195 Best Restaurants in Napa and Sonoma, California

The roadhouse decor—corrugated-metal walls, Mexican-tile floor, thick-wooden-slab tables, neon beer signs, and Edison bulbs hanging by ropes from the tall ceiling—contribute to this chipper soul food restaurant's let's-party ambience. Crispy fried catfish, buttermilk fried chicken, barbecued pork ribs, and the Yabba Dabba hunk of beef on a single bone top the entrée list; "lighter" fare includes several sandwiches and sides like deep-fried chicken skin with hot sauce.

Spouses Andzia and Jenay Hofftin opened this organic restaurant, wineshop, retail space, and community hangout inside Occidental's oldest building (1876), originally a hotel. The "farm-fresh comfort food" menu encompasses egg burritos, avocado “smash” toast, and pork-sausage sandwiches for breakfast and vegetarian bowls, pork melts, and the popular Hawaiian-inspired beef hot dog with grilled pineapple relish for lunch and (three days a week) early dinner until 7.

A vaulted wood-beamed ceiling and paper-topped tables set the scene for romance at this softly lit French bistro inside an 1890s boathouse. Look for clever variations on classic dishes such as croque monsieur (grilled Parisian ham and Gruyère) and salade niçoise for lunch, with veal sweetbreads, cassoulet, beef bourguignon, and, in season, mussels steamed in aromatic fennel, white wine, garlic, and thyme for dinner.

Even before charting on Esquire's list of 2022's best new restaurants, the intimate, bungalowlike establishment of New York City transplant Joshua Smookler (formerly chef at his own Mu Ramen and Thomas Keller's Per Se) was already drawing a crowd for its mash-up of Basque, Jewish, and Korean cuisines. Smookler, whose wife, Heidy He, runs the front of the house, consistently delights with idiosyncratic flavor combinations in dishes like feather-cut ibérico pork, lobster in XO sauce, grilled whole turbot, and dry-aged rib eye.

Shades of brown and beige predominate in the Four Seasons resort's indoor-outdoor fine-dining restaurant, whose Mexico City–born, Napa-raised chef, Rogelia Garcia, prepares an elaborate multicourse tasting menu based on seasonal California ingredients. The artistry of the flavors and presentation has earned the chef and his team national recognition and the restaurant bucket-list status.

The chef at this few-frills restaurant with seating outdoors under a massive poplar tree or inside at the bar and a handful of tables prepares pan-Chinese comfort cuisine. Dishes that might include pork wonton noodle soup, spicier Taiwan beef noodle soup, congee (rice porridge), sizzling black cod, and Szechuan mapo tofu with black bean sauce are easy to appreciate on their culinary merits, the bonus being the sense of deep cultural attachment underpinning them.

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.

Skilled baristas churn out a dizzying array of coffee drinks—drip, cold brew, all the fave espresso options—in a clean downtown space with white walls and teal wainscoting. Pastries, 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.

A casual storefront restaurant on Guerneville's main drag, Boon Eat + Drink has a menu built around salads, smallish shareable plates, and entrées that might include vegan risotto, Moroccan chicken, and pan-seared local cod. Like many of chef-owner Crista Luedtke's dishes, the signature polenta lasagna—creamy ricotta salata cheese and polenta served on greens sautéed in garlic, all of it floating upon a spicy marinara sauce—deviates significantly from the lasagna norm but succeeds on its own merits.

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.

The team that created The French Laundry is also behind this place, where everything—the zinc-topped bar, antique sconces, suave waitstaff, and escargots, French onion soup, and salmon and beef tartare starters—could have come straight from a Parisian bistro. Sole Provençale, pan-seared flat iron steak with caramelized shallots, and mussels steamed with white wine, saffron, and Dijon mustard—the latter two served with crispy addictive fries—are among the perfectly executed entrées.

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.

No cheese is made at the factory, but the 2024 resurrection of this Sonoma Plaza fixture for picnic fixings surpassed previous iterations with the addition of The Butcherman, whose executive chef, Oscar Gomez, held the title of head butcher at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. Gomez and his team prep brisket, tri-tip, pulled-pork, turkey, and other smoked meats (there are also non-smoked options) for sandwiches or plates.

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.

Cookbook author and Iron Chef judge Domenica Catelli returned home to revive her family's American-Italian restaurant, a Geyserville fixture. Contemporary abstract paintings, reclaimed-wood furnishings, and muted gray and chocolate-brown walls signal the changing times, but you'll find good-lovin' echoes of traditional cuisine in the sturdy meat sauce that accompanies the signature lasagna, made with paper-thin noodles and a ricotta-and-herb-cheese filling.

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.

Two chefs who've starred at fine-dining restaurants shifted gears to open this informal eatery where everything's made from scratch, either by them or their vendors. The ingredients are all of the highest quality, which explains the long lines at breakfast for the Ham & Jam (buttermilk biscuits with molasses-brined ham and seasonal jam) and at lunchtime for sandwiches that usually include mortadella, chicken Parmesan with heirloom tomato sauce, and pimento cheese.

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.

A decade after his beloved, same-named Healdsburg restaurant closed, celebrity chef Douglas Keane of Top Chef Masters and other fame reopened a "2.0" version inside an 8,000-square-foot steel, glass, and concrete structure in an Alexander Valley vineyard. Keane bills his flagship prix-fixe culinary experience as The Dining Journey, with guests (two-person minimum; solo diners charged double) changing rooms a few times for multiple internationally inspired courses based on hyper-seasonal, mostly Northern California ingredients.

Inside a soigné Victorian former residence with textured wood walls and adorned with contemporary textiles and artworks, the downtown Sonoma restaurant operated by Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards & Winery presents a tasting menu built around ingredients from the winery's nearby organic farm. Founding chef Brian Limoges describes Sonoma County and its rigorously farmed, raised, and caught ingredients as his “muse,” with his New England youth, French culinary training, and turns at four iconic San Francisco restaurants providing additional inspiration.

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.

The mixologists at this verdant "bar-focused restaurant" whip up creative "garden-to-glass" cocktails meant for pairing with neo-comfort food whose ingredients, especially the produce, are primarily cultivated in west Sonoma County. "Umami bomb" mushrooms with sticky rice and the tofu with five-spice pistachio entice vegans and vegetarians at dinner, but with pork belly skewers, chicken wings to share, a smash burger, and pan-seared fish, there's plenty for carnivores and pescatarians.

Inside an ivy-laced old stone building and with good reason atop many a Napa Valley visitor's bucket list, chef Thomas Keller's destination restaurant generally lives up to the hype with intricate yet not overthought cuisine. Some courses on the two prix-fixe menus, one of which highlights vegetables, rely on luxe ingredients such as white quail or shima aji (striped jack); others take humble elements like carrots or fava beans and elevate them to art.

Gung-ho Culinary Institute of America students in their final semester run this excellent, if unheralded, restaurant in a historic stone structure. A solid value, the three- or four-course prix-fixe meals—oft-changing, nicely plated dishes like ricotta ravioli or grilled leg of lamb—emphasize local ingredients, in some cases grown a few steps away.

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.