Many local restaurant owners can spin long stories of how they got to where they are today. Pemba Sherpa, co-owner of Cotati’s Everest restaurant, might just have the longest and most dramatic of the bunch.
He was born in Nepal, and after immigrating to the U.S. in 2002, he worked at several local restaurants, including nine years at the Red Grape in Sonoma, where he learned from the late Sam Morphy. Pemba Sherpa’s business interests grew, and he is now involved in five North Bay restaurants: La Casa in Sonoma; Yak & Yeti in Napa; Everest in Petaluma; Himalayan Kitchen in San Rafael; and his newest, Everest in Cotati, which opened last year.
“Nepalese food isn’t something that a lot of people are familiar with, but it’s something people love when they try it,” says Pemba Sherpa, who lives in Napa with his wife and two children.
(Another restaurateur, who is also named Pemba Sherpa, owns the recently-opened Farmhouse Sonoma. Born in Namche, a village in the foothills of the Himalayas, he opened the first Taste of the Himalayas restaurant in Sonoma in 2003.)
The menu at Everest is what many Nepalese Sherpa would consider traditional foods, including several types of noodle soup and momo dumplings. Everest restaurant is also the only local spot to enjoy thakali thali, a traditional combination plate with rice, lentils, meat and vegetables.
The connection between Wine Country and the Sherpa community goes back to the 1990s, when Chhiring Sherpa, who now owns Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen in St. Helena, moved to the region and opened a restaurant in Glen Ellen. Others followed. Nima Sherpa, who owns Sonoma Grille in Sonoma, arrived in 1998.
“Our community is like a family,” says Nima Sherpa, who, before he became a restaurateur, assisted on dozens of high-altitude treks on Mount Everest.
Elite climber Pasang Tshering Sherpa, who starred in the Netflix documentary “14 Peaks,” flew a flag for Sonoma Grille atop Mount Everest in May 2022. And Mingma Dorchi Sherpa, who grew up in the same Himalayan town as one of La Casa’s owners, flew a flag for that restaurant atop Everest in May 2023.
“The Nepalese culture is about hospitality and treating people with kindness and respect,” says Everest restaurant’s Pemba Sherpa. “This is a way of bringing the culture of Nepal to the people of Sonoma County.”