Healdsburg’s three-Michelin-starred SingleThread feels like a love letter to Japan.
Inspired by the country’s poetic system of micro seasons, or “sekki” — with names like “mists begin to trail” and “the bush warbler sings” — the restaurant’s hourslong multicourse meals emerge from a near-silent kitchen, each petal and scale placed with meticulous care.
Now comes the reply.
SoNoMa by SingleThread, the restaurant’s first international project, opens in March in Kyoto. It is an ode to Sonoma County and Northern California.
The 12-seat restaurant, along with a lounge and pastry shop, will be housed inside the new Capella Kyoto hotel in the historic Miyagawa-cho District, one of the city’s storied geisha neighborhoods.
The opening marks a full-circle moment for owners Kyle and Katina Connaughton, who lived and worked in Japan before putting Sonoma County on the global fine-dining map. The kitchen will be led by chef Keita Tominaga, son of the late Ken Tominaga, founder of Hana Japanese restaurant in Rohnert Park. He has spent more than a year at SingleThread and previously worked at the Michelin-starred Tenoshima in Tokyo.
The menu will spotlight Kyoto’s regional agriculture and culinary traditions through a Northern California lens, drawing ingredients from both sides of the Pacific.
Katina Connaughton, who oversees SingleThread’s 24-acre farm in Alexander Valley, is collaborating with Kansai-region farmers to grow Northern California produce, including heirloom tomatoes, peppers, squash and flowers, alongside native Kyoto vegetables. California olive oil, almonds and cheese will also make the journey east.
The result, according to Kyle Connaughton, will be a multicourse tasting menu that expresses Kyoto’s terroir and sensibilities while staying rooted in the Wine Country ethos.
The project also includes a lounge for lighter fare, cocktails and high tea, and a dedicated patisserie, SingleThread Entremets, led by executive pastry chef Emma Horowitz and Tokyo-trained chef Miu Morita.
“If SingleThread is a very Kyoto-inspired restaurant in California,” said Tony Greenberg, a co-owner, “then SoNoMa by SingleThread will be an equally California-inspired restaurant in Kyoto — a mirror experience of sorts.”
More information is available at capellahotels.com/en/capella-kyoto/dining/sonoma.