A new resort in Napa Valley has snagged a James Beard Award-nominated San Francisco chef to help open two restaurants on its property: Say hello to Vetra and its sister cafe opening inside the Elene, which debuts in late 2026. Chef Matthew Accarrino, who runs Italian favorite SPQR and opened all-day restaurant Mattina in 2023, is consulting on the menus at those two restaurants.
Accarrino worked his way through various acclaimed restaurants in the States and Italy, including Emeril’s, Charlie Trotter’s, and Per Se, before landing in San Francisco full-time as of 2009. He began consulting on the Elene’s kitchen layout, before continuing the working relationship and developing the menus at Vetra and the yet-to-be-named cafe space. Those two restaurants embody
different dining experiences for guests and visitors, but both will lean into Accarrino’s Cal-Italian experience. The other project is a more casual, cafe-like experience, while Vetra is the main restaurant for the property, running from breakfast to dinner.
Accarrino’s early involvement in the layout of the kitchen plays into his plans for the restaurants, informed by his past restaurant experiences, particularly helping to open Thomas Keller’s restaurant Per Se in New York. “One of the most amazing things was to walk into that kitchen and see that really all the tools had been put there for us,” Accarrino says. “I’ve always held onto that idea of, let me lay this kitchen out with all the tools that we need to make great food. And then we have the ingredients — it’s like you’re just assembling things in your favor.” The tools Accarrino has put in place for Vetra’s kitchen include a brick oven, and an open, wood-fired hearth. There’ll also be a dedicated dough room with pasta machines and space for bread-making. Accarrino envisions items such as large-format lasagna, milk bread, biscuits, and piadina, a type of Italian flatbread that he stuffs with potatoes at Mattina.
An onsite garden will fuel the seasonal menu. Accarrino is directing the planting of fruit trees, such as persimmons, as well as the building’s raised beds to accommodate a “robust” herb garden of lemon verbena, lemon balm, various basils, and other things that can be utilized in the kitchen. Accarrino also aims to leverage the surrounding vineyard; he’s mulling over dishes using grapes and grape leaf pasta, potentially with duck sourced from one of the meat purveyors he’s partnering with. Accarrino plans to set up a dry-aging program, complete with a meat saw, to custom cut (for instance) bone-in, dry-aged wagyu, porterhouses, or a Barnsley cut of lamb.
“It’s not [meant to be] an off-putting monolith of a restaurant. It’s a place to come and hang out,” Accarrino says of Vetra. The restaurant has a long communal dining table, and an open kitchen.
He plans to serve a quicker lunch format with bread, seasonal salads, and an entree at an accessible price for guests and locals alike, as well as a chef’s menu option at night that Accarrino says is meant to be “a bit bespoke and designed per table.” Ultimately, it won’t be Accarrino running the show when Vetra opens; taking the helm of the restaurant upon opening is chef Phillip Moratin, who’s worked throughout Napa at restaurants such as the Charter Oak, Angèle Restaurant & Bar, Charlie Palmer Steak Napa, and Ad Hoc.
Beyond being a chef, Accarrino is a former professional cyclist who continues to race to this day, and it’s not often a project intersects those two interests. Yet, the Elene manages to do just that: One of the hotel’s bragging points is a cycling program with access to the Napa Valley Vine Trail, a planned 47-mile pedestrian and biking trail that leads from the Vallejo Ferry to Calistoga. (The trail currently stretches 33 miles through Solano and Napa counties.) The hotel goes further into the cycling realm than just a stopping point, with the Barn serving as a space to get apparel and helmets, take out high-level bikes, and bike computers with preloaded routes. On top of that, there will also be meetups and group rides — a few with Accarrino playing host. “What a great backdrop to have a product launch and bring people in to experience the food in the Napa Valley, and the whole culture and scenery around another objective [like cycling],” Accarrino says. “I think it just has a lot of iterative possibilities as a hub, and that we’ll have all the essentials that you need for great riding.”
The cafe is the casual component that the team is banking on as a neighborhood hub for the trail; Accarrino envisions it as a place to get coffee, pastries, and sandwiches before or after a ride, for both hotel guests and locals. The team will make much of the offerings from scratch, like breakfast sandwiches, caramelized banana cinnamon buns, and maritozzo, a Roman soft bread stuffed with cream, that will get a dose of house jam. A smoker will work double-duty for both restaurants, producing smoked meats such as beef or turkey for the sandwiches in the casual space, served on the aforementioned homemade bread. Visitors should also keep an eye out for a porchetta sandwich, as well. “We want people in the neighborhood [to visit],” he says. “We want people who are going on bike rides to all feel like they want to go there and not have it feel like the lobby coffee kiosk.”
The Elene, Vetra, and the cafe (5091 Solano Avenue, Napa) debuts in late 2026.
