Dining in Sonoma: A Work in Progress

With its roster of old wine families and new millionaire winery owners, Napa Valley is practically a brand name for the California wine country lifestyle. Brash and publicity savvy, Napa had all but eclipsed its more retiring neighbor, Sonoma County, which until recently had but one “luxury” hotel and restaurants that were more local hangouts than destinations for visitors.

Not so anymore. In recent years, Sonoma has added a few elegant country inns, such as Gaige House Inn in Glen Ellen and Farmhouse Inn and Restaurant in Forestville. Healdsburg, once a charmingly retro little town at the hub of the wine country, now has two boutique hotels with great style and comfort, the Duchamp (named after surrealist Marcel Duchamp) and the new luxury Hotel Healdsburg. Las Ventanas in Cabo San Lucas has plans to open a resort near Kenwood.

It’s all quite a change from the days when the choices were limited to the rather grand Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, nondescript motels or fussy bed and breakfasts where you were likely to find teddy bears in your bed and baked brie for breakfast.

Day spas--surely a sign that the narcissistic well-heeled are nearby--are sprouting up all over Sonoma. The county also has a growing list of home-grown restaurants and “have knife, will travel” types who migrated from big city restaurants to open their own in the Sonoma wine country.

For the record, I’m not wild about losing the old Sonoma to the “wine country lifestyle,” with all its rampant hype and commercialism. If you’ve experienced Sonoma’s better known neighbor at the height of summer, when cars are bunched tighter than grapes along Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail, Sonoma wine country is bliss. It’s hard to imagine how to improve on the experience of looking at the big blue sky over Sonoma’s Alexander Valley, with cotton candy clouds hovering just above the gentle hills and rows of well-behaved vines following the contours of the land, a riot of yellow mustard in flower at their feet. The valley’s narrow road makes lazy swoops past farmhouses and wineries that look like what they are, not postmodern fantasies or tricked-up faux French chateaux.

Sonoma’s little farms supply the Bay Area (and Napa Valley) with everything from gorgeous produce, herbs and exotic greens to tender lamb, suckling pig and free-range poultry, along with luscious stone fruits and heirloom apples. Yet with all this bounty, Sonoma restaurants have never quite lived up to their potential. Few are at the level of top restaurants in the Napa Valley. You can’t find the equivalent of the French Laundry or even Pinot Blanc, Joachim Splichal’s St. Helena restaurant.

That said, there is a new energy in Sonoma, and more choices than ever before.

Once-sleepy Healdsburg is emblematic. It’s now hordes of well-dressed people strolling around-- and around--the plaza. Yes, I did catch the Porsche or two rumbling at the stoplight. But the town hasn’t given in entirely to tourists. Mixed in with the gaudy stores selling grape tchotchkes is Toyon Books, a wonderful local store run by passionate book lovers, a fabric shop where local quilters congregate, and a coffee roaster.

The best argument for staying in Healdsburg is the Downtown Bakery & Creamery. Founded by Lindsey Shere, then the Chez Panisse pastry chef, and Kathleen Stewart, who is now the sole owner, the old-fashioned country bakery makes the best sticky buns on the planet. Freckled with cinnamon, the tender yeast dough is robed in a buttery burnt sugar caramel. If you stay at the Duchamp Hotel, they come as part of the complimentary breakfast on Sundays. Or sneak down from your room at Hotel Healdsburg and across the square to nab some still warm from the oven.

The bakery has a wonderful down-to-earth aesthetic. It hasn’t been gussied up to fit some magazine stylist’s idea of what the wine country should be. All the artistry goes into the breads and pastries themselves. Taste polenta pear tart, fabulous eclairs, handcrafted breads and pies featuring local fruit. In the summer, stop in for some of the fresh-churned ice creams made from Sonoma County eggs and cream. There’s also an open-face apple galette with a short, crumbly crust and sweet-tart Sierra Beauty apples that have been cooked down to almost an applesauce.

Oakville Grocery saw Sonoma’s potential long ago and has had an outpost in Healdsburg for several years. The shop is bursting with enticing foodstuffs for the pantry, and its deli counter puts out an attractive spread of fresh salads, roasted meats, sandwiches and most everything for a wine country picnic.

The former cheese buyer there, Susan Walrabenstein, has opened her own shop just off the plaza. The Cheese Course is as serious as cheese shops come, but you’d never know it from the window display. Inside her cool, spacious storefront is a small but beguiling selection of local and imported cheeses compiled by someone absolutely passionate about the subject. Display some curiosity and she’ll cut into a handsome Montgomery cheddar from London’s famed Neal’s Yard, or she’ll give you a taste of Cashel blue, a marvelous, creamy cheese from Ireland. I love the sheep’s milk ricotta from local Bellwether Farms. While you’re there, pick up some of the fragrant fried almonds from Spain, gray French sea salt (sold by the ounce), or a bag of organic carnaroli rice from Piedmont. The Cheese Course is a treasure, one that I wish I had in my neighborhood.

Starting in May, the Saturday morning Healdsburg Farmers Market (along with the Santa Rosa and other Sonoma County farmers markets) showcases local farmers. It can be agonizing for a visiting cook without a kitchen to see blue-green Araucanian chicken eggs with their deep gold yolks; fat, pale gold Queen Anne cherries; delicate wild strawberries; heirloom tomatoes in a rainbow of colors; tender little lettuces; and chalky goat and sheep’s milk cheeses.

Although Sonoma farms supply many ingredients synonymous with California cuisine, until recently local chefs haven’t always known how to exploit the bounty. Enter Charlie Palmer, the New York chef behind Aureole in Manhattan and Las Vegas (at the latter, wine “angels” rappel down ropes to fetch bottles from a 42-foot glass wine tower) and a clutch of other New York restaurants and catering operations. For this ambitious chef, Sonoma’s wine country must have been hard to resist.

A partner in the new Hotel Healdsburg, Palmer has moved into the wine country with the 66-seat Dry Creek Kitchen adjoining the hotel. With its large French doors commanding one corner of a historic plaza, Dry Creek Kitchen doesn’t resemble any other restaurant in either Sonoma--or Napa. It looks like a big-city venue plopped in a sleepy cow town. Its design is sleek and contemporary, more Christian Liaigre than Ralph Lauren country. The appointments are handsome--chairs covered in a pear-print linen, studied flower arrangements, and a long harvest table in the middle of the room. The frosted glass wall between the kitchen and the dining room, though, reveals things that should be hidden: bulky electric slicers, rolls of Saran Wrap, industrial restaurant equipment.

The service at Dry Creek Kitchen may be the best in Sonoma County. What matters most, though, is the quality of the cooking. At dinner on a first visit, dishes seemed heavy, weighed down with intense reductions and too many ingredients, and not at all wine-friendly. The food has a big-city bluster that doesn’t suit the setting. Take the amuse gueule, an espresso cup with a half-inch of onion and white truffle panna cotta. It’s oddly sweet and quite awful. Flash-cooked calamari dressed with McEvoy olio nuovo is utterly bland, too sparing of the fabulously expensive Marin County olive oil. Steamboat oysters on the half shell come with wonderful house-made crackers shot through with black pepper, but the oysters aren’t chilled enough and the Pinot Blanc mignonette tastes too much of sharp vinegar. Sauteed Sonoma foie gras with brioche beignets is unacceptably stringy, a sorry example of what should be glorious fattened duck liver.

Dishes pick up a little with the main courses, especially with a slow-roasted beef tenderloin. Salmon is fine, though it’s hard to distinguish the flavor of its black truffle chestnut crust. It comes with a dreamy accompaniment of celery root puree and soft buttery ribbons of cabbage. Cassoulet is dreadful, however, except for the delicious nuggets of blood sausage. The elements taste more assembled than melded together over hours of slow cooking. It’s topped with a syrupy brown sauce--I can only wonder why.

Lunch for two was much more pleasant. Dishes tend to be lighter, for one thing. I enjoyed a frisee salad scattered with diced smoked trout on a horseradish cream. It’s paired with a crumbly scallion biscuit with a smear of salmon mousse (the mousse had gone slightly off, however). A pungent, silken green garlic soup decorated with a swatch of “microgreens” and a swirl of green olive oil is pleasing, and an organic chicken breast tucked under a fluffy comforter of basil is moist and delicious. The prettiest dish is polenta-crusted salmon surrounded by pea shoots, English peas and both white and violet pearl onions. Now that’s more like wine country cuisine.

As you’d expect, Dry Creek Kitchen’s wine list is exhaustive and expensive. But if you pick up some interesting bottles on your forays through the wine country, the wine policy here is favorable, with no corkage fee for Sonoma wines.

Just down the street is the year-old Manzanita, opened by the former owners of Willowside, which was a wonderful roadside restaurant outside Santa Rosa. Casual and appealing, Manzanita is in a rustic old building with high ceilings and a wood-burning oven. It takes its name from the stacks of manzanita logs that divide the dining area from the bar. Lush, romantic landscapes by painter Wade Hoefer add atmosphere to an otherwise stark room. The wine list is fairly priced, truly interesting and eclectic--just what you hope to find in the wine country. Be sure to ask to see both the regular and the reserve lists, which is where you find some real treasures. They’ve got exquisite oysters on the half shell to accompany a Raveneau Chablis we ferreted out on the list. Pizzas from the wood-burning oven are terrific, with toppings that make sense.

Manzanita chef Bruce Frieseke turns out rustic orecchiette (“little ears” pasta) with earthy mustard greens, wild mushrooms and tangy ricotta salata (salted ricotta). Wine-braised beef short ribs are so popular that they were gone by the time we ordered, but roasted quail with apple smoked bacon and spring onions paired with a piquillo pepper frittata beckoned instead. Who could resist the rhubarb upside-down cake with both strawberry and mascarpone sorbets?

Not many of the wine country restaurants offer lunch, but Healdsburg has a couple of choice spots. I like Ravenette, the minuscule cafe next to the Raven theater (another must stop for its small-town ambience). It has only eight or so tables, so it’s essential to reserve ahead. I loved a salad of roasted Yukon potatoes and frisee with grilled artichokes. The must-have is the Ravenous Burger with Jack cheese and thick-cut fries, but they also make the best ham sandwich around. It’s a heap of thinly sliced smoked ham from Niman Ranch and a mild sheep’s milk cheese on good country bread spread with Dijon mustard. Drink a glass of Ridge “Coast Range” Zin. Desserts are not to be missed either. At dinner, the restaurant moves around the corner to Ravenous, though my one meal there was disappointing. It could have been an off night.

The other local favorite for lunch (and dinner, too) is Bistro Ralph, named for owner Ralph Tingle, who came from the Bay Area to open this hip little bistro 10 years ago. Tables are covered in butcher paper and napkins are laid out like place mats along the bar, where skinny metal trays display lovely vegetable still lifes. Try the fried calamari with Szechuan dipping sauce. Split the Caesar, which is plenty for two. It looks like the one they used to do at 4th Street Grill in Berkeley.

Tingle’s mother, Alta, founded the famed indoor-outdoor shop The Gardener in Berkeley. Now she has a second shop in Healdsburg, where she has a weekend house. No wine country junk here. Instead there’s lots to covet, namely the gorgeous terra-cotta pots from Tuscany, jewel-toned tiles from Canadian artist Xenia Taler and an assortment of rustic ceramics from the south of France and local potters.

A former Bistro Ralph chef, Steve Litke is now cooking at Farmhouse Inn and Restaurant in Forestville. The property was recently bought by Catherine Bartolomei and her brother Joe. The two come from a fourth-generation vineyard family in the Russian River Valley and they’ve decorated the walls of the restaurant with black-and-white snapshots of family picnics and events in the Sonoma of the 1920s and ‘30s. The yellow dining room welcomes visitors with a fire and candles on the tables.

The Farmhouse menu is short and sweet and changes almost daily. The one item that’s always included is “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.” It’s a trio of roasted loin wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon, roasted rack of rabbit and rabbit confit in a whole-grain mustard sauce with fingerling potatoes. It’s delicious. The chef makes a mean ravioli, too. The one I had was as slender as pea pods and filled with fava beans and mascarpone. To celebrate the beginning of asparagus season, he prepared a Parmesan flan with spring asparagus and a peppery wild watercress salad. Sonoma lamb appears in thick chops with with a medley of spring vegetables that taste fresh-picked.

The advantage of staying in Healdsburg is that it’s the hub that links the Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River valleys and their wineries. They’re all beautiful drives, unspoiled and dreamlike. Westside Road, which winds from Healdsburg along the Russian River to Guerneville and the Russian River resorts, is popular for biking and dawdling at wine estates, such as Williams-Selyem, Rochioli and Porter Creek. It also is home to the Antique Apple Nursery and Middleton Farm, an organic garden just off the road.

Turning into the road, I saw a tall figure in a baseball cap digging in the soil. It was 72-year-old Nancy Skall, who gardens and sells her irresistible organic produce and homemade jams out of her barn. (You’ll also find her at the Healdsburg Farmers Market and, in winter, the Santa Rosa Farmers Market). I covet her garlic and tomatoes, her Queen Anne cherries and a strawberry so luscious she keeps the variety a secret.

She’s the one who told me about a new restaurant, K & L Bistro in downtown Sebastopol, that buys produce from her. I only had time for lunch, and I wish I could have gone back for dinner. It’s owned by two chefs, Karen and Lucas Martin, who met when they were both cooking at Hayes Street Grill in San Francisco. (Lucas worked there off and on for eight years, and also at Jardiniere and Rubicon in San Francisco.) As soon as we walked into the simple storefront decorated with banquettes and bistro chairs, we caught a whiff of something delicious. The soup of the day was a lovely celery root puree decorated with a few tender celery leaves. The frisee salad with Hobbs applewood-smoked bacon and a gorgeous saffron-yolk poached egg is the best version of this classic French salad I’ve had in this country.

Who could resist the housemade boudin blanc, a fat sausage of pork, chicken and cream with a delicate texture? It comes with fabulous deep-gold fries. To achieve that incredibly crunchy exterior, they’re double-fried, and worth a detour all on their own. The sausages also come with a wonderful salad of raw sliced apple with shredded radicchio. For dessert, check out the espresso cookies with ice cream.

For breakfast, head to Willow Wood Market Cafe in the minuscule town of Graton, which is not so tiny that it doesn’t have a decent bookstore on its two blocks. Willow Wood Market isn’t much of a market, really. They sell some wines and upscale food products, along with cold drinks. At breakfast the kitchen turns out gilded French toast made with challah and served with toasted walnuts and maple syrup. They’ve got homemade granola, too, and sides such as Black Forest ham and, oddly, grilled coppa. Sunday brunch (served until 3 p.m.) adds fancier items such as eggs Benedict and huevos rancheros made with Manchego cheese. Bring the newspaper.

Jack London figures prominently in the history of Valley of the Moon and Glen Ellen, a few miles outside the town of Sonoma. You can visit the remains of London’s Wolf House, which burned in 1913 just before he and his bride planned to move in. I checked into Gaige House Inn in Glen Ellen with the idea of going to Mucca for dinner. But the restaurant, sister to San Francisco and Venice Beach’s Globe, had suffered a fire two nights before. They hope to reopen, but because the restaurant is in a landmark barn, getting permits to rebuild is complicated.

We ended up driving into Sonoma for dinner at “the girl & the fig” (yes, lower case), which moved from Glen Ellen to Sonoma Plaza a year ago. Downstairs from The Sonoma Hotel, it’s relaxed and unpretentious and known for its wine list, which focuses on Rhone varietals. It’s a comfortable place with an immense bar on one side that was brought from the East Coast in the 1920s. The food is more or less country French--mussels steamed in garlic and Pernod, crab cakes with a pretty celery root and beet salad, charcuterie and cheese platters. For main courses, there is Liberty duck confit, which could have been crisper, steak frites and a grilled pork chop in a fig glaze. For dessert there’s a demure chocolate pot de creme and profiteroles with vanilla ice cream and a bittersweet chocolate sauce. During the tourist season, they’re open late when many places aren’t.

For all its charm, the town of Sonoma is taking on some of Napa Valley’s least appealing aspects. Shops on the plaza cater mainly to tourists. Except for the simple rooms at The Sonoma Hotel on the square, hotels are mostly overpriced. I checked into the newish Lodge at Sonoma, which turned out to be across from the tacky Train Town. Its “luxury cottages” sat, unadorned, in basically a parking lot. My room had the scintillating view of the housing development across the street, a creepy polyester coverlet and a heating system that sounded like a washing machine. At more than $200 on a weekend night, I reconsidered and checked out, spending the night in a motel instead.

I was in Sonoma to eat at Cafe La Haye. But to add insult to injury, when I called to see if we could expand our dinner reservation from two to five, my husband was told that his voice sounded suspiciously like someone who had called earlier desperate to get a reservation, and that he showed no reservation in our name. If we wanted to eat at the bar, he’d save us a place if we came at 6 p.m. No, thank you. I thought I’d at least go for brunch the next day, but they didn’t take reservations for brunch. And that’s how I never went to Cafe La Haye.

I went to Sonoma expecting to find its restaurants blooming, something that hasn’t come true, yet. Mariposa, which I thought was terrific, was sold between my first and second visits and is moving to San Francisco. It’s not the only promising restaurant to beat a retreat: Freestyle, a restaurant opened by Drew Nieporent, one of the owners of Rubicon, closed after a year and a half. Yet that aside, the county has more life, more openings, more energy. It may be two steps forward, one step back, but something good is happening in this wine country paradise.

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S. Irene Virbila is The Times’ restaurant critic.