San Jose is a hot spot in California for people to visit. In their downtown district, you'll find lots of nightlife, shopping, markets, and great restaurants. San Jose is known for its cultural diversity and its Mediterranean climate. It is a hub for immigrant communities and offers many cuisines including Mexican, Vietnamese, East African, Korean cuisines, and more. If you're visiting San Jose and are looking to experience fine dining, you're in for a treat! Here are some of the most expensive restaurants in San Jose to visit.
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Adega
Adega is the only restaurant to hold a Michelin star in San Jose. They take a modern approach to classic Portuguese dishes and use the highest quality ingredients available during each season. Their wine room offers a large selection of over 500 Portuguese wines. Although they hand-picked the finest of wines to pair with their menu, they do allow you to bring your own bottles with a $79 corkage fee per bottle. Born in Portugal, Chef David Costa has created a delicious menu with seafood as a focus. After graduating from culinary school and mastering Portuguese cuisine, he went on to work under other amazing chefs until he opened his first restaurant, Adega, in 2015.
Adega offers a seven-course Chef's tasting menu for $199 a person. Additionally, you can choose one of the three wine pairing options they have, regular for $149, premium for $249, or reserve for $499. On the Chef's menu, you will find dishes like shrimp and abalone (snail), meat stew, smoked quail on mushroom rice, codfish, sea bass, and A5 wagyu. From Pastry Chef Jessica Carreira, you'll enjoy dishes that use fruit in season, flan, or lemon mousse.
La Foret
La Foret is a French Restaurant. They offer fine dining in what they call an old country setting. Located in a historical building, it is surrounded by a forest and next to a stream. La Foret has been listed in the top 50 best French Restaurants in the country. Since its opening in 1978, they have been serving the complete dining experience with great hospitality and personalized service. The restaurant's history goes even further back to the mid-1800s right before the California Gold Rush. An artillery officer built a community in the area and the building that La Foret is in now today used to serve hot meals and a place to sleep for gold miners.
On their horse d'oeuvres menu, enjoy dishes like tortellini, quail, beef tartare, prawns, ahi tuna, sea scallops, escargot, or lobster tail ranging from $19-46. They also offer caviar, estate caviar for $130 or reserve caviar for $200. Then enjoy one of their three salad choices for an average of $16. On their main menu, they offer a range of pasta and protein dishes. For pasta lovers, try the Tortellini La Foret for $42 or the Pasta Fruit De Mer for $56. For seafood, enjoy the prawns or salmon for $49 or the ahi tuna for $58. If you're interested in poultry, they offer a quail dish for $56. They also serve wild boar for $57. For beef or beef-like dishes, indulge in veal, bison, lamb, elk, wagyu, or tenderloin medallions from $58-$105.
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Le Papillon
Le Papillon is actually the sister restaurant to La Foret! It has been serving the San Jose area for 40 years. The technology boom in the 1970s led Le Papillon to be a favorite for executives in the area from companies like Tandem, Intel, and Apple. Now, led by Chef Scott Cooper, Le Papillon is still a thriving restaurant today. Chef Cooper worked his way into the culinary world by starting as a dishwasher. He then became bus boy, prep cook, and every position in between until he became a chef at La Foret and then executive chef at Le Papillon. His menu at Le Papillon is inspired by his time visiting countries in Europe and Asia, but mostly his time spent in France. The cuisine he offers can be best described as a globally inspired contemporary French.
Le Papillon offers two menus; the dinner menu and the tasting menu. The dinner menu offers three or four courses for $110 or $130. Enjoy dishes like crab souffle, kanpachi tartare, lobster and braised leeks, artichoke soup, roasted duck breast, grilled rack of lamb, apricot curd, and souffle. On the tasting menu, you will try six of the chef's choice dishes. These dishes include Alaskan spot prawn crudo, abalone with caramelized avocado, soft shell crab with black lime puree, chicken breast with chestnut cappelletti, veal loin with sweetbread fritter, and souffle grand Marnier with fresh berries.
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