Harbor House Inn ( – Elk, California)

I recently went to Harbor House in Elk, California. Harbor House some years ago was actually the first tasting menu of my life. I was staying at a home nearby for a remote vacation and was reading about what was in the area and happened to read about a local restaurant that had 2 Michelin stars. Here I was sitting in a home in the middle of nowhere, a place where there’s not even a cell phone signal and down the road is this restaurant. I decided to book a lunch and it was such a great experience. Since then I’ve been to many fine dining restaurants, but I’ve always wanted to try dinner at the place that got me into fine dining. So, I was planning to spend a few days in that same area with no cell phone signal and also booked Harbor House for dinner. It was time to go back to the beginning of it all, and to experience the full dinner.

The restaurant is in the dining room of a small inn located an isolated ocean bluff with a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean. Their menu is based on local foods with a focus on vegetables and seafood. Most of the ingredients come from their nearby farm, the gardens at the restaurant, the ocean cove accessible by stairs from the grounds, and local providers. It’s all very local to coastal Northern California – most of the plates and utensils are from local artists and even the dining tables are from a single naturally felled redwood tree.

The dining room has an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean and there’s just ten tables here. Service is warm and friendly.

The menu has strong Japanese influences and I’d say the food and taste is on the more delicate or lighter side. I decided to try the non-alcoholic pairing too:

1. Savory Infusion of Sea Vegetables – Harbor House says that they can’t accommodate seaweed-averse menu requests. I feel like this opening drink is basically reminding you of that and how a lot of this menu is ocean focused. The drink itself is interesting with a strong umami taste. It’s kind of weird, but I feel like it works for what they’re doing.
2. Chilled Vegetables – prepared with cow parsnip oil and also using a pourover with a kelp-based stock. The vegetables are mostly from their farm and many were cut in different shapes like stars and so forth. A wonderful salad. This dish and the next dish were paired with a ‘Garden Mocktail’ non-alcoholic drink. It was sort of a refreshing herbal drink. 
3. Rockfish – tomato and smoked butter. This was a cured rockfish. Another great dish, and refreshing.
4. Maitake mushroom with lichen and dashi – The fried maitake mushroom is one of their signature dishes, and it lives up to it. Topped with local purple sea urchin. The creaminess of the uni against the fried mushroom and the contrast between cold uni and warm mushroom enhanced this dish. The dashi was nice and made from trimmings of the mushroom. The lichen is another staple of the menu – it’s kind of weird. It came with some sesame and the texture almost felt like eating a spool of thread. I imagine this must be good for lichen. Anyways, this was paired with a fermented passionfruit punch drink that was fermented with seeds of the passionfruit. It was incredible.
5. Bluefin Tuna with Grilled Cucumber – the bluefin tuna was aged and lightly calendula smoked. It was so good. The grilled cucumber was ok. This was paired with a Fermented Strawberry Spice drink. This was also good and had some notes of yuzu added.
6. Red Abalone – this is another signature dish of Harbor House. The red abalone itself was incredible and tender. The best abalone I’ve ever had. This was served in the abalone shell with some vegetables. The Abalone koshikari rice is prepared with a sauce of the offal/liver of the abalone. Very rich, umami rice. There were two pickled veggie bites included and they recommended to start with one and end with the other for this course. This was paired with a Seaweed Chardonnay drink which includes chardonnay juice from Navarro Vineyards nearby in Anderson Valley and verjus infused with kombu. An interesting NA drink.
7. Black Cod – smoked over bay laurel, fava, potato. This is brought to you in a wooden box where they show you it being smoked. It’s a nice presentation. There was a potato puree beneath the cod and it was weird. Overall, this was a delicate dish, but not my favorite dish. It was paired with a Hibiscus and Dried Black Lime drink. 
8. Sourdough and Sea Lettuce Butter – another signature. When I had this for lunch the sourdough had some sea lettuce in it. The butter for dinner was a lot more seaweed forward than I had for lunch.
9. Squab – served with pureed mushroom, sausage, trumpet mushroom. A good dish, but not the best poultry dish I’ve had recently. This was paired with a Harbor House ‘Pinot’ non-alcoholic drink, which included pinot noir juice from Navarro Vineyards, grilled tree bark, mushrooms, and more kombu. Another interesting NA drink!
10. Makrut Lime Leaf, Strawberry – a delicious dessert course. The bottom is a custard with the lime leaf and the strawberry  liquid foam was wonderful. The final NA drink was a barley-pumpkin tea. It was topped with some oat milk foam and tasted kind of like a latte. Delicious.
11. Figleaf, plum, apricot, peach – topped with a tuile, underneath was a light cake wrapped by a fig.
12. Douglas Fir Tea with Grilled Honey and Herbs – this is served with the last set of desserts. You can dip the herbs/flowers in the grilled honey to add some sweetness and herbal notes to the tea.
13. Final Bites – this included a candy cap mushroom macaron, a choux filled with grilled miso and apple cider, walnut lace cookie with oolong filling, lemon verbena with marigold, umeboshi caramel, ground cherry, and a canele. The caramel was my favorite, but I didn’t think anything here was amazing. Not pictured was a gummy underneath some herbs.

After dinner you’re given the menu and a set of cards explaining the ideas behind the restaurant. Tasting menu was $325 (USD, before tax/gratuity), the non-alcoholic pairing was $125. The wine pairing was $275, and they also had a hybrid pairing (4 wines/sakes, 4 non alcoholic drinks) for $225.

Harbor House is a great experience and it’s truly a destination dining spot. I would say that the flavors are on the more delicate and lighter side. So people who mostly want stronger flavor profiles may not enjoy this menu as much. The non alcoholic pairing is great with interesting drinks. Overall, I’m glad I came back to experience Harbor House again.