, 2 glasses of wine, 2 entrees, dessert with tax/tip: $120.

Hurley's is actually one of the better bang for the buck restaurants that you can go to in Napa Valley. Terrific meal, and you'd pay a bit less here than you would at comparable restaurants (if you can call $120 for a dinner a good deal...)

Other Hurley's Restaurant and Bar Reviews

• Tripadvisor reviews
• San Francisco Chronicle's review
• Head chef Bob Hurley profile from Faces of Napa