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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.
Chef Ari Weiswasser honed his craft at The French Laundry, Daniel, and other bastions of culinary finesse, but his Sonoma Valley outpost revolves around haute-rustic cuisine, much of it emerging from a wood-fired oven. In 2022, Weiswasser turned the day-to-day reins over to a new chef de cuisine, but the mainstay crisp-crusted, richly sauced Margherita and other pizzas continue to thrive in the oven's torrid heat, as do tender whole fish entrées and vegetables roasted in small iron skillets.
Shortly after graduating from a local college's culinary program, chef Carlos Mojica opened this warmly lit Latin American–Caribbean restaurant with a handful of tables inside and out. Loyalists pine for enchiladas with salsa verde and pupusas (corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and pork or vegetables), a prelude to signature entrées like pescado en salsa con coco (fish in sweet coconut) and Caribbean-style paella suffused with smoky-garlicky tomato broth.
Pizza and pastries are the specialties of this tiny restaurant whose owner-chefs, Jim and Michele Wimborough, forsook their fancy big-city gigs for the pleasures of small-town living. Jim's mushroom pizza, adorned with feta, mozzarella, and truffle oil, and the pie with sausage and egg are among the headliners, with Michele's chocolate pot de crème among the enticements for dessert.
Asian tapestries, Nepalese tunes, images of precipitous peaks, and the fragrant scent of curries transport patrons of this storefront restaurant to the Himalayas, at least for an hour. Locals enamored of the flavorful cuisine and solicitous service often pack the place for dinner, served indoors and on the adjoining patio.
From the limestone floor to the cedar walls and cypress tabletops, most of the materials used to build this downtown Napa restaurant specializing in seasonally changing multicourse kaiseki meals were imported from Japan, as was the ceramic dinnerware. Delicate preparations of eel, abalone, bluefin tuna, and slow-roasted Wagyu tenderloin are typical of the offerings on the prix-fixe menu, which also includes impeccably fresh, artistically presented sashimi and sushi courses.
The chefs behind this open-kitchen storefront eatery have mastered the art of fusing northern Thai and Northern California techniques without sacrificing authenticity. Hits such as whole fried chili-pepper fish, green papaya salad, and spicy and sour seafood curry captivate even before the first bite with their fragrant aromas, colorful presentation, and obviously fresh locally cultivated ingredients.
Todd Humphries has overseen swank haute-cuisine kitchens in Manhattan, San Francisco, and the Napa Valley, but he focuses on multicultural comfort plates at his high-ceilinged industrial-contemporary restaurant downtown. The signature dishes include a silky cream of mushroom soup, flatbreads, pho, Thai fisherman's stew, duck banh mi sandwiches (go for the voluptuous duck jus add-on), and sweet, spicy, and succulent chicken wings among many other crowd-pleasers that keep this place hopping even in the off-season.
Chef Ken Frank's La Toque is the complete package: his French-inspired cuisine, served in a formal dining space, is complemented by a wine lineup that consistently earns the restaurant a coveted Wine Spectator Grand Award. Ingredients appearing on the à la carte and prix-fixe tasting menus often include caviar, Alaskan halibut, Wagyu beef, and rich cheeses in dishes prepared and seasoned to pair with wines jointly chosen by the chefs and master sommelier.
Born in the Azores and raised in Sonoma, chef-owner Manuel Azevedo serves cuisine inspired by his native Portugal in this warmly decorated spot with a heated patio out front. The wood-oven whole-roasted fish is always worth trying, and there are usually boldly flavored pork dishes, along with a casserole, pot roast, stew, salted cod, and other hearty fare.
A bright-yellow slice of France in downtown Glen Ellen, this combination pâtisserie, boulangerie, and café takes its name from its husband-and-wife owners, Pascal and Pascale Merle. Pascal whips up croissants, breads, turnovers, and sweet treats like Napoleons, galettes, and eclairs, along with quiches, potpies, and other savory fare; Pascale creates a cordial environment for customers to enjoy them.
Christopher Kostow gained fame as the award-winning chef of the Restaurant at Meadowood, the essence of Napa Valley haute fine dining, but the fare and mood are more down-to-earth at the order-at-the-counter deli he and his marketing-whiz wife, Martina Kostow, opened at the Oxbow Public Market. Bagels and bagel sandwiches anchor the breakfast menu, with pastrami and smoked-whitefish-salad sandwiches appearing for lunch and early dinner, along with matzoh ball soup, latkes, and other stalwarts.
A vintage-style neon sign outside this bungalow restaurant announces "Great Food," and the chefs deliver with well-plated dishes served in two buildings, one a Craftsman gem, or on street-side patios that are especially festive during weekend brunch. The offerings at women-owned and -run Lovina change often, but a recent menu's roasted Cornish hen, lobster and prawn risotto, and seared wild halibut with gnocchi and wild mushrooms are typical of the imaginative cuisine.
Seasonal pies including blood-orange custard with graham-cracker crust are the specialty of this white-walled, brightly lit pie palace with a few tables and barstool window seating. The bakers use heritage grains like buckwheat and farro in the crusts, filling them with local fruits and other ingredients, and, if desired, topping the ensemble with ice cream in flavors from Swiss chocolate and vanilla bean to Thai tea, salted caramel, and almond cardamom.
Northern Thailand–born chef-owner Lalita Souksamlane decorated her Wine Country restaurant with the same upscale flair—Thai wall ornaments, ornate wallpaper, cushy leatherette chairs, quartz tables adorned with roses—as her longtime San Francisco flagship. Beyond the aesthetic pleasure the decor provides, it also signals that in their delicacy and finesse her aromatic, flavorful entrées (some garnished with orchids) are on a par with similarly bedecked fine-dining establishments.
Delicate pastries and quiches, croques monsieur, and other bistro bites have made locals as passionate about this Highway 116 café as its executive and pastry chefs, who previously worked at establishments in Paris, San Francisco, and elsewhere, are about their cuisine and hospitality. Pastel-green walls, a wood-burning stove, and tables from reclaimed wood lend the small interior space a French-country feel; on sunny days the best seating is on the wooden deck outside.
Regulars of this southern Petaluma "daytime café" with indoor and outdoor seating rave about its eastern Mediterranean–inflected cuisine—then immediately downplay their enthusiasm lest this unassuming gem become more popular. The menu changes often, but mainstays include shakshuka (a tomato-based stew with baked eggs) and a lamb burger dripping with fennel tzatziki.
A longtime member of the United States Pizza Team, chef-owner Leah Scurto has won national and international awards for creations like the Mush-a-Roni (pepperoni, cremini), the Nico (olive oil, mozzarella, roasted garlic, Parmesan), and the spicy Old Grey Beard (two kinds of cheese, sausage, Calabrian peppers, honey, orange zest). She serves her pies—plus salads, calzones, meatballs, and a few other items—in a minimally decorated strip-mall storefront with a spacious entryway patio.
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.
Even restaurateurs as famous as Thomas Keller test out concepts via pop-ups, though in retrospect his pairing of mostly French sparkling wines with caviar from a company (Regiis Ova) the chef co-owns was always destined for permanent glory. Intended as a palate-cleansing pit stop between Cab tasting and dinner, the place, furnished in insouciant, faintly decadent style by Bay Area celeb designer Ken Fulk, tempts patrons to stay put, order more bubbly and roe, and call it a meal.
Possibly the most romantic roost for brunch, lunch, or dinner in all the Wine Country is a terrace seat at the Auberge du Soleil resort's illustrious restaurant, and the Mediterranean-inflected cuisine more than matches the dramatic vineyard views. The prix-fixe dinner menu (three or four courses), relying mainly on local produce, might include caviar or diver scallop starters, delicately prepared fish or vegetable middle-course options, and mains like prime beef pavé with béarnaise, spiced lamb loin, or Japanese Wagyu A5.
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