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 →
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 →
In the small downtown of Healdsburg, Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience (HWFE) just hosted its second year, May 18–21, 2023, featuring a range of events highlighting some of Sonoma County’s best food and wines. From a region that grows some of the best produce in the nation, local produce is highlighted in the food, while the Queen grape is showcased at every turn — plus a few cocktails, too.
Here were the standout tastes and events this weekend: Read more →
When Michelin Guide and Rémy Martin Cognac host a weekend with Healdsburg (the popular town in northern Sonoma County) greats, you go. Especially when its with three Michelin, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ SingleThread and luxe hotel Montage Healdsburg… and in your “backyard” just over an hour from home… Following in these steps, a pampering weekend or overnight could involve either or both of these restaurants and a stay at the Montage with highlights and key points on each. Read more →
Yes, it’s a vegan restaurant. And from the dynamic team behind three-Michelin-starred, The World’s 50 Best’s SingleThread, no less. Open on Earth Day, April 22, 2002, in Healdsburg’s former SHED, Little Saint’s massive 10,000-square-foot space houses an all-day cafe, bar, wine and gourmet foods shop, full-on restaurant and art gallery with live music… Read more →
I present to you (arguably) Petaluma’s top tasting menu. The cliche goes that good things come in small packages and this treat is downright tiny. Blink and you’ll miss the Petaluma Boulevard storefront housing intimate, cozy, 10-table Table Culture Provisions (TCP) opened in the former Chili Joe’s towards the end of 2021. Read more →
The old Russian River logging outpost of Guerneville has long been a redwoods escape, tucked away in West Sonoma County towards the ocean. It also has been a LGBTQ+ haven (and weekending or second home for San Franciscans) since the 1970s. It’s the kind of small town where over the years (a couple of my past articles here and here) I’ve stumbled upon Pride parades and fire station BBQs, American flags alongside rainbow flags, and where I restore with sacred walks in one of my favorite redwoods forests, Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve, which reopened late fall 2021 — majestic and nurturing as ever — despite the charred scars it wears from the Walbridge fire.
Here’s your latest Guerneville checklist:
Over the past 20 years, I’ve spent countless hours in the popular Sonoma town of Healdsburg, whether overnights or stops when passing through (past recommends here and here). I have dear friends based in the town and numerous favorite spots in what is one of the best towns to eat and drink in expansive Sonoma County. I’m here to tell you about some notable newcomers, old faves and a lovely hotel — and with three Michelin-starred /The World’s 50 Best SingleThread’s new plant-based restaurant, cafe and wine shop, Little Saint, coming this Spring, there will be even more reasons to return. Here’s your latest Healdsburg checklist.
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: