I arrived at Stanly Ranch after a turbulent six-hour flight from New York, tightly wound and on the hunt for food. It wasn’t a long expedition. Delivered to my room was an extraordinary burger topped with bacon jam and the bar menu’s take on chips and dip—crème fraîche and trout roe with taro chips. The bar is the unofficial fourth place to eat at Stanly Ranch. Otherwise, the restaurant trifecta is the upmarket Bear, the coffeeshop Gavel, and the poolside Basin Bar. I happily ate up and promptly fell asleep in my room equipped with heated floors in the bathroom and an outdoor shower. I was unwinding already.
When I woke up, I could appreciate the full scale of the property. In addition to the three restaurants, it hosts a spa, 135 cottages and guest rooms, and 110 villas and vineyard homes on the market for people looking to buy. There’s also a substantial garden, called the Grange, which provides herbs and vegetables to Bear.
Bear’s menu—created by chef Garrison Price, who previously worked at Il Fiorista in New York—is expansive. At breakfast you can feast on a delicious poached egg, bean, and tomato bowl or a monkey bread made from 127 layers—really!—of pastry. The dinners are multi-course. One night, I tucked into bison tartare, crispy rice with shitake pickles, sunchokes with cheddar, snapper, short rib, and particularly delectable spot prawns with chimichurri. An attentive staff is on-hand to advise on which chardonnay to pair with the harissa chicken, should you find yourself in that predicament.
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