2024
Recommended
•
2024
Eggplant is an award-winning restaurant located in the Carmel Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Chef Cogley creates innovative dishes with varied textures and flavors, and Chef Santos' desserts are true delights. The eight-course tasting menu changes daily, celebrating seasonality and creativity. Their wine cellar offers a selection of 3,500 bottles from renowned and lesser-known wine regions.
Did you know? This review was written by our professional authors.
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Members' reviews on AUBERGINE
4.8/5
25 reviews
Quality/Price ratio
Kitchen quality
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The ratings and reviews below reflect the subjective opinions of members and not the opinion of The Little Witty.
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Wine pairing price 250 USD (300 w/ default included tip)
Retail value 54
Markup 4.7x (Closer to 4x w/out errors, see below)
This is in the lower 20th percentile of value compared to the 34 pairings I've documented.
There are two pairing offerings, the basic for 175 and a reserve for 250 which was pitched as offering some older vintages.
Overall the wine offered was unique with offerings from Austria, Greece, France, California, and sake from Japan. Avg (retail) price per bottle served was 80. The pours were definitely on the smaller side, I took 2 sips before the amadai fish was served and almost ran out of wine. It wasn't clear that the last wine was to go over 2 dessert dishes and my partner ran out of wine before the 2nd was served. The oldest vintages served were 2012, 2013, and 2014, which pales in comparison to similarly priced tastings at 3-michelin star spots like Quince (275 in 2019) which offered pours from 1985, 1989, 1996, and 2006.
According to the menu that we asked for at the end, we realized that they didn't bring us the first pairing w/ the amuse bouche which was a pour from a $120 small bottle of sake and would have made the markup for the pairing to a 4x markup which is more reasonable, but still on the higher side in the bottom third of value.
The food was really nice. I loved the explanations from the sous chefs Tiffany and Diane. Diane even came out when we had a questions about the jus served alongside the ribeye and gave an excellent description of the 2+ day process which we really appreciated.
The first dessert was nice (sweet, creamy and pretty). The 2nd was disappointing. Generally both lacked a strong texture. The ending dessert bites were elegant and delicious!