5 Best Restaurants in Napa and Sonoma, California

Seasonal pies that include Meyer-lemon-blueberry baked custard 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 cornflake maple.

A wife and husband with upper-echelon fine-dining credits run this bakery (set to relocate during 2025 from its original site at 149 Healdsburg Avenue) that the New York Times lauded as one of America's best. The recognition confirmed what locals have known since the shop opened about the ingredients, craft, and imagination that go into creating the bread, cakes, cookies, and pastries sold here.

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.

Thanks to multiple plugs by Oprah, each day's fresh batch of English muffins often sells out, 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. There are other Model Bakery locations in downtown Napa and Yountville.

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.