Carolyn Jung aka the food gal on dining at Meadowood

Dinner at the Dazzling Michelin Three-Star Restaurant at Meadowood

It’s not every day you get invited to dine as a guest at a Michelin three-star restaurant in the Bay Area.

It’s a rarity — especially because there are only two restaurants in the region that have attained that coveted honor, the highest ranking that the Michelin guide book bestows.

For years, there was just one — the French Laundry in Yountville, not surprisingly. But two years ago, it was joined by another establishment — the Restaurant at Meadowood, which not only achieved three stars but has managed to hang on to them, too, for the second year in a row in 2011.

When you have a chef as talented as Christopher Kostow, though, that’s little surprise.

After all, Kostow, who started cooking at age 14 in his hometown of Chicago, already had racked up two Michelin stars at his previous post at the charming Chez TJ in sleepy Mountain View. That’s no small achievement when you consider that it was his first head chef job on his own, too.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the chance to enjoy his cooking four times, most recently in December 2011, just before the restaurant closed for renovations. It will reopen March 12.

Over the years, his food has become more refined and confident, and even playful in the most elegant of ways. It reflects the 35-year-old chef’s personality — tough in the kitchen, but full of humor all other times. As I snapped his picture that day, he fumbled with the prep apron worn over his chef’s jacket, joking that it was not very flattering. “You think they make Spanx for chefs?’ he asked with a chuckle.

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