59 Best Restaurants in Napa and Sonoma, California

Giovanni Scala opened this boisterous roadhouse restaurant in the mid-1990s, and it's still a hangout of Napans who appreciate its Cal-Italian bistro cuisine, prepared with flair by Scott Warner, Scala's executive chef and partner. Warner augments the greatest-hits lineup—fritto misto (deep-fried calamari, onions, fennel, and shrimp), spinach ravioli with lemon cream or tomato sauce, slow-braised lamb shank, and wood-fired pizzas—with daily specials based on seasonal ingredients.

Escargots, cassoulet, steak au poivre (pepper steak), and other French classics are prepared with precision inside this tan-brick country bistro whose flower-filled window boxes, extra-wide shutters, and red-and-white-striped awning hint at the old-world flair and joie de vivre that infuse the place. Regulars often start with the rich tomato soup in a flaky puff pastry before proceeding to sole meunière or coq au vin, completing the French sojourn with crème brûlée or other authentic dessert.

At this softly lit, exposed-redbrick downtown trattoria occupying sections of the 19th-century former Groezinger Winery, the chefs transform local, seasonally changing ingredients into regional Italian cuisine. Staples like ricotta gnocchi with old-hen tomato sauce and the short rib smoked and braised in espresso agrodolce (sweet-and-sour sauce) and served with creamy ancient-grain polenta are rustic yet sophisticated.

Youthful vacations in southern France inspired the menu at the wide-windowed storefront restaurant opened by Nick Ronan, a longtime San Francisco restaurateur and author of The Kissing Chef. "I feed my soul through people," the chef has been known to declare, his zeal for community informing his effusive hospitality and diligent Cal-modern reinterpretations of onion soup, cassoulet, coquilles St. Jacques, beef Bourguignon, and other familiar fare.

In a postage-stamp-size open kitchen (the dining room, its white walls adorned with contemporary art, is nearly as compact), the chef turns out understated sophisticated fare emphasizing seasonably available local ingredients. Meats, pastas, and seafood get deluxe treatment without fuss or fanfare—and the daily risotto special is always worth trying.

A portrait of restaurant consultant and Campanella co-owner Tom Rutledge's grandmother large in the covered patio seating area of his stylish yet snug restaurant inspired by East Coast Italian-American "red sauce" cuisine. The chef's 21st-century remixes of classics like the ones Nonna prepared in Brooklyn include marinara meatballs, butter beans, eggplant Parmesan, steamed clams with linguine, chicken cacciatore, and gnocchi with Bolognese ragout.

An early participant in the Slow Food movement, Central Market serves creative, Cal-Mediterranean dishes—many of whose ingredients come from the restaurant's organic farm—in a century-old building with an exposed brick wall and an open kitchen. The menu, which changes daily depending on chef Tony Najiola's inspiration and what's ripe and ready, might include spicy duck wings or seafood sausage starters, pizzas, a stew, two or three pasta dishes, and wood-grilled fish and meat.

Elliot Bell, a French Laundry alum, St. Helena resident, and volunteer firefighter, took over a light-filled space formerly occupied by Cindy Pawlcyn of Mustards fame, enchanting patrons with elevated comfort cuisine and variations on fine-dining classics. Ingredients from local farms and protein purveyors go into apps, sides, and mains that might include abalone Rockefeller, shrimp and grits, slow-cooked trout, vegetarian potato Milanese, and brown-butter-aged Wagyu brisket.

Napa Valley culinary star and longtime Ciccio patron Christopher Kostow of The Restaurant at Meadowood and The Charter Oak is the labor-of-love executive chef at this insiders' favorite for modern Italian. The seasonal growing cycles of Meadowood's herb and produce garden influence the menu, with focaccia appetizers, pasta dishes (including a must-try gnudi when offered), a few wood-fired pizzas, and pork chop Milanese among the likely offerings.

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.

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.

At this hot spot for inventive French cooking inside the historic Sonoma Hotel bar, you can always find a dish with the signature figs on the menu, whether it's a fig-and-arugula salad or an aperitif blending sparkling wine with fig liqueur. Also look for duck confit, steak au poivre, mussels and frites, and wild flounder meunière.

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. 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 like brussels sprouts and brown-sugar-bacon marmalade.

Northern California's diverse farm-fresh and ocean-fresh ingredients and global culinary influences converge exuberantly at this brick-walled bistro with brass-colored wire chandeliers, teal walls, and plush mahogany-brown booths. The food, much of it prepared by wood fire, matches the polished yet informal atmosphere, with pickled vegetables, oysters, and caviar whetting the appetite for shareable starters like ceviche, fried calamari, and roasted beets, followed by entrées that might include grilled fish or hanger steak, a pasta plate, or a heritage pork chop.

Shortly after graduating from a local college's culinary program, chef Carlos Mojica opened this Latin American–Caribbean restaurant with a handful of tables inside and out front. Loyalists pine for chicken or pork sliders, halibut crudo, and pupusas (corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and pork or vegetables), a prelude to entrées like fish tacos with chili-yogurt sauce and Caribbean-style paella suffused with smoky-garlicky tomato broth.

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 curry-marinated duck breast captivate even before the first bite with their fragrant aromas, colorful presentation, and obviously fresh locally cultivated ingredients.

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 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.

West County's most handsome restaurant, softly lit, with a fireplace, an open-trestle ceiling, wooden floors and tables, and long mauve-cushioned banquette benches running down the middle, hides in plain sight at the Dawn Ranch resort. The cuisine is ultimately modern American, but the lead chefs' South American influences reveal themselves in small plates that might include a fried tapioca and cheese appetizer or large ones like Wagyu striploin with house-made chimichurri.

The location of Dustin Valette's farm-to-table restaurant holds a special place in his heart: the bar and its Wine Wall taps dispensing mostly Sonoma County wines occupy the space where the Geyserville native's great-grandfather ran a bakery a century ago. Valette describes the menu—aged meats creatively adorned, local fish with recently plucked vegetables—as a "love letter" to regional agriculture, a point driven home by the large, bright paintings of farm and culinary activity hanging above the dining-room floor.

The redwood-timbered main dining space of this comfort-food haven recalls the 19th-century heyday of the former sawmill (later a grist mill) it occupies, though when the weather's nice most patrons take their meals on a plant-filled outdoor deck with timeless Sonoma Creek views. Culinary influences from Latin America to Southeast Asia underlie dishes that might include butternut squash risotto, poached salmon, and a porterhouse pork chop with a chipotle glaze.

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. The decor signals that in their delicacy and finesse, her aromatic entrées (some garnished with orchid buds) are on par with similarly bedecked fine-dining establishments.

The brightly lit dining room's mural map of the Naples coastline emphasizes the chef's focus on frutti di mare (seafood) at this downtown homage to southern Italian cuisine from the folks behind valley-fave Bistro Don Giovanni. Raw oysters, cooked whole fish, tuna carpaccio, and pork chop Milanese rank among the hits, along with pizzas hot out of a wood-fired oven.

The chefs in the gleaming open kitchen of this high-ceilinged, rich-green "modern Victorian lounge and restaurant"—long ago the Glen Ellen Winery's cask room—create vibrant small plates like smoked and pickled beets and espresso-braised pork belly and larger ones that might include seared salmon or duck leg confit with beluga lentil cassoulet. Four things stand out about the experience here: the ingredients’ flavor and freshness, the culinary ingenuity and technique, the decor’s unforced style, and the intentional service.

The broad open kitchen of the second Sonoma Valley restaurant of Ari Weiswasser (who also oversees the kitchen at Glen Ellen Star), which opened to much fanfare in 2025, anchors a brasserie-like dining space flanked on opposite ends by a bar and a rough-hewn stone fireplace. Dishes of fresh-daily house-made pasta laced lightly with earthy sauces like chicken liver ragout vie for attention with well-portioned entrées like half-roasted chicken, a Duroc pork chop Milanese, and whole grilled fish.

Despite winning a prestigious fine-dining award, this urban-rustic gathering spot with an artsy-eclectic decor acknowledged customer preferences and economic reality and has pivoted to a haute comfort-food menu. The flawless cuisine, still hinging on hyperfresh local ingredients from the restaurant's farms and several superstar purveyors, might include starters like potato-leek soup, a seasonal salad, or goat cheese croquettes, followed by Mt. Lassen trout, chicken tikka masala, or steak with béarnaise sauce and fries.

The same people who operate the Willow Wood Market Café across the street run this restaurant with a Continental atmosphere and a seasonal menu based on smaller and larger dishes. Entrées might include anything from hoisin-glazed baby back ribs, duck leg confit, and pan-seared salmon to pad Thai and crispy Thai-style fried chicken.

The team behind this wineshop, bar, and restaurant across from Sonoma Plaza revamped a 19th-century adobe (though inside you'd never know it's this old) and expanded its outdoor patio, where most dining takes place. Sustainably produced seafood and meats find their way into "California home cooking"—summer dishes that might include halibut with corn and cherry tomatoes and winter ones like pork adobo or a half chicken.

The focus at festive ZuZu is on cold and hot tapas, pintxos (bar bites), paella, and other Spanish favorites, often washed down with Cava (Spanish sparkling wine), sangria, or a specialty cocktail. The restaurant, which opened in 2002 and contributed to downtown Napa’s renaissance, still draws crowds for flounder ceviche, jamón ibérico, seared pork cheeks, grilled lamb chops with Moroccan barbecue glaze, and many other shareable plates.

The unvarnished oak floors, imported leather-top tables, contemporary paintings, and agavelike wall succulents at this restaurant inside the Hôtel Les Mars hint at the chefs’ culinary aspirations. Dishes like mushroom quesadillas and carne asada may sound familiar, but the farm-fresh ingredients, spot-on spicing, and sensual presentation reveal the level of sophistication these Mexican staples can achieve.

Conceived as a gathering spot for cocktails, conversation, and clever riffs off classic French cuisine, this restaurant named for the fin de siècle chef extraordinaire Auguste Escoffier combines clubby comfort with drawing-room sophistication (pay attention to the wallpaper selection). Escargots five ways, filet mignon tartare, and salad Lyonnaise set the stage for mussels and frites, beef-cheek bourguignon, salmon à la plancha, and Parisian gnocchi rendered with 21st-century panache.