Sonoma has long been, for me, the most beautiful town square of all Sonoma County. Visiting Dominique Crenn’s idyllic Bleu Belle Farm in Sonoma (which grows the produce for her restaurants and to feed the hungry), I also visited the town’s latest restaurants — mostly pandemic openings — plus a classic or two. My top nearby hotel recommend would be The Gaige House, but I’ll get into that in my future Glen Ellen edition. Here are five standouts for food and drink in the town of Sonoma proper:
Sebastopol is historically famed as a plum and apple-growing region, home to Gravenstein apples and good-as-it-gets plums.
As with everywhere in Sonoma County, wine grapes are now the dominant agriculture, but a few dear souls keep the apple and stone fruit orchards alive (where to go apple picking in town), alongside produce farms like Two Belly Acre Farm (more on that below). Cider producers, farms and the impressive Barlow complex dominate the small Sonoma town. Here are five+ standouts for food, drink and a hotel stay in (and near) Sebastopol:
My article on 10 of Sonoma/Napa and Mendocino Wine Country’s best bars (Duke’s Spirited Cocktails, Fern Bar, Barber Lee Spirits, Mario & John’s, Bird & the Bottle, Fog Eater Cafe, The Charter Oak, Miminashi, La Taberna, Solbar)…
In the Fall 2020 print issue of Distiller Magazine: Read more →
In my latest article for The Bold Italic, I cover over 20 of San Francisco and the Bay Area’s best local grocers/markets, international markets, shops doing drink/bottle delivery and CSAs/CFAs delivering produce from farms and local, sustainable seafood to your door.
Published by Where Traveler (my Where column here) in their annual Where Guestbook in thousands of hotel rooms across NorCal, my article on Napa chefs creatively combining East and West cuisines: The Charter Oak, The Prisoner Wine Company, Ad Hoc, SolBar at Solage Resort, Chris Cosentino’s Acacia House at Las Alcobas hotel. The Prisoner Wine Napa’s agnolotti Read more →
Published at Haute Living Magazine, the November-December 2019 issue includes my feature on Wine Country Inns — from Mendocino to Sonoma Counties — that offer exceptional, world class dining and grow their own produce in their gardens or farms: SingleThread in Healdsburg, Harbor House Inn in Elk, Boonville Hotel in Boonville. Online here. MY HAUTE LIVING ARTICLES— A visionary San… Read more →
Visionary businesswomen can be found all over Wine Country. But one place has a high concentration. Healdsburg’s peaceful town square is home to shops, boutique hotels, wine tasting rooms and restaurants. Though miles of vineyards, rolling hills, farms and redwood groves surround Healdsburg, it’s easily Sonoma’s most chichi, high-end town. Healdsburg female Winemakers roundtable discussion Well, good news is that… Read more →
My June print article in Oakland Magazine and Alameda Magazines covers Peninsula/South Bay/Silicon Valley hotels and where to eat around them, from luxury escapes to walkable downtown urban hotels. Article online here and below. My other Oakland and Alameda Magazine articles:— Walkable OC: Huntington Beach in one walkable mile— Romantic getaways in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica— Going well beyond… Read more →
Published at Where Traveler (my other Where articles here) in May 2019, my article on 6 “secret,” under-the-radar restaurants – from fine dining to order-at-the-counter — in the South Bay/Peninsula. Treasures in Turkish-Antolian, Georgian, South Indian, Oaxacan, Japanese and Modern Korean food: