Meritage Restaurant at Callaway Vineyards

What a great way to cap off our day full of wine tasting. We called earlier in the day to make a reservation since it was a Saturday night. My boyfriend and I spent the day wine tasting and ended our tour at Callaway. After reviewing the menu we decided on having our dinner here. They had a live band and amazing views of the vineyards. They sat us right next to the window to enjoy the scenery.
We started with the Caprese salads and Steak Frites both of which were incredible. The salad was beautiful and tasted so fresh. For our entrée we shared the fig and prosciutto flatbread and it was amazing. Overall it was a great meal with incredible views and entertainment. We will be back again one day.

Food was beyond great! Fresh and delightful. We had a Pinot Grigio from Calloway very refreshing. Don our waiter gets ten stars :-). Atmosphere lovely on the patio with nice view of the vineyards.

Josh is doing an amazing job! The staff and service is perfect. Everything is amazing and beyond expectation!!!

We had such a great experience at this restaurant! The food was delicious and the property is beautiful! Jamie, our waitress, was so welcoming and kind in accommodating our dog. She made great recommendations on the menu, and took the time to even show us where the vegetables for our dinner are grown! Many of the staff checked on us throughout the night, and it was so great talking with them. It is a farm to table restaurant, and you literally see where your dinner is grown on the property! We were able to sit on the porch and had beautiful views of the sunset! We had the steak fries and pork chop special, and everything was delicious! They also have an amazing wine selection. Dessert was also wonderful with freshly picked blackberries! Go visit this restaurant! You will love the experience!

I had a great meal here yesterday. Both of us loved the food. Portions were nice, too.
We had the calamari, the lamb chops from the tapas menu, the fried potatoes, and the house salad.

The place was very relaxing. The weather was great. The views from where we sitting were beautiful and peaceful. The food was great, our steak and fish were cooked the way we wanted to be. Jamie, our server wS very nice and helpful. The singer was the one from the 80s band Stray Cats and we enjoyed his music because my husband and i were 80s kids. Everything was perfect for our anniversary celebration.
I will definitely recommend this place.

Lovely evening… Amazing attention by Chef and server Jamie! Appreciated the special wine pairing and awesome Ceviche and Smoked Salmon Tapa!
Live music with Buzz Campbell was great with sunset view!!!

Some of the best poached salmon I’ve ever had. Jamie was our server and she made our night feel very special.

I don’t know that I am a foodie but I do know that I love food. I have learned the best way to learn about a resturant is to trust your Server and Chef. Tonight that proved to be the best choice our waitress Jamie was wonderful she seem a little off put, but went with it anyway, when I said I’d like to trust Chef and whatever he wants to make I’ll eat (some Chefs love and some Chefs hate this) you also have to be an adventurous eater. I will say I am an adventurous eater although picky because I’ve eaten some amazing food. Chef took what I feel was a bold choice and served me scallops and my husband (who followed my lead and did chefs choice) had a (l think) skirt steak I apologize if I’m wrong I was terribly excited about the scallops. Jamie was wonderfully attentive and helpful when ever we had any questions.
Before I go off on a food tangent I do want to say I am in the industry and thus have high expectations. I was blown away by the attention to detail and service we recieved. Thank you to our Chef, Server and Management for making our experience a first class adventure.
For appetizers we ordered the quail knots and the steak fries.
Quail knots– Simply fantastic they are done in a crunchy orange sauce. Being a fan of quail we were impressed I was a little off put by the orange sauce but was pleasantly surprised once I tasted it.
Steak Fries– Wonderful, and the dipping sauce was again house made .
Scallops– I always fear ordering scallops because unfortunately they can be over cooked or under cooked. I was not disappointed! The scallops were perfectly cooked. Not to mention they were layed atop asperagus another item I am finicky about I don’t like my asperagus over cooked I like it a little crunchy and simply prepared. I highly commend the Chef on this plate everything was perfectly cooked and not over sauced or seasoned, a very natural and well paired plate.
Steak– Again wow, perfectly cook and not over seasoned served with side of a to die for gorgonzola sauce.
The pasta (spaghetti?) — My girlfriend ordered this it was her choice and it was a good one. The pasta is handmade along with the the sauce and the way the meat is prepared. It had chunks of garlic like whole cloves! To us this is amazing we love garlic everything about garlic the more the better.
After our meal the Chef was kind enough to stop by our table and chat for a few we at the point sung our praise to him for being so creative and allowing us to let him select our meals. He at this point talked us into dessert I mean he really had to twist our arms… okay not really. We also got to chatting about other specials that he is adventurous enough to serve.
Now I know this isn’t for everyone but for those of us who know and love Foie Gras I highly recommend trying it here, we were lucky enough to be able to try this tonight and we’re BLOWN away it was a mouthgasim yes I said mouthgasim. I could use word like delectable, ambrosia or astonishing but mouthgasim seems perfect. To put it simply it was it was like melted butter but better. My girlfriend who is not an adventurous eater but is sometimes willing to try had it for the first time ever and absolutely loved it. We also learned that he does bone marrow we weren’t able to try this tonight but will be back to try it.
Now on to the dessert. It’s sometimes hard to describe perfection but I think he found it in this. I couldn’t tell you exactly what was in it but what I think is it was a dense cake with white chocolate and berries that I believe had a salted carmel and mixed berries sauce. Fantastic and again an enexpected pleasure.
Tonight was a devine surprise of unexpected oral pleasures.
I want to say Thank You to the whole staff you were all absolutely wonderful and took impeccable care of us this evening. We will be returning and often recommending others to come and enjoy your unique understanding of food. Your idea of farm to table is perfectly placed in your almost green house like setting.
Chef you are a culinary artist and we will be returning.
Thank you.

Perched on top of the hill with surrounding vineyards, sheep grazing and clouds dancing lies the Meritage Restaurant. Everyone from the General Manager to the chef to Jamie our server care that you like the wine, like the food and like your experience. The food is unique and beautifully plated. But the flavors need a bit more work to get a 5 star out of this foodie. We recommend Duck Confit Tacos for $ 17 and be sure to visit when the group ABQ is playing.
We will go back!

Love this place. Food is great, consistent updates and quality food specials. You can’t beat the view and when you go during the spring, when the vines are full, it’s tranquil and peaceful. The main reason we like this place so much is their amazing sangria! It’s delicious.
There is only 1 downside but not enough to give them a 4. There is one waiter who kind of sucks, he is not attentive, very forgetful, and somehow we always get him when we go. We have to ask him for the specials rather than be told what they have, he will ask us if we would like bread, but it never comes, and we typically wait longer when he is the server.
Either way, this place is great and if you want a relaxing and peaceful environment go here. Unless there is a band playing haha.

Great service, Jamie is a great server and the fools was delish. We will definitely come back.
Perfect.

When we walked into the winery’s tasting room we saw a sign for pizza. Oh man, who can resist? Towards the end of our tasting, we decided to order a pizza. While we were standing around the bar, we got to the «damn, I’m hungry» state and decided to try their restaurant. Of course, we checked Unilocal reviews first and decided that some of the 1-​star reviews seemed really unfair. We wanted to try out the restaurant for ourselves and be judgey.
We told the tasting room that we’ll be having our pizza at the restaurant and walked over. When we got in, the staff greeted us with a smile and said our pizza will be right out. Seamless service.
Let me tell you about the location. It is breathtaking. It is set up like a sunroom so it has that «are you indoors or outdoors?» feel. It has the wonderful, full panorama, uninterrupted view of the vineyard and Temeculan landscape with the not-​too-​hot, not-​too-​cold temperature control of the great indoors. The glass is so damn clean that I had to reach my finger out to make sure it was there.
Our server was very knowledgeable about the menu and gave great recommendations. The food was tasty. I would definitely recommend all the dishes we ordered: Three Cheese Pizza, Foie Gras (on the special menu), Ceviche, Lamp Chops, and Berry Cake Trifle. The menu is likely different when you go so order what sounds delicious, because it probably will be. The executive chef Josh came out to see how our meal was going which is always a nice gesture.
This is a great place to go for a romantic dinner. If you want to impress a date, I would head to the tasting room for a bit and then sit down for romantic dinner about half an hour before sunset. Then you can stare in your date’s lovely eyes as the sun dips below the horizon while the live band plays in the background.
Enjoy!

This place was REALLY good! I absolutely LOVED the food! And the servers were extremely friendly! The view of the vineyard is really nice too! Who wouldn’t want to have lunch with a view? I would totally come here again and then head over to the Callaway Winery for tastings!

This place was great! Service, food and ambiance was all on point. Our server, Jon, was very friendly and saw to our every need without asking. I got the Caprese sandwich special with a salad and fried potato wedges. So big I couldn’t finish it! I wanted some ketchup so another employee, Kenneth, told us «I will take care of you».
He brought out homemade ketchup and a wonderful garlic dipping sauce. REALLY good.
Because my mother-​in-​law mentioned she was taking me for my birthday lunch, Jon brought out the most amazing rose petal crème brûlée, the likes of which I have never tasted. If I lived closer, I would go back for that alone!
Prices were reasonable and the view of the vineyards was fantastic, make this a stop during your next wine tasting trip!

We had a delightful meal here. It is a beautiful setting as you almost feel as though you are sitting in a greenhouse with misters going full blast. There are herbs and flowers everywhere. The views of the vineyards are outstanding from almost any seat. I had the pasta with meatballs and it was a gigantic portion of which everyone had a bite. My husband had the grilled angus hanger steak, and again it was delicious and a very large portion. It was just a wonderful meal. We had a couple bottles of the Cabernet at very reasonable bottle prices. It was an evening to remember.

I really wanted to give Meritage more stars but they fell far short of my expectations for service and food quality.
Started off with a few pitchers of Sangria. Decent, but not great. It seemed a bit watered down with ice and didn’t really pack the punch or flavor I was expecting.
The ladybug and I doubled with an old buddy and his co-​worker, who happened to be in town on business. We ordered the hummus appetizer which came with crusty bread. When I say crusty, the bread was at its stalest point in life. Terrible.
The rest of our meals were fairly unmemorable and the service was severely lacking. The view was nice but not worth the trip or the expense.
I had the Grilled Angus Hanger Steak with Chimichurri, Steak Fries & Green Beans. The steak was tough and fattier than I would have expected. The cut was pretty bad and I’m surprised anyone would serve it a paying customer.
This place has a lot of potential, but I’d scared to give them a second chance on my own dime.

I’ve been here twice so far and I’m really not a fan.
The location is prime and the view is phenomenal. That’s just about all this restaurant has to offer.
We had the same waiter both times and he should really not be a waiter. He’s not good at it. He had all the specials written down to explain to us. What I didn’t like was he said there was this brownie pudding dessert. What came out was a cinnamon raisin bread pudding. Not what we were expecting. The service was extremely slow and he didn’t really check to see how we were doing. He also brought out the dessert with no utensils. Everything was cleared off our table then they disappear right after they give us food. It’s very hard to get their attention here.
Some of the food was ok and some was just horrible. I think that restaurants should explain the spicy level of the food before explaining it to customers. I can’t handle some spicy food and I had really bad heart burn after taking a bite of my niece’s salad. It was one of their specials. I downed my water because it was so spicy for my taste.
The calamari has a kick as well but it wasn’t as bad.
The potato steak fries were ok. The cream was pretty good on that.
They have these pork belly tacos which were ok but I probably won’t order it again.
The ceviche was delicious.
They had this zucchini pork belly polenta special dish the evening I went and that was amazing. It should be a regular menu item.
The desserts change every day so I was disappointed this layered berry dessert wasn’t being offered again.
The wine was ok. Ordered a Cabernet the first time and a Syrah the second time. Nothing amazing that makes the tastes stand out. It’s a strong taste but that’s about it. I like it when waiters explain the tastes of wine but the staff here doesn’t do that.
I recommend catching the sunset here. That’s about it.

Although we didn’t stop at the winery side, the restaurant is worthy of going to in and of itself. It’s absolutely beautiful here.
Our table shared pork belly tacos, prosciutto & arugula flatbread, penne with meatballs, goat cheese salad and the ham, mushroom & fried egg sandwich.
The pork belly tacos were loaded with flavor and totally delicious. Penne with meatballs was amazing. The sauce and meatballs were so fresh and really good. I would get those when I go back. The ham sandwich was good, but dry, so I asked for a aioli and that really helped. The combination of ham, mushroom, egg and cheese seemed weird, but once I tried it, it really worked. Especially with the peppercorn aioli.
I wasn’t a fan of the iced tea because it has a weird flavor to it that I wasn’t expecting, but besides that and the price ($ 18 for ham sandwich), I have no real complaints about this place. The view was amazing and I can’t wait to come back on a date!

The setting is outstanding over looking the vineyard.
The food is also pretty good. We tried the veal, beef and ricotta meatballs over rigatoni and the“Pescatore” spaghettini with shrimp, clams, calamari and tuna sauteed with olive oil, garlic, saffron and roasted tomato. The meatballs were tasty and tender. The spaghettini was loaded with seafood.
If there is one major plus, it is the portions. You will have plenty to eat to soak up that wine.