The Culinary Institute of America Reviews

An incredible experience from start to finish! My husband and I were looking for a place to host our one year anniversary dinner (sort of like a belated wedding reception but more chill), and wanted the focus to be on good food and good conversation. The event coordinator, Amy, was a delight to work with from planning to day of. She was great at understanding our needs, communicating with us what was possible within the budget we provided, and she was just all around a lovely person to work with. The day of we had another coordinator who was just as wonderful, and kindly wrangled some guests who had managed to find themselves outside of our designated space. The actual kitchen and serving staff were attentive and we received nothing but the highest compliments on them. A big thank you to the bartender who made one of the best Aperol Spritz I've ever had in my entire life (they were a hit with a very picky spritz crowd). I cannot recommend the Culinary Institute enough, it was truly the perfect venue and we will definitely be going back there to celebrate our future milestone anniversaries with them!

My husband & I are both foodies! Our favorite place in our house is the kitchen. We have taken several cooking classes at CIA & love the venue. We were so delighted to find out that the do weddings there. Andrea was a joy to work with. She listed to our needs, was super responsive & flexible & just plain awesome. I could not have dreamed of a more perfect venue in wine country to start our lives together. Our friends and family are still talking about how amazing the food was.

Wow! Greystone did a fabulous job of making our daughter’s wedding an event to remember. The food for 185 people was delicious; the service was beyond attentive; and the professionalism of the staff was outstanding. No need to look elsewhere. This is a 10 stars out of 5 venue.

Could not say more nice things about this place. Every single person we worked with here was incredible in every way: responsiveness, helpful, clear, professional, kind, and accommodating. Even the wait and service staff on the day off went above and beyond for us. Hugely grateful to everyone, and especially Andrea, Sonia, and Ursula for all their help (and patience) coordinating the event.

But even moreso: the space itself is both massive, varied, and gorgeous. The different shots we were able to get with our photographer makes it seem like we went to different parts of Napa just to get the shots. It was an absolutely stunning place to get married, and we could not be happier.

Finally, the food: likely the best wedding food we've ever had, and according to our guests, the best they've ever had as well. Even just the food during cocktail hour got high praise from otherwise picky family members. The place truly loves up to his name, and the Chef and pastry Chef did an absolutely amazing job (wish I could remember their names, but even during our tastings, they were incredibly kind and helpful).

We could not have been happier with going with this place, truly.

Our wedding took place on Saturday, Nov 2nd, 2019 at the CIA at Greystone.

Venue: This venue is an absolute dream. It is incredibly unique and the barrel room is gorgeous if you light it up with plighting and tons of candles. Our guests loved that our event was at the CIA and many came early to check out the CIA/take a tour/check out the gift shop! Also, this venue allows for a great mix of outside/inside events for your special day. We did our ceremony and cocktail hour outside and our reception inside. This made is easy to ensure our guests were never too hot or cold. You should note that there is no direct sunlight on the front terrace after about 4pm (depending on the time of year) so your guests are unlikely to be sitting there sweating.

One of the initial reasons we loved this venue was because there was a “built in” back up plan. The year before there were fires during this time, and we wanted to make sure the venue could accommodate the entire wedding inside if needed. Fortunately for us, the smoke on our wedding day was limited and we could host our event outside/inside as originally planned, but it was comforting to know we had options. The venue also has a backup generator in the case of a power outage.

Food: The food will be even better at your event than you or your guests will expect. When we came in our out tasting, the chef sat with us as we discussed some special tweaks, and he was not only willing, but excited to be working with us. Our our wedding day, the food was as good (if not better) than at our tasting. Have you ever heard of a wedding where the fish is actually just as good at the steak?!

Another special part of the CIA was working with the pastry chef on the cake. The pastry chef was very eager to bring my vision to life and made all the different accommodates I requested. Of course the cake was also AMAZINGLY delicious. Also, the pastry chef WAS THERE ON OUR WEDDING DAY to make sure everything was set up perfectly AND to help cut slices and such. That to me, is unheard-of and very special.

Alcohol: BYOB! The CIA allowed BYOB for our wedding which is unique in Napa Valley. This was incredibly important for us because we wanted to bring some special bottles for our guests, and simply paid corkage vs. a highly marked up per bottle fee. The venue did a fantastic job facilitating our wine and ensuring our guests never had an empty glass.

Support Staff: We LOVE Andrea. From start to finish, Andrea was supportive of every crazy idea we had, and made the whole experience fun from start to finish. Never at any point did we feel as if our event wasn’t her #1 priority, which is impressive considering how busy the CIA is :) Also, the week leading up to our wedding we were unsure if we even be able to have our wedding at the CIA because of the fire threat/smoke/evacuations. Throughout the entire process, Andrea was continually checking in with us and doing everything in per power to ensure we felt calm and supported. This made the BIGGEST difference and we cannot thank her event.

The day of event staff were also amazing and were checking in with us continually to ensure we were having the best time, which we did!

Overall impressions: The CIA at Greystone is worth every single penny. Napa Valley weddings can be incredibly expensive, but every thing we spent money on at the CIA seemed to be a fair and reasonable cost. Looking back, I would 100% have my wedding here again and hope I can find a reason someday to throw another event here :)

Lastly, quick shoutout to our other amazing and highly recommended vendors:

Bre Thurston (photography)
Denon and Doyle (sound, DJ, lighting, photo booth)
Vanda Floral (floral decor)

My husband and I had our wedding at Copia in August. It was nothing short of amazing! We had a small group (50) and most places we looked at had a minimum charge of 80-100 people. We came across Copia online and discovered they had an elopement wedding package. This was the best find ever!! Instead of charging a pricey venue fee, they charge per person. The package included florals, wedding cake, buffet style dinner, tables, linens, chairs, and drinks. We added signature cocktails and beer for an additional cost, but wine and champagne were included. Everything was beautiful and the event went seamless the day of. The wedding coordinator, Lisa, was great and always took care of any questions and concerns we had. This is a highly recommended wedding venue! They are experts at hosting events and of course, cooking! All of our guests are still staying how good the food was. Check this place out if you're hosting a small wedding!

Wonderful reception location! They did an amazing job from the staff, food and venue. The pictures are amazing! A lot of history in this building. Such a please to work with. The service was amazing and all of our guests are still talking about the food. Amazing night for all!!! So glad we found it and everything worked out perfectly!

This was our dream venue, delicious food and the service was amazing!
I dealt with Eileen and Molly and both were fabulous!
The Chef and Pastry Chef allowed us to make our own menu and everything was delicious!
They made everything very easy and memorable!
Everyone is still talking about how wonderful it was!
I highly recommend them!

We had a most wonderful wedding at the CIA. Molly, our CIA wedding coordinator is fantastic. The food is brilliant.

While we ultimately had a great wedding day at the Culinary Institute, working with them definitely had some ups and downs. The food was great, the space was one of a kind, they were very flexible in accommodating our requests to use all outdoor spaces and provide gender-neutral restrooms, and the pricing was reasonable. However, the event management team seemingly had quite a bit of churn over the course of the year that we worked with them, and communication was spotty at times, including during the weeks leading up to the wedding (which undoubtedly fell during a busy period). On the day of the wedding, there was a pretty substantial service backup that led to our dancing time being roughly an hour shorter than we had planned. On the whole, we’re very glad we had our wedding here. But in our experience it can be a challenging venue to work with if your event falls during the peak wedding season.

We selected the CIA because of it's dramatic architecture, stellar food and alcohol selection, and the "built in" services. On those counts, we were not let down.

The Chef and his team are open to making just about everything and anything you can imagine. When we had our tasting, we were blown away by the quality of each and every dish. We were concerned how they could execute such perfect dishes at scale, but we were not disappointed. The food on our wedding day was just as perfect as it was at the tasting.

Included in a contract with the CIA are lots of great "add ons". For example, the wedding cake, linens (they have a contract with La Tavola linens), glassware, flatware, tables of various sizes and shapes, and chairs are all included. This simply streamlines the whole wedding planning process.

My only issue in dealing with the CIA was the events manager. She was highly unresponsive via email and phone, which was frustrating and stress-inducing, particularly the closer we came to the event. I often had to ask questions multiple times before she would answer them -- sometimes addressing some questions in an email and completely ignoring others. She was also fairly unorganized for an events manager. During our menu planning and menu tasting meetings, we reviewed choices that had been made in terms of lay out, decor, etc. In both meetings, she had wrong information or didn't remember/hadn't documented choices we made earlier. Her disorganization and lack of responsiveness made me particularly nervous.

In the end, everything went off as planned and was exquisitely beautiful, but, I'm not sure how much of this to chalk up to the CIA or our kick ass wedding planner. Regardless, having a more professional, organized event manager would have made the whole experience much more enjoyable.

Overall, I would absolutely recommend the CIA for a wedding, but give fair warning on the potential frustrations of dealing with the event manager.