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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.
Skilled baristas churn out a dizzying array of coffee drinks—drip, cold brew, nitro cold brew, all the fave espresso options—in a clean downtown space with white walls and teal wainscoting. Pastries, tartines, avocado toast, quiche, and egg-inflected sandwiches (some vegan or gluten-free) are the breakfast hits, with banh mi and the like added for lunch.
Calistoga's flashy 19th-century entrepreneur Sam Brannan built the depot in 1868 to receive spa patrons, but it was looking careworn until his 21st-century equivalent, Wine Country vintner-showman Jean-Charles Boisset, restored the wood-frame building and opened a combination gourmet grocery, café, wine shop, distillery, and wine and beer garden. As at Boisset's historic Oakville Grocery, salads, artisanal sandwiches, and wood-fired pizzas headline.
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.
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.
Pink on the outside, with tutti-frutti walls on the inside and colorful chairs painted by a local artist, Sebastopol’s hands-down favorite for all-natural ice cream and sorbet often appears in feature stories listing the nation's best shops. Mimi's Mud (espresso ice cream, cookies, chocolate chips, and homemade fudge) and strawberry made from local fruit are among the popular ice creams, with lemon, raspberry, and mango among the top palate-cleansing sorbets.
A longtime Bay Area caterer opened this retail shop serving soups, salads, sandwiches, and a few entrées to go or eat indoors or on the front patio. Supplementing staples like turkey, tri-tip, and roasted portobello sandwiches—the Caesar salad is a town favorite—are surprise items, says the owner, "we just feel like cooking, like pot roast when it rains or Thai wraps on sunny days."
Boston-style slush in flavors from root beer to raspberry that change with the season are the specialty of this shack in southern Healdsburg across from the beach. The owner's nostalgia for New England summers past extends to soft-serve ice cream in ever-changing flavors.
Foodies love this grocery for its breakfast biscuits, clever sandwiches, and savory salads to go or eat here. Everything from butter and jam and mascarpone and honey to barbecue pulled pork with pickles and slaw accompanies the biscuits, whose mix made Oprah's Favorite Things list, and the sandwiches include the Colonel Armstrong (curried chicken salad with currants and cashews on brioche).
There's almost always a line outside the bakery next door to Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bistro. The textbook golden-brown croissants star, and the brownies, macarons, kouign-amanns, artisanal breads, and savory sandwiches are equally alluring.
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.
Sommelier Matt Stamp and restaurant wine vet Ryan Stetins opened this combination restaurant, wine bar, and wine shop. The place has evolved into a hot gathering spot for its youthful vibe and eclectic small and large plates that might include shrimp lumpia (a Filipino-style fried spring roll), half chicken, and the Compline burger, best enjoyed with duck-fat fries—and, per Stamp, Champagne.
The fuel is more than petrol at this gas station–convenience store whose redbrick exterior recalls the heyday of Route 66 travel. The shop inside sells superb hot dogs, fresh scones from nearby R+D Kitchen, gourmet chocolates, and (in summer) ice cream—gas up, grab some picnic items, and be ever-so-merrily on your way.
With Edith Piaf as his background track, a waiter whose job at Yountville's Bistro Jeanty had become a pandemic casualty spent several months toiling to perfect the macaron, his wife's favorite cookie. Success selling his multiflavored confections at farmers' markets and placement at a few upscale grocers (Jeanty was the first restaurant customer) spurred the couple, Dennis and Aubrey McInnich, to expand into retail with this shop and café selling their brightly colored treats.
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.
An architecturally significant century-old bank now houses an artisanal ice cream parlor, a wine bodega, and a room with exhibits by the Russian River Historical Society. Along with the expected cups and cones of ice cream handmade from local organic dairy products, the former bank's main event, Nimble & Finn's, also sells pies, cakes, candy, shakes, floats, and coffee drinks.
The Petaluma-based owners of this hip-homey counter-service restaurant pay homage to Swedish street food, whose influences, it turns out, include Middle Eastern cuisine. Seasonal ingredients, for the most part locally produced and raised, find their way into kebabs, Swedish meatballs, Wiener schnitzel, gravlax, herring done "grandma's way" (and a few others), and korv kiosk (grilled frankfurters or sausages), all prepared with élan.
The scent of waffle cones baking draws patrons into this family-run parlor serving artisanal ice cream made fresh daily. Butter brickle, peach custard, Oreos and cream, and salted caramel are among the alternating flavors that include sorbets and sometimes sherbets, and always vegan options.
A microbrewery, a wood-fired pizza stand, and a barbecue joint anchor this downtown food park with indoor and outdoor dining areas, the latter a patio with fire pits. On weekends, food trucks motor over, adding, depending on the day, Greek, Mexican, Filipino, and other cuisines to the mix.
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.
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