Farmhouse Inn pool, Forestville. Photo by Virginia Miller. 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… 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 →
The French Laundry. Photo by Virginia Miller. Hotel Villagio pool view from room deck. Photo by Virginia Miller. 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… 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 →
Molti Amici’s kanpachi crudo. Photo by Virginia Miller. COME SEE OUR NEW HOME — The Bold Italic has a new home online, and this story has moved! Read it here: https://www.thebolditalic.com/molti-amici-a-new-healdsburg-pizza-pasta-crudo-destination-that-defines-sonoma-wine-country-now Healdsburg is already known as a foodie haven, despite being small town Sonoma. Epitomizing Sonoma Wine Country now: it’s a wood-fired pizza, housemade pasta, seafood crudo and cocktail hang with… 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 →
Matty’s Old Fashioned “sea dip.” Photo by Virginia Miller. COME SEE OUR NEW HOME — The Bold Italic has a new home online, and this story has moved! Read it here: https://www.thebolditalic.com/black-owned-refined-tribute-to-diner-food-at-oaklands-new-matty-s-old-fashioned I have long known it’s nearly impossible to find great southern food unless you are actually in the South. So thank God for Matt Horn, who makes the best… Read more →
Original Joe’s North Beach crab cocktail. Photo by Virginia Miller. 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… Read more →
Opened October 2021 by Finn Stern and Stella Dennig, as Oakland’s Daytrip approaches one and a half years of age, it has become clear it’s one of the city’s best restaurants now. It was named one of Bon Appetit’s top 10 new restaurants in America in 2022 and is one of the tougher reservations in OAK. Read more →
Coho’s Dungeness crab noodles. Photo by Virginia Miller. No one was more surprised than me to find a standout new restaurant, one even worth crossing the bridge for, in sleepy, idyllic Mill Valley. Marin County is infamously talked about amongst many of my industry and food obsessed colleagues as the one subpar food county in all the Bay Area. Despite Marin’s… Read more →