Meadowood Calls Off 12 Days of Christmas Series for 2016

A ticket to The Restaurant at Meadowood's top-tier guest chef series "The 12 Days of Christmas" has been hard to score, even for the Bay Area elite with deep pockets. Now, even they are out of luck, as chef Christopher Kostow has told Inside Scoop that he and his team are taking a break from the dinners, which have become a tradition over the past eight years.

The goal is to "rethink and refresh" the whole series, which takes considerable hard work from the entire Meadowood team, as well as the high-profile visiting chefs. The dinners typically take place in the month of December, with Kostow and his team collaborating with chefs like Joshua Skenes of Saison, Grant Achatz of Alinea, Christian Puglisi of Relæ (Copenhagen) and Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park. (Here's last year's full lineup.) Each of the 12 nights consists of intricate, multi-course tasting menus using high end ingredients, and takes extensive planning.

With the opening of Charter Oak, the family-style Instagrammer's dream that is headed to St. Helena this summer, Kostow and crew aren't just lollygagging about. And luckily, since it sounds like Kostow is hitting the reset button, not the kill switch on the series, it could come back bigger and better than ever. Stay tuned for more.