195 Best Restaurants in Napa and Sonoma, California

The owner-chef at this industrial-looking high-ceilinged spot pushes the envelope with crowd-pleasers like the 15-spice spare ribs with hoisin barbecue sauce and salmon tartare tacos with crispy wonton shells. He and his team also present sushi classics with style, the intricacy enticing as much as the freshness of the primarily local ingredients.

The scent of waffle cones baking draws patrons into this family-run parlor serving artisanal ice cream made fresh daily. Peach melba, Oreos and cream, and salted caramel are among the alternating flavors that include sorbets and sometimes sherbets, and always vegan options.

Sonoma dining—or nibbling, given the portion sizes—received a boost when Azores-born chef Manuel Azevedo opened this retro-contempo tavern dedicated to small Portuguese bites. Dividing his menu into five parts—Cheese, Garden, Sea, Land, Sweet—Azevedo, who also owns the nearby restaurant LaSalette, serves everything from hearty caldo verde stew, pork sliders, smoked duck breast, and salted codfish cakes to São Jorge cheese topped with marmalade.

At this storefront a block north of Healdsburg Plaza, Japanese-style prints and furniture offset the mildly industrial feel of this combination tea shop and café whose light comfort cuisine includes ramen and mini rice bowls. The chef’s-special miso ramen contains barbecue pork, shoyu-marinated egg, fish cake, bamboo shoots, tofu, sprouts, and nori; gyoza and salmon top two spicier variations.

The owners of a local-fave tri-tip food trolley opened this comfort-food restaurant in a 90-year-old building originally a gas station and later an inn. In addition to tri-tip, the New Orleans–inspired menu consists of small bites like white-cheddar grits and larger bites that include smoke-braised short ribs, steelhead trout, fried chicken, and a grass-fed burger with cheese and tomato jam.

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 favorites are on the menu, along with salads, pizzas, and pasta dishes.

A clean, white-walled nook ideal for a seafood-oriented lunch or light dinner, Trillium serves oysters raw or cooked (some of the latter pepped up with jalapeño or chipotle bourbon butter), a heavy-cream seafood chowder, hamachi crudo, tinned-fish platters, and a show-stopping crab roll on house-made brioche. The wines range from ones produced down the street to European and South American bottlings; the draft beer selection tilts Californian.

Clam shacks and roadside eateries of days gone by inspired this order-at-the-counter covered-patio restaurant serving ceviche, fried oysters, Louis salads, crab sandwiches, spicy tuna bowls, fish-and-chips, and other seafood-oriented comfort food. Despite the lack of a place to swim, a carefree summer-at-the-pool vibe prevails at this second venture by the Valley Bar + Bottle team, whose penchant for wines from eco-minded, family-owned, small-batch producers shows in the well-priced list here.

A Cali take on a Peruvian cevicheria, this downtown Santa Rosa restaurant with exposed-brick walls and a dizzying tile floor beguiles patrons with nimbly spiced ceviches, empanadas, and other starters that demand one of the two-dozen citrusy craft cocktails on offer. The mains include classics like beef tenderloin and fries, bean stew, paella, a few pasta dishes, and shredded chicken in a yellow pepper sauce.

The sticky buns at Wild Flour are legendary in western Sonoma—they're often all gone by the early afternoon on weekends—as are the rye bread and sock-it-to-me scones in flavors like maple banana pecan and Meyer lemon blueberry poppyseed. The coffee's good, too.

Willi's occupies a corner storefront with street-side outdoor seating and a compact dining room that curls around the full bar. The warm Maine lobster roll with garlic butter and fennel remains a hit among the small, primarily seafood-oriented plates, with the ceviches, local barbecued oysters (also Buffalo-style crispy), and bacon-wrapped scallops among its worthy rivals.

Salads, several hot sandwiches, and filling signature entrées like the chicken potpie, French dip, and spaghetti and meatballs appear on this pale-yellow and lime-green eatery's lunch and dinner menus. Sunday brunch is elaborate, and breakfast the rest of the week—specialties include hot creamy polenta and house-made granola—is American down-home solid.

"The Wurst is the best" is the motto at this glass-fronted fast-food joint with a menu of sausages and dogs with specific toppings like the Detroit Polish (with sauerkraut, beer mustard, and onion rings) or augmented with (choose two) caramelized onions, sweet peppers, hot peppers, or kraut. Burgers are another specialty, with the blue-cheese and smoked bacon and barbecue ones from a local beef purveyor among the top sellers patrons enjoy at communal and single tables inside and on the front patio.

The strip-mall location of this restaurant couldn't be more modest, but the chef is a charmer and his Nepalese, Tibetan, and Indian dishes are flavor revelations. Pakoras (fritters), samosas, dal soup, and momos (steamed dumplings) all make excellent starters, with meat and vegetable curries and sizzling tandoori platters among the mains.

Glen Ellen's finer restaurants emphasize seasonal local produce, but instead of riffs on French, Italian, or Cal-modern, the farm-to-table creations at this casual space (open kitchen, paper lanterns, wooden tables and chairs) fuse Indian and Himalayan cuisine. Start with samosas or tomato-based Himalayan pepper pot soup from Nepal—so warming on a chilly day—then proceed to curries, sizzling tandooris, or chicken, prawn, or vegetable biryanis of ethereally aromatic saffron basmati rice.