The Restaurant at JUSTIN in Paso Robles delivers a polished, vineyard-immersed tasting menu that marries MICHELIN-caliber technique with a deep commitment to local sourcing and sustainability—an approach that has earned a MICHELIN Star, a MICHELIN Green Star, Forbes Five-Star, and AAA Five Diamonds, positioning it as a benchmark for wine-country dining on the Central Coast. Set on the JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery estate, the experience pairs sweeping vineyard views with a seasonal multicourse menu led by Executive Chef Rachel Haggstrom, whose farm-to-table focus showcases the region’s bounty with precision, warmth, and a deft sense of pairing to the estate cellar.
Culinary identity
The culinary lens is contemporary Californian, expressed through a tasting format that evolves with the farm and the market, emphasizing clarity of flavor, measured technique, and seamless wine integration. Expect composed courses that balance comfort and craft—think airy gougères piped with silky mornay, Santa Barbara spiny lobster with salsify and delicate citrus lift, and produce-forward plates that spotlight texture and temperature as deliberately as flavor. Each composition is calibrated to pairing potential, with sauces and glazes tuned for JUSTIN’s Bordeaux-style blends and back-vintage selections, resulting in a menu that reads both generous and restrained.
Sourcing and sustainability
A hyperlocal model underpins the restaurant’s Green Star recognition: roughly 95% of ingredients are sourced from the estate’s 26-acre farmstead or trusted Central Coast purveyors, including a 150-tree orchard, edible flower fields, vegetable and herb gardens, and an apiary that informs sweets, glazes, and finishing touches. This estate-driven pantry demands agility; menus pivot with weather and season, while standardized techniques—careful preserving, fermenting, and low-waste fabrication—ensure consistency without dulling seasonality’s edge. The result is a kitchen that treats sustainability as operating system rather than ornament, aligning provenance with pleasure.
Chef leadership
Executive Chef Rachel Haggstrom brings nearly two decades of experience and a craft-first ethos to the estate, overseeing culinary operations with equal parts rigor and hospitality. Her approach fuses classical foundations with a modern sustainability ethic, threading integrity through sourcing, preservation, and menu development so that flavor, origin, and service move in lockstep. This coherence shows in the restaurant’s sustained recognition by MICHELIN and luxury hospitality guides, where the throughline is not just excellence on the plate but a philosophy that holds under pressure, vintage to vintage and season to season.
Setting and service
Dinner unfolds in an intimate dining room and patio that gaze onto rolling vines and golden hills, turning every course into a small act of terroir. Natural textures, refined tableware, and seasonal décor echo the garden’s output. Service strikes an elegant cadence: polished choreography with easy warmth, explanations that illuminate without lingering, and wine pairings that elevate the food’s fine lines rather than overshadow them. There’s room to exhale—time enough to savor a glaze or the lift in a garnish—yet the evening moves, chapter by chapter, toward a finish that feels both celebratory and calm.
A taste of the table
While menus evolve with the fields and tides, a few motifs sketch the house style:
- Openings that define clarity: an amuse of orchard apple and sunchoke, a velouté that hums with savory lightness, or a warm bite that primes the palate without fatigue.
- Coastal precision: shellfish and local fish treated with featherweight sauces—citrus oils, herb broths, or a gloss that captures the ocean’s sweetness and salinity without heaviness.
- Garden-centered plates: vegetables presented as protagonists, with crunch and cream, char and chill, arranged for contrast and ease.
- A refined crescendo: a meat course framed for the cellar—depths of umami set against lift and texture so that back vintages can sing.
- Desserts with structure and restraint: orchard fruit brightened by herb or spice; honeyed finishes that nod to the estate apiary; petite fours that echo the garden’s season.
Recognition and significance
Dual recognition—a MICHELIN Star for cuisine and a Green Star for environmental leadership—distinguishes The Restaurant at JUSTIN as a rare winery-based fine-dining destination where kitchen, farm, and cellar share a single vision. Additional honors from Forbes Travel Guide and AAA reinforce a holistic standard of excellence, signaling to travelers and locals that this is a complete wine-country experience: destination-worthy cooking, deeply considered sustainability, and hospitality that feels tailored rather than templated.
Practical details
Located at 11680 Chimney Rock Road, the restaurant serves dinner Thursday through Sunday via a reservation-only tasting menu, with a downtown Paso Robles dinner program offering additional access on select evenings. Vineyard vistas and JUSTIN’s award-winning wines make it an ideal setting for celebrations, collector itineraries, and oenophile-focused trips across the Central Coast. Guests can expect a refined but welcoming atmosphere, where pacing, portioning, and pairings are tuned for satisfaction without fatigue—an evening designed to leave a lasting impression rather than a single crescendo.
Visual inspiration
- Estate and dining room: Vineyard-view dining, refined table settings, and seasonal décor reflecting the estate garden’s output.
- Plates and produce: Garden-driven dishes, edible flowers, and estate honey expressed in precise, elegant plating and modern technique.
- Chef and craft: Executive Chef Rachel Haggstrom leading a team that blends classical foundations with adaptive seasonal methods.
- Wine pairings: Structured flights featuring JUSTIN back vintages and Bordeaux-style blends tailored to each course’s profile.
In summary
The Restaurant at JUSTIN synthesizes Central Coast terroir, disciplined technique, and sustainability into a tasting experience that feels grounded and gracious. It is a place where the vineyard is more than a backdrop—its seasons, soils, and cellar guide the narrative—yielding a dinner that is as thoughtful as it is delicious, and as restorative as it is polished.
For more information, please visit The Restaurant at JUSTIN