As part of the Hillstone Restaurant Group, Los Altos Grill is one of the few places in Silicon Valley with a vibrant bar scene entertained by a live jazz trio playing most evenings. Their mostly meat-centric menu offers little by way of appetizers which is actually fine since entrée plates are rather large.

Although they have a really great bar that centers the entire restaurant, they don’t have a cocktail menu. The bartenders may know how to make basic drinks (Gin/Vodka & Tonic, Martini, Cosmopolitan, etc.) but the recent artisan cocktail trend hasn’t hit this place yet.

We ordered a Negroni and a Cucumber Martini at the bar. The Negroni came with a squeeze of lime juice and the Cucumber Martini was Hendrick’s Gin served up with speared cucumbers. These were not quite what we were expecting but were quite quaffable nonetheless. Drinks served up are really potent and huge which started our evening off correctly:

We usually order the rotisserie chicken which is quite good there, but this time we decided to try their Grilled Colorado Lamb Sirloin which came with Colcannon (kale and green onion) mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach. The lamb was very tender and arrived medium-rare:

We also ordered the Kobe-Style Steak and Enchilada Platter which was their butternut and white cheddar corn enchilada paired with perfectly charred tri-tip steak. As an option, they provide a fried sunny-side up egg to top the enchilada. The dish was served with their addictive coconut green rice and cucumber salad studded with feta cheese. The dish was like having a sampler plate of their tastiest morsels (click on the salad in the back of the picture to refocus the Living Lytro shot):

A side of shoestring french fries with aoli was mandatory to go with the meat dishes:

Los Altos Grill’s winelist is primarily domestic with relatively smaller markups than many restaurants. But a unique feature they offer is no corkage fees, so we brought this Valpolicella to drink with our meal:

Their dessert special that evening was key lime pie which we found hard to resist. Toasted coconut flakes were added to the graham crust to add more of a tropical flavor to this refreshingly tart dessert:

Los Altos Grill is a mainstay in Los Altos and is generally packed most evenings of the week. Next time, we will come prepared with some cocktail recipes to challenge the bartenders.

http://www.hillstone.com/#/restaurants/losAltosGrill/