In French, Catalan and Occitan, the Pyrenean chamois, a mountain goat, is also called an izard. Chef Stephanie Izard uses her last name as an inspirational theme at all seven—and soon to be eight—of her restaurants.
Goat empanadas and banana goat’s milk ice cream are on the menu at Valley Goat, the newest member of her restaurant group. But at the Sunnyvale location, visitors will be more aware of the many goat figurines hanging out in random locations throughout the dining room.
For anyone suffering from capro-phobia, there’s no need to fear. These are benign, pastel-colored goats wearing cheerful, cartoonish expressions, not at all like the diabolical one who starred in Robert Eggers’ film The Witch.
Valley Goat is part of the newly refurbished Treehouse Hotel campus (a former Sheraton). The pathways linking the parking lot to the rooms, the pool and the restaurant are all landscaped like the grounds of a Napa Valley spa or winery. The freeway onramp is a block away, as is a Google sign mounted on the top of a nearby office building, but all the lavender and native grasses induce a kind of forgetfulness about the exact location. Inside, the restaurant is filled with plant life. Garden light streams in through a series of tall windows.
While en route to the restaurant, Izard told me she was returning to her native Chicago that Sunday for a “Make-A-Wish” dinner before filming a new episode of Guy’s Grocery Games the following week. She said that Valley Goat’s menu, like the ones at her other restaurants, “celebrate flavors from all different parts of the world.” A potato crepe ($26) was inspired by “that crunch you get from bánh xèo, a Vietnamese crepe that’s made out of a rice flour batter.”
My friend affectionately called it a “hash brown omelette.” The potatoes are made the same way at the chef’s Little Goat Diner in Chicago. “We par-cooked the potatoes to a particular temperature—after a month of testing to see what temperature works best,” the chef explained. Then it’s grated, cooked on a griddle and folded in half.
As with many of Izard’s dishes, she adds several flourishes to finish them. The crepe is conceived of as a lettuce cup dish, with an assemblage of the following ingredients: Vietnamese sausage, fish sauce mayo, Thai sweet and sour sauce, pickled red onions and thin slices of red fresno chili. I ate the crunchy, perfected hash browns both in a leaf of lettuce and on their own but longed for a couple of poached eggs on the side. The chef said it’s one of her favorite dishes and is also featured on the brunch menu at her Girl & the Goat restaurant in Los Angeles.
Were there, perhaps, one too many sauces? Izard won Season 4 of Top Chef in 2008 and is also one of TV’s Iron Chefs but I did hear Tom Colicchio’s judgmental voice in my head when we were served a plate of roasted asparagus ($20). He’s always advising contestants to edit and pare down their busy dishes. I believe he’d agree with me on this one, but Kristen Kish and Gail Simmons might not. The asparagus got muffled beneath a canopy of fresh herbs. “Party nuts” and a golden beet giardiniera didn’t bring much flavor-wise to the rustic plating.
We also ate two sweet brunch dishes to complement the savory ones. Lately, kumquats are starting to appear on Bay Area menus. That’s right. I’m calling out a trend. This is going to be the summer of kumquats. They were nestled within a thick layer of oat streusel which topped a high stack of blueberry pancakes ($20). The pool of maple syrup at the bottom of the plate was said to be infused with espresso and lime although my taste buds weren’t subtle enough to detect those flavors. The pancakes themselves were delicious but the syrup should have been served separately, on the side. And I could have lived without the streusel, an extra distraction.
The last dish we ate was a cinnabiscuit ($17), an Izard original. It’s a cross between a cinnamon roll and a biscuit. The texture of which lands somewhere between a scone and a muffin. Photos of this hybrid beast of a pastry are saturated with a messy, melty frosting but the edges get nice and crisp. Izard, mercifully, is able to temper all that sugar with a “Chinese 12-spice,” another one of her very own concoctions.
Valley Goat is open daily for lunch/brunch (11am-2pm), bar & bites (2–4pm) and dinner (4–10pm). 1100 N Mathilda Ave, Sunnyvale. 408.900.9470. valleygoatsv.com.
