Paso Robles, Pinnacles National Park, and Beyond

My husband, Adam, wanted to attend a conference outside Santa Cruz, so we decided to make a road trip out of it. Because we don’t drink during the day or belong to any wine clubs, we don’t get to wineries very often, but lunch at Roblar Winery, south of Los Olivos, had me rethinking that. The setting was relaxing, and the fried chicken—a lunch special on Thursdays—was as delicious as a friend had promised. Roblar is one of several wineries that have expanded their food offerings in recent years, and I imagine it’s a trend that will continue.

When we first moved here, I thought Paso Robles would be a frequent getaway for us. I just like the feel of it. Possibly because there isn’t much to do there beyond day drink, however, we’ve only been a couple of times. This trip, I was excited to finally try the Hotel Cheval, which has an ideal location just off the town square and terrific curb appeal. The staff was uniformly friendly, and management has added fun extras, such as a “candy bar” in the library and s’more service at night.

The best part of the hotel is the courtyard, open only to guests. It’s an extremely pleasant place to hang out—sipping on a Negroni before dinner, I even found myself enjoying the live music coming from the hotel’s Pony Club.

Our room, however, was a disappointment. From what we could tell, once it was too late to do anything about it, the room was the property’s worst. The only two windows faced the courtyard, so if we wanted privacy, the room got even darker.

Little annoyances added up. It was an ADA room, with double doors to the bathroom that offered little in the way of privacy. Our toilet made a high-pitched screech for 30 seconds after every flush. You have to move the chunky bathmat entirely out of the way to open the shower door. And the note about the pillows was just weird. I understand the problem, but that’s not a solution. We weren’t paying B&B rates.

The big news at the Hotel Cheval is that a related café, H. Cheval Coffee, has opened two doors down. The coffee was excellent, and the barista winsome. Coffee and a pastry might be a better bet than the hotel’s underwhelming free breakfast.

The Hotel Cheval has long planned on an addition with 20 more rooms (bringing the total to 36), a pool, and a spa. Apparently, it has to wait till the nearby Ava Hotel is completed. The renderings on the Ava website are even grimmer than the ones posted onsite. Why would the town leaders allow something so utterly generic? Paso has character, but this could be anywhere.

I think we’ll continue to visit Les Petites Canailles whenever we’re in Paso. Dining at the bar, chatting with some soon-to-be locals and the polished staff, we felt like we were in a big city. The food helps: it’s more sophisticated than just about everything in Santa Barbara, and while I only took a photo of the leeks à la plancha with herb vinaigrette and pine nuts, the highlights were the steak au poivre (which rivals the one at Bell’s) and the chocolate mousse.

I grew up in California, my family spent most summers driving around the West in an RV, and I have worked as an editor at travel magazines—and yet somehow I had never heard of Pinnacles National Park until Adam and I drove by a sign a few years ago. (In my defense, it was a National Monument till 2013, when it got upgraded.) Ever since, I’ve been hellbent on visiting it.

The park is about an hour and a half north of Paso (and two and a half hours south of San Francisco), wedged between Highway 101 and State Route 25. You can access the park from either side, but you can’t drive through it, and the road leading from Highway 101 is narrow and winding. The park website says that parking can be an issue in summer and on weekends, but we had no problem on a Friday morning in early September.

We hiked the Balconies Cliffs Trail and the Balconies Cave Trail, which meet to form a loop, and I loved everything about it. The rock formations are astounding, and there were few other hikers. I can’t recommend it enough.

And then you reach the cave, which is even better. The trail passes through to the other side, and it involves fun ducking and scrambling. (The second photo below is what you see when you look up.) We will definitely be going back for a longer, harder hike in the High Peaks area.

The hike took around 90 minutes, and by the time we drove 20 minutes back to the town of Soledad, we were pretty hungry. Even so, the portions at Cocuyos restaurant were so big we didn’t finish. (We resisted the urge to encourage them to reconsider their translation of tripas as “beef guts.”)

We’re still searching for a San Francisco hotel that feels right, the closest one so far being The Battery. This time, Adam wanted to try the Ritz-Carlton in Nob Hill, which he remembered fondly from a trip two decades ago. I don’t think I had ever been inside the 1909 Neoclassical building. The lobby and bar have the expected glamour.

But, oy, the decor elsewhere. I think someone must have been trying to make the hotel feel cool, but a Ritz-Carlton doesn’t want to be cool. It wants to be nice. Classic. Traditional. Instead, we got a palette of silver, navy, and chrome, with different wallpapers in the same room and photo murals in the hallways. (The guest room comes off better in my photo than it did in real life.) And you could spot where the renovation hadn’t extended: the brass door hardware, the telephone in the toilet room, the elevators….) It looked like a high-end Sheraton from the 1990s. Two other complaints, while I’m at it: having to pay for wi-fi unless you join the loyalty program is tacky, and why can’t hotel doors shut quietly? Does anyone love the slam of a neighbor’s door?

And just like at the Hotel Cheval, the room had a strange note. I’m not talking about the request itself—it sounds like the kind of thing California would do—but the way the hotel refers to its staff as “ladies and gentlemen.” The phrase came up several times, and it never sounded anything but awkward. Can’t they just be housekeepers? Or team members, if you must?

Much has been written about the dire state of San Francisco, but we weren’t in town long enough for me to have any perspective on that. Staying in Nob Hill, rather than closer to Market Street and the Tenderloin, probably helped. (The only strange behavior we saw was a guy brushing his teeth in the middle of California Street.) And our sole meal was with friends at Besharam, inside a gallery complex in an area called Dogpatch that we had never even heard of. (“Roughly half industrial and half residential,” is how Wikipedia describes Dogpatch. “It was initially a working class neighborhood, but has experienced rapid gentrification since the 1990s.”) Our Uber driver said it’s too far out of the way for the homeless and/or criminals to bother.

The food at Besharam is inventive Indian (and vegetarian), and we found it generally delicious. I think the photo below is of the “drunken pani puri,” which you half-fill with a green sauce and then eat in one bite. The only downside to the meal was the dreaded “20% service charge” that goes to the entire staff. Say what you will about the charge, it reliably generates a lively discussion about whether to also tip the server.

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Previous travel coverage:
↓↓↓ A Review of the Inn at Mattei’s Tavern
••• Another quickie in L.A.
••• Sitting Pretty at the One & Only Mandarina
••• The Mysteries of Istanbul
••• Palm Springs: Midweek at the Oasis
••• A Summer Swing Through the Northeast
••• Why Is Everyone Going to Portugal?
••• Patagonia Made Easy
••• A Quickie in L.A.
••• From Penthouse to Pavement in Mexico City
••• Do Greek Islands Live Up to the Fantasy?
••• Splendid Isolation at Utah’s Lodge at Blue Sky
••• Three Reasons to Visit Paso Robles Now
••• The Rebirth of the Cuyama Buckhorn