Where to stay in Yountville comes down to a question no other town in Napa Valley asks: how far do you want to walk to dinner? A three-star restaurant, two one-stars and a Bib Gourmand sit inside a few blocks of each other here, which means a hotel in town buys you a valley holiday without a drive at the end of every evening. These six properties cover the range, with what each one costs and what it is actually good at.
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In this article
How we chose where to stay in Yountville
Inside the town grid, on foot. Every property here is in Yountville itself, not in Napa or St. Helena with a Yountville address on the website. Expedia’s own walking times put four of the six between three and six minutes from the French Laundry culinary garden, and the two at the southern end about eleven minutes from Domaine Chandon.
Bookable on the same platform, and reviewed. All six take reservations through Expedia, so the prices below are the same kind of number rather than six different quotes from six different systems. Each one carries at least 400 verified guest reviews, which is enough to make a rating mean something in a town this size.
What is missing, and why. Yountville has a handful of small inns that sell only through their own websites. They are not on this list because we could not put a like-for-like price against them, not because they are worse. The full set of tests a property has to pass is published in Our Editorial Methodology.
On Washington Street
Washington Street is Yountville. It runs the length of the town, from Domaine Chandon at the southern end to Yountville Park at the northern one, and almost everything you would come here to eat is on it or a few steps off it. Three of the six hotels have a Washington Street address, which in practice means you can leave the car parked for two days.
1. Hotel Yountville — Washington Street
The largest of the three on the street, and the one that behaves most like a resort. Low stone-and-timber buildings sit around gardens at the southern end of Washington Street, which matters more than it sounds if you have booked a sunrise balloon flight: the launch field is eight minutes away on foot.
The spa is the real argument for it, with a co-ed lounge rather than the usual two silent corridors. Yountville is flat enough that the bicycles do the rest: the ride north to the park takes about as long as finding a parking space would. It suits travelers who want resort comforts without giving up a walk to dinner.
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2. North Block Hotel — Washington Street
At the northern end of the street, two minutes from Yountville Park, and built around a courtyard rather than a corridor, which is why it reads as small even though it is a full hotel.
The restaurant is the reason most people book it: live-fire cooking that changes with the season. It is the one address on this page where you can eat well without a reservation made three months ago, which in Yountville is a genuine advantage. It ties for the highest-rated property in town, and the scale is why: twenty rooms is few enough for the staff to know your name. The trade is grounds, because there is no lawn to wander, only the courtyard.
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3. The Estate Yountville — Washington Street
Twenty-two acres in the middle of town, which is an odd sentence to write about a place you can walk across in twenty minutes. The Estate is two hotels under one management: Vintage House is the quieter half, low buildings under old trees at the back of the property, and Villagio the busier one, closer to the street and to the spa.
It is the one property on this page that also appears in our round-up of Napa Valley wine resorts, where it competes with places like Auberge du Soleil and Stanly Ranch. In that company it is the urban option. In Yountville it is the resort, and the one for a group that wants grounds to wander between dinners.
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Book it
Want the whole town in one list?
Yountville has six bookable properties and they sell out in a different order every month. See all of them side by side with what is actually open for your dates.
A block off Washington Street
The other three are a street or two back, which in a town this shape means quieter nights and a walk to dinner measured in minutes rather than blocks. Two of them are also the cheapest beds in Yountville, and the third is the most expensive.
4. Napa Valley Lodge — Madison Street
The best value in town, and by a clear margin. The Lodge sits on Madison Street a minute’s walk from Yountville Park, in a tile-roofed building wrapped around a courtyard with enough planting to muffle the street.
It is family-owned, part of the small Woodside Collection, and it shows in the details that cost the owner money and the guest nothing. It rates as high as hotels here charging twice as much, and it is quiet in the evening, which suits travelers who spend the day out and the night at dinner in town. If the budget is the constraint and the location is the point, this is the booking.
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5. Lavender, A Four Sisters Inn — Webber Avenue
Three minutes from the French Laundry culinary garden, which makes it the closest bed on this list to the restaurant most people are here for. Lavender is a clapboard farmhouse and a row of cottages on Webber Avenue, with a garden between them and string lights along the porch that do most of the work after dark.
It is an inn rather than a hotel, and that is the trade: the sense of staying in a house on a residential street rather than in a property with a lobby. Its score is the lowest here, and it is worth reading what sits behind it: on a street of nine-point-somethings, an inn without resort facilities is scored against neighbors that have them. For a couple who plan to eat out every night, that is not a loss.
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6. Bardessono Hotel and Spa — Yount Street
The most expensive room in Yountville, and the most interesting building. Bardessono is certified LEED Platinum, which in a valley full of Tuscan pastiche means something concrete: geothermal wells under the courtyards, solar on the roofs, reclaimed timber and local stone in place of stucco. It reads as a modern house rather than a hotel, arranged in low blocks around planted courtyards on Yount Street.
It costs about four times what the Lodge does, and the gap is not about location: the two are eight minutes apart on foot. It is about what you want the room to be once you are in it. It suits travelers who will spend real time in the room, not just sleep in it.
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Hotels near the French Laundry and Bouchon
Most people searching for hotels near the French Laundry are really asking how long the walk back will be after dinner. In Yountville the answer is a few minutes from anywhere on this page. The restaurant is at 6640 Washington Street, with its culinary garden directly across the road, and Bouchon is a short walk south at 6534, with Bouchon Bakery next door.
Closest to the French Laundry. Lavender is three minutes from the culinary garden on Expedia’s own walking times, the shortest walk on this list. Napa Valley Lodge and Bardessono follow at six minutes each. North Block is on the same street at its northern end, so the way back after dinner is a straight line up Washington Street.
Closest to Bouchon. The Estate Yountville and Hotel Yountville both have Washington Street addresses south of the bistro, at 6481 and 6462, so Bouchon sits between your room and the French Laundry rather than in the opposite direction. The bakery is on your way out in the morning, and the bistro on your way home at night.
When to book
Yountville is a small market: six properties that take online bookings, for a town that fills every weekend of harvest. When we looked at spring dates, three of the six were already down to single-figure room counts months ahead. If you want a particular hotel in September or October, when the crush is running and the Napa Valley Vintners calendar is at its busiest, months of notice is not excessive.
Spring is the quieter half of the trade. Rates in May sit well below September, the vines are in flower rather than under a tractor, and restaurant tables open up. Late winter is cheaper still, with the caveat that some tasting rooms cut their hours.
Rates here move more than they do in Europe. Every price on this page is for the same two midweek nights in spring, the same window we used for Napa Valley Wine Resorts, so the two lists can be read against each other. A weekend in October will not look like this, and you can see current Yountville rates on Expedia for your own dates.
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Travelling in harvest season?
September and October are the two months Yountville sells out first. Check what is still open on your dates before you fix the flights, not after.
Getting there and getting around
San Francisco and Oakland are the practical arrival airports; Santa Rosa is closer on the map but Expedia puts it at about an hour’s drive from Yountville anyway, and it has far fewer flights. Whichever you pick, the last leg is a drive.
Once you are here the car mostly sits still. That is the whole argument for staying in town: dinner, tasting rooms, the bakery and the park are all on foot, and you are not doing the calculation about who drives home after a tasting flight. But the rest of the valley is not walkable, and the estates around Rutherford and St. Helena are half an hour north. For those days you need wheels, and a small car is easier on Silverado Trail than whatever the rental desk wants to upgrade you to.
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Choosing where to stay in Yountville
The reason to sleep in Yountville rather than in Napa or St. Helena is density. The French Laundry holds three Michelin stars a few blocks from your room; Bouchon and Ad Hoc hold one each, and Ciccio carries a Bib Gourmand. No other town in the valley puts that within a walk, and every hotel on this page is built around that fact.
After that, the choice sorts itself quickly. Napa Valley Lodge is the value booking and rates as well as anything above it. Lavender is the closest to dinner and the most domestic, if you do not need a pool. Hotel Yountville is the one that works as a resort while still being on the street. North Block is twenty rooms and the best restaurant attached to a bed in town. The Estate is for people who want grounds to wander and three pools to choose between. Bardessono is for people who care what a building is made of, and are prepared to pay four times the Lodge for the answer.
That is the short answer to where to stay in Yountville: choose by what you want the room to do, because the town takes care of the rest. Book the hotel first and the restaurants second, because in this town the beds run out before the tables do. Then spend the days elsewhere: our guide to Napa Valley wine country covers the four growing areas around you, and the best wine tastings in Napa Valley are all a short drive from a room you will not have to drive back to.
Prices are “from” rates, indicative and set by our booking partners: they change with dates and availability, so check the current rate on Expedia.
