Napa and Sonoma Restaurants

Farm-to-table Modern American cuisine is the prevalent style in the Napa Valley and Sonoma County, but this encompasses both the delicate preparations of Yountville’s Thomas Keller, whose restaurants include The French Laundry, and the upscale comfort food served throughout the Wine Country. The quality (and hype) often means high prices, but you can find appealing, inexpensive eateries, especially in Napa, Calistoga, Sonoma, and Santa Rosa.

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  • 1. Cook St. Helena

    $$

    A curved marble bar spotlit by contemporary art-glass pendants adds a touch of style to this downtown restaurant whose northern Italian cuisine pleases with understated sophistication. Mussels with house-made sausage in a spicy tomato broth, chopped salad with pancetta and pecorino, and the daily changing risotto are among the dishes regulars revere.

    1310 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-963–7088

    Known For

    • Top-quality ingredients
    • Reasonably priced local and international wines
    • Intimate dining

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Closed weekends
  • 2. Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch

    $$$

    In a high-ceilinged former barn with plenty of outside seating, Farmstead revolves around an open kitchen whose chefs prepare meals with grass-fed beef and lamb, fruits and vegetables, and eggs, olive oil, wine, honey, and other ingredients from nearby Long Meadow Ranch. Entrées might include wood-grilled trout with fennel and bacon-mustard vinaigrette; caramelized beets with goat cheese and chimichurri; or a wood-grilled heritage pork chop with jalapeño grits.

    738 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-963–4555

    Known For

    • Heritage St. Louis–style ribs
    • Sunday brunch
    • On-site general store, café, and Long Meadow Wines tasting space
  • 3. Gatehouse Restaurant

    $$$$

    Gung-ho Culinary Institute of America students in their final semester run this excellent if unheralded restaurant in a historic stone structure. A solid value, the three- or four-course prix-fixe meals—oft-changing, nicely plated dishes—emphasize local ingredients, some so local they're grown on-site or nearby.

    2555 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-967–2300

    Known For

    • Passionate service
    • Many repeat customers
    • Optional wine pairings

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Closed Sun. and Mon. and during semester breaks (check website or call for updates). No lunch
  • 4. Press

    $$$$

    For years this cavernous casual-chic restaurant with a contempo-barn interior and wraparound patio steps from neighboring vineyards was northern Napans' preferred stop for a top-shelf cocktail, dry-aged steak, and high-90s-scoring local Cabernet. You can still order a tomahawk or New York strip, but chef Philip Tessier, formerly of Yountville's The French Laundry and Bouchon Bistro and New York City's Le Bernardin, has introduced more refined cuisine, much of whose produce is grown nearby.

    587 St. Helena Hwy./Hwy. 29, St. Helena, California, 95474, USA
    707-967–0550

    Known For

    • Impressive craft cocktails for pairing with dozen-plus apps
    • Wine Spectator Grand Award for wide-ranging list
    • Prix-fixe tasting menu highly recommended

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: No lunch, Reservations essential
  • 5. Acacia House

    $$$$

    Inside the bright-white 1907 Georgian-style structure anchoring the otherwise contemporary Alila Napa Valley resort, Acacia House serves ambitious cuisine—sea urchin cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta), perhaps, or jamón ibérico schnitzel—that generally lives up to the elegant setting. At lunch, the chefs, who source ingredients from top purveyors (the quality duly reflected in the prices), also turn out comfort fare like avocado toast with trout and a burger with slow-cooked tomato and caramelized onion.

    1915 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-963–9004

    Known For

    • Special-occasion feel
    • Lounge menu 3–5
    • Wraparound patio on a sunny day
  • Recommended Fodor’s Video

  • 6. Brasswood Bar + Bakery + Kitchen

    $$$

    After Napa Valley fixture Tra Vigne lost its lease, many staffers regrouped a few miles north at the restaurant (the titular Kitchen) of the Brasswood complex, which also includes a bakery, shops, and a wine-tasting room. Along with dishes developed for the new location, the chefs incorporate Tra Vigne favorites such as mozzarella-stuffed arancini (rice balls) into the Mediterranean-leaning menu.

    3111 St. Helena Hwy. N, St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-302–5101

    Known For

    • Mostly Napa-Sonoma wine list
    • Bakery a good lunch stop for pizzas, salads, and sandwiches
    • Patio seating
  • 7. Clif Family Bruschetteria Food Truck

    $

    Although it ventures out for special events, this walk-up food truck serving Italian-inflected fast food has a steady gig outside the Clif Family Tasting Room. From 11:30 to 4 (until 6 on Wednesday), order salads, panini, or a falafel, mushroom, pork, or vegetarian bruschetta to go or to enjoy in the tasting room or on its back patio.

    1284 Vidovich Ave., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-968–0625-for tasting room

    Known For

    • Soups and salads
    • Many organic ingredients
    • Wednesday's international street food menu

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Closed Mon. and Tues. No dinner
  • 8. Crisp Kitchen & Juice

    $$

    "Elevate Your Everyday" glows a neon side at Crisp, whose spanking-clean interior mirrors the pristine food—avocado toast, beet-cured salmon tartine, breakfast and lunch bowls, and inventive juices, soups, broths, and smoothies—this health-oriented café serves. The location next to Sunshine Market (easy parking out front) may lack glamour, but the place exudes wellness, and the menu acknowledges the requirements of vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores alike.

    1111 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-657–4444

    Known For

    • Build-your-own granola bowls, breakfast sandwiches, and morning porridge
    • Grab-and-go bowls and salads
    • Wellness and superfood lattes (regular coffee drinks, too)

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Closed Sun. No dinner
  • 9. Goose & Gander

    $$$$

    A Craftsman bungalow whose 1920s owner reportedly used the cellar for bootlegging during Prohibition houses this restaurant where the pairing of food and drink is as likely to involve a craft cocktail as a sommelier-selected wine. Main courses such as wood-grilled chicken or salmon, wet-aged black Angus rib eye, and the grass-fed G&G burger with Gruyère follow starters that might include corn croquettes, sticky pig ears, and harissa sausage with fry bread and baba ghanoush.

    1245 Spring St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-967–8779

    Known For

    • Intimate main dining room with fireplace
    • Alfresco patio dining
    • Basement bar among Napa's best watering holes

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: No lunch
  • 10. Gott's Roadside

    $

    A 1950s-style outdoor hamburger stand goes upscale at this spot whose customers brave long lines to order breakfast sandwiches, juicy burgers, root-beer floats, and garlic fries. Choices not available a half century ago include ahi-tuna and Impossible burgers and kale and Vietnamese chicken salads.

    933 Main St./Hwy. 29, St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-963–3486

    Known For

    • Tasty 21st-century diner cuisine
    • Shaded picnic tables (arrive early or late for lunch to get one)
    • Second branch at Napa's Oxbow Public Market

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Reservations not accepted
  • 11. Market

    $$$

    Ernesto Martinez, this easy-going eatery's Mexico City–born chef and co-owner, often puts a Latin spin on farm-to-table American classics. Although he plays things straight with the Caesar salad, champagne-battered fish-and-chips, and baby back ribs, the organic fried chicken comes with cheddar-jalapeño corn bread, and the fried calamari owes its piquancy to the accompanying peppers, nopales cactus, chipotle aioli, and avocado-tomatillo dip.

    1347 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-963–3799

    Known For

    • Dependable cuisine
    • Full bar
    • Wine-and-small-bites happy hour weekdays 3–6

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Closed Sun. and Mon.
  • 12. Model Bakery

    $ | Coffee

    Thanks to multiple plugs by Oprah, each day's fresh batch of English muffins here sells out quickly, but the scones, croissants, breads, and other baked goods also inspire. Breakfast brings pastries and sandwiches with scrambled eggs, cheddar, and bacon between a buttermilk biscuit; the lunch menu expands to include soups, salads, pizzas, and more sandwiches—turkey-pesto focaccia, ciabatta chicken-Asiago panini, and vegan veggies among them.

    1357 Main St., St. Helena, California, 95474, USA
    707-963–8192

    Known For

    • Signature English muffins
    • People-watching at outdoor tables
    • Yountville and downtown Napa satellite locations

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: No dinner
  • 13. The Charter Oak

    $$$

    Christopher Kostow's reputation rests on his swoonworthy haute cuisine for the Meadowood resort, but he and his Charter Oak team adopt a more straightforward approach—fewer ingredients chosen for maximum effect—at this high-ceilinged, brown-brick downtown restaurant. With exceedingly fresh produce from Meadowood's nearby farm, this strategy might translate into dishes like red kuri squash with pickled peppers, almonds, and goat cheese; or pork collar with fermented pepper jam (or just go for the cheeseburger and thick hand-cut fries).

    1050 Charter Oak Ave., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-302–6996

    Known For

    • Monthly changing wings appetizer
    • Patio dining in brick courtyard
    • Weekday happy hour 2:30–5
  • 14. The Station

    $

    Joel Gott of nearby Gott's Roadside purchased a downtown gas station and kept the pumps humming, spiffing up the interior retro style and adding shaded outdoor seating. Start the day with quiche, a chipotle-bacon and egg biscuit, or avocado-and-egg or cinnamon-sugar toast, or drop by for lunch wraps, grain bowls, salads, focaccia, and sandwiches.

    1153 Main St., St. Helena, California, 94574, USA
    707-963–3356

    Known For

    • Morning pastries
    • Grab-and-go items
    • Locally sourced ingredients

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: No dinner
  • 15. Tra Vigne Pizzeria and Restaurant

    $$

    Crisp, thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizzas—among them the unusual Positano, with sautéed shrimp, crescenza cheese, and fried lemons—are the specialties of this family-friendly offshoot of the famous, now departed, Tra Vigne restaurant. Hand-pulled mozzarella and a few other Tra Vigne dishes are on the menu, along with the salads, pizzas, and pastas.

    1016 Main St., St. Helena, California, USA
    707-967–9999

    Known For

    • Well-priced oysters at happy hour (4–6)
    • Relaxed atmosphere
    • Create-your-own-pizza option

    Restaurant Details

    Rate Includes: Reservations not accepted

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