In this article:
—Stay & Dine at Michelin-Starred Auro at Four Seasons Napa Valley
—Still One of Napa Valley’s Very Best: Michelin-Starred Press, St. Helena
—Kansas City-Style BBQ in Napa Valley: Stateline Road Smokehouse, Napa
—New Napa Steakhouse: Ember Steak at Meritage Napa Read more →
One of many things I adore about living in my beloved San Francisco for 23 years, far above my bi-coastal upbringing in the suburbs of LA and NYC and midwest Oklahoma and Kansas City roots, is the endless layers and beauty of tiny SF. Thus I am ever experiencing my City anew and rarely get “staycations.” I travel so much for dining and drink research, judging and consulting, it’s a gift when I am home, relishing the world class and unique joys abundant all around me.
However, it’s a privilege when I get a media invite to stay overnight to check out a hotel minutes from home after checking out a new menu or chef at said hotel. I recently visited two notable SF hotels offering feasts creative (Luce) or comforting (MKT). What worked (and didn’t) at each: Read more →
Published June 25, 2024, in my Medium column: This month, I review five notable restaurants and three luxurious-yet-relaxed resorts across Sonoma County, all resorts with remodels and two of them with notable restaurants. The restaurants range from high to low, sushi omakase tasting menu to order-at-the-counter Lebanese food. Here, eight places worth visiting now for a day trip or overnights in ever-magical… Read more →
Reviewed in this article:
—Signia by Hilton San Jose
—Rooftop Italian Goodness: Terra at Eataly
—Sleek, Fun Italian: Rollati
—Portuguese Authenticity: Petiscos
—Asian Art Museum-Inspired: Gilda’s Salon Dinners at the Proper Hotel Read more →
Published March 8, 2024, in my Medium column: A day trip or overnight in stunning Napa Valley is joy, and a regular part of the lives of many San Franciscans. In this guide, I’ve squeezed in a “cheap eats” spot, a 40-year restaurant classic and a notable new cocktail bar in the nearby town of Napa, but stay centered in Yountville. As… Read more →
I’d eat wherever San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino is cooking. I’m still missing his ahead-of-its-time Incanto (2002–2014), and his bold Cockscomb (2014–2020). He’s known for his TV runs, from The Next Iron Chef, to winning season four of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, and he spent recent years in Napa running Acacia House. But he’s long lived in SF and I await the day he’ll open a new restaurant in the City. Unexpectedly, since this fall, he’s commuting north to bucolic Tomales Bay in Marin County to run the kitchen at 1931 institution, Nick’s Cove. Read more →
Healdsburg is already known as a foodie haven, despite being small town Sonoma. Yes, it’s home to global restaurant destination, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ SingleThread, but also casual cocktail-food greats like Lo & Behold. I’d posit newcomer Molti Amici, debuting June 30 2023, from owner Jonny Barr, is already one of Healdsburg’s very best. Epitomizing Sonoma Wine Country now, it’s a wood-fired pizza, housemade pasta, seafood crudo and cocktail hang with bocce hidden in an inviting back patio. Read more →
When I first dined at Meyhouse in Sunnyvale in 2019 not long after it opened, it was the best Turkish restaurant I’d been to in the West. So when I heard they were opening their second, more elegant Palo Alto location, I was “in,” despite the 45-ish minute drive there and back from San Francisco. As often happens, the opening was delayed, but Meyhouse finally debuted August 9, 2023, in a massive space with open air windows overlooking walkable downtown Palo Alto. Read more →
Multiple road trips through the South for 17 years, studying BBQ styles across states and regions, does, indeed, make me a barbecue “snob.” I have long known it’s nearly impossible to find the “best of the best” outside of the South. So thank God for Matt Horn, who makes the best barbecue I’ve had in the entire West at Oakland’s Horn Barbecue.
I wrote about his fried chicken spot, Kowbird, after it opened early 2022. Horn and team just opened Matty’s Old Fashioned on July 20, 2023, in Old Oakland as his tribute to the classic American diner, but reinvented and refined. Think burgers and McDonald’s-esque fish sandwiches in a brick-walled, blue-and-gold, diamond wall-papered space… Read more →
My Sicilian side can tend to dominate. That intense passion for the things I love, bordering on an obsessive impulse to research, study and dig deep, includes food. This was only fueled by homecooked pastas and sauces from my Italian mama and grandfather growing up on both coasts. Add in my crucial teen years in New Jersey after we moved across the nation from SoCal and my hankering for red sauce, American-Sicilian food was solidifed in Jersey and NYC’s deep Sicilian culture.
Here, I dig into two spots, one new, one old. The new pizza destination in Berkeley turns out pies from Sicilian to NY-inspired, and the latter is an over 80-year-old San Francisco red sauce American-Italian institution always worth keeping on your dining rotation. Read more →