In most relationships, one party's usually in the driver's seat, e.g., in your relationship, it's you, in your car's driver's seat, driving to Walgreens to pick up scrunchies. Making food drive to Walgreens: wine, at Meritage.
Open now inside Berkeley's Claremont Hotel, Meritage's a comfortably upscale, farm-to-table Cali grubbery, where a Mina and Keller-trained chef's full/half portion dishes are made specifically to highlight the vino; adorning the expansive digs're white pillars that extend to the two story ceiling, ornate wall to wall carpeting, and big windows that spy palm trees and the Bay Bridge beyond (note: you'll need your binocs to see pear trucks plummet off the S-curve). The menu breaks down into six trios of mainly domestic varietals ("Sparklers", "Full Bodied Whites", etc.), from which you'll pick a glass and subsequent food pairing, e.g., smoked salmon with fingerlings n' caviar creme fraiche may complement a Gloria Ferrier Blanc de Noirs, while lobster ravioli with shaved Pecorino's a possible mate for the Santa Barbara Sanford Chardonnay -- and, frankly, if you can't see why, you're a big dummy. Heavier fare ranges from cider-braised Kurobuta pork belly to crispy parsnip n' heirloom carrot-flanked Kobe beef short ribs, meant to respectively support "Spicy/Earthy Reds" like a Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant, and "Full Bodied Reds", like a Coppola "Director's Cut" Zin, which may have been what convinced Francis that his daughter should act in Godfather III.
On an unrelated/fatter note, Meritage features an insane buffet brunch on Sundays, where you'll find everything from basket after basket of dim sum, to mountains of chilled lobster claws, to steaming trays of peach cobbler, essentially leveling the playing field, because nobody's in the driver's seat if you can't fit in the car.
