Bean Burger from Little Saint in Healdsburg. (Emma K Creative)
After parting ways with Single Thread restaurant’s management company Vertice Hospitality in December, Healdsburg’s Little Saint has reopened with a more casual all-day food program and cozy lounge vibe.
“This is 98% of what we originally envisioned. It feels holistically good and will continue to evolve,” said co-owner Laurie Ubben at the 10,000-square-foot music, food and arts space that formerly housed Healdsburg SHED. Ubben and her husband, Jeff, a Bay Area philanthropist, bought the building in 2020.
Gone are the bistro tables and banquettes, replaced by upscale wood coffee tables, long communal tables and overstuffed sofas.
“This is a Ken Fulk space now,” Ubben said of the casual-chic decor from the well-known Bay Area interior designer who is a business partner at Little Saint.
The curated wine area, overseen by sommelier Alexandria Sarovich, also has been transformed, with an expanded collection of small-producer wines and the addition of a large round table where Sarovich plans to hold tastings. Other noticeable changes are a simplified cocktail list and a new menu from longtime chef Bryan Oliver. The coffee bar now has tall bar stools where customers can get a quick caffeine pick-me-up.
At Little Saint in Healdsburg. (Emma K Creative)
“We wanted more familiar dishes,” Ubben said. But as before, every dish is free of animal products and uses produce from the Little Saint farm.
The breakfast menu includes scrambled tofu with rosemary and maitake mushrooms, carrot lox toast with almond cream cheese, seasonal quiche, overnight oats and chia seed pudding with granola. The coffee bar serves pastries and “adaptogenic” (adaptogens are herbs or mushrooms thought to have health benefits) drinks like a frothy cup of Golden Milk made with oat milk, turmeric, ginger, cardamom and black pepper.
The lunch menu remains familiar with a grilled cheese sandwich (made with nut cheese), tofu banh mi, flatbreads and a bean burger. Daily soups and salads are also available.
“We want this to be like your living room, with no formality,” said Jenny Hess, Little Saint’s program director.
Little Saint officially opened in April 2022. Shortly after, the plant-focused restaurant was included in The New York Times’ “Best 50 Restaurants in the U.S.” and Vegetarian Times’ “Best New Restaurants.”
Vertice Hospitality, co-owned by Michelin-starred chefs Kyle and Katina Connaughton, oversaw the opening food program at Little Saint, which showcased the beauty of locally grown produce with carefully composed meat-free dishes. The Connaughtons’ management company now will focus on other projects, including Single Thread farm and the River Belle Inn in Healdsburg, which they recently bought.
Bright light filters through plexiglass roof panels in Jessica Martin’s painting studio in Healdsburg. (Eileen Roche/For Sonoma Magazine)
A little over a decade ago, at a house party in Healdsburg, Sébastien Pochan and Jessica Martin found themselves peering into a neighbor’s beautiful backyard. “I’m looking over the fence, wondering who lives here?” remembers Martin. “It was like ‘The Secret Garden.’”
The lot was on a third of an acre on Fitch Street, filled with shady olive trees and raised garden beds, and framed at the back by a weathered, rustic barn that looked like it belonged at a winery. At the time, the couple was renting a house on West Dry Creek Road. Pochan was a winemaker at Unti Vineyards, while Martin was making her name as a local artist. And they’d just started a family—their daughter was two weeks old.
Coincidentally, Martin’s mother, who lived nearby, stumbled on the same house, a classic 1910 California bungalow, in local real estate listings. A few weeks later they found themselves standing in the magical backyard, marveling at all the possibilities.
“I always knew I would sell this house to artists,” the former owner told them. Little did she know, they would turn the backyard into an artist’s haven with two creative spaces the couple built from the ground up – a she-shed artist’s studio and a he-shed woodworking shop.
“The house itself is not anything special,” says Pochan. “I think for us, it was really about the backyard – that’s what we’re really thankful for.”
“I always knew I would sell this house to artists,” the property’s former owner told Pochan and Martin. Their two studios—one for woodworking, one for painting—helped bring the home to life. (Eileen Roche/For Sonoma Magazine)
From redwood beams and siding left over from remodeling the barn, Pochan built his backyard woodworking shop. It sits beneath the canopy of a camphor tree, where he created an adjoining tree fort for the couple’s two kids, 7-year-old August and 12-year-old Rosalie.
On a recent evening at dusk, he slides open the repurposed barn door to his 12-by-20-foot refuge. “This is the one place where I don’t see time go by,” says Pochan. Inside, the walls and counters are laden with gouges, chisels, saws, a lathe, and wood blocks and boards of all sizes. The largest wall, on the south side, lets in the last natural light of the day, almost glowing through 4-by-8-foot glass panels given to him by a contractor friend.
Not far from stocks of walnut, redwood, and maple planks, Pochan still has the set of gouges Martin gave him for his birthday in 2002, not long after they met at a party in Alexander Valley. A self-taught woodworker, Pochan started with a wood sculpture of a woman and has gone on to make dozens of pieces of furniture— tables, chairs, benches—many on commission. “At the time, we had hardly any furniture and very little money. I was thinking, ‘How hard could it be to make a table?’ Little did I know,” he says.
Lately, Pochan has been making abstract wood sculptures, which are sold at Gallery Lulo in Healdsburg. “This is where I get my satisfaction. It’s like total peace. When it’s not a commission, there’s no pressure. There’s no one behind me, telling me what to do. There’s complete freedom.”
A self-taught woodworker, Pochan makes custom furniture and wood sculptures, which are sold at Gallery Lulo in Healdsburg. (Eileen Roche/For Sonoma Magazine)
Born in Bordeaux, Pochan moved around a lot as the son of a French military doctor, living in Djibouti, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Germany, and Tahiti. After getting an enology degree in Montpellier, he came to Healdsburg to work at Stonestreet Wines in 1995. He spent the past six years running the wine program at Front Porch Farm and is now working as a consulting winemaker while he grows his own Sébastien wine label.
“There’s something about setting out to make something and seeing it progress as you go. In contrast to winemaking, where it takes at least a year to see the results of what you’ve done—it could be just a matter of hours or weeks for a wood piece to come to life.”
Martin’s sense of place and design is rooted in her family tree. She grew up in the intentional community of Las Cumbres in the Santa Cruz mountains, living in a one-of-a-kind house her parents built in the late ‘60s. It was designed around a tree, with a staircase that encircled the trunk, winding up to a loft. After her parents divorced, she lived with her mother in a sleek, minimal house in Los Gatos, built by the developer Joseph Eichler.
When Martin began brainstorming her own studio on an unused plot of ground to the south side of the family’s home, she started by researching greenhouses. That’s how she found the floor-to-ceiling, translucent polycarbonate siding that now bathes the studio in natural light.
In January 2020, Pochan started building Martin’s art studio. “And a few weeks later, we went into lockdown,” she says, standing in the middle of her 16-by-16-foot space. Beside her, the tallest wall is hung with a few of her latest paintings from a recent exhibit at nearby Legion Projects. “The timing was very fortuitous, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to work on my art.”
Bright light filters through plexiglass roof panels in Jessica Martin’s painting studio in Healdsburg. (Eileen Roche/For Sonoma Magazine)
Her work as a painter and sculptor is deeply research-based, exploring relationships with memory, history, and nature—and looking at how creativity weaves through all of those things, she says. She’s also very interested in how art shapes and fosters community. Helping to organize civic art projects, she also runs the art program at West Side Elementary School in Healdsburg. In March 2022, Martin and a colleague created Peptoc Hotline, a phone number the public can call to hear sweetly whimsical pre-recorded motivational advice from students at the school. The project went viral, with more than 6 million people calling in for help during the pandemic.
On the back wall of her studio, a poster created by her friend, artist Susan O’Malley, reads, “It will be more beautiful than you can ever imagine.” Martin sees it every time she walks into her studio, along with a slender, arched wooden lamp, made by Pochon. “I think it’s sacred to have a space of your own, especially if what you’re making is a solitary endeavor,” she says. “You need to have that kind of focus in a space that is truly your own, and to have the luxury to leave things as they were and then come back the next day and they haven’t moved.”
She typically creates in fits and bursts, and each time she returns to her studio, she says she feels a reconnection. “These paintings are kind of like my friends. They all have a spirit, so there’s a greeting that takes place, like they’ve all been here waiting for me to come back.”
Healdsburg homeowner Leslie Scharf knew she needed more living space when both of her daughters became parents. Extended visits weren’t feasible in her home, so she looked into purchasing an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, to accommodate her daughters and their families.
Scharf and her late husband purchased the Healdsburg vineyard property where she now lives almost 40 years ago. The couple used a small cottage on the property as their vacation home. Eight years ago, they purchased a prefabricated Blu Home, developed in partnership with Sunset magazine, to replace the cottage. After the pandemic, Scharf moved to Healdsburg full time and sold her home in Los Angeles.
“I love the town,”she said of Healdsburg. “It’s a nice small town but there’s a lot of stuff going on, especially due to the wine industry … it’s a nice combination of living in a rural environment but not feeling as if there’s nothing happening.”
Realizing she needed more space to house her family in her Healdsburg home, Scharf contacted Abodu, a Bay Area purveyor of manufactured ADUs. The company provides services “from blueprint to delivery” and specializes in backyard units that can house grandparents, adult children or tenants, or serve as an office, fitness studio or pool house.
The Dwell House from Abodu arrives complete with interior finishes, cabinets and appliances. (Dwell)The hallway of the Dwell House by Abodu. (Dwell)
Scharf settled on the Dwell House, an ADU conceived by Dwell magazine, designed by Danish firm Norm Architects and constructed and installed by Abodu. Marketed as “California meets Copenhagen,” the 540-square-foot, one-bedroom unit has a minimalist Scandinavian style with vertical cedar siding and a 12-foot-wide folding glass wall. The tiny home, which is customizable, starts at $389,000.
Within a few weeks of building the foundation for the ADU, Abodu delivered Scharf’s prefabricated Dwell House, complete with all the finishes, floors, appliances and cabinets. It took Abodu only about an hour to crane the home over the grapevines and onto the foundation, and another 45 minutes to secure it. Abodu then installed the utilities for the ADU the following week.
Built-in shelves in the Dwell House by Abodu. (Dwell)
Scharf especially enjoys how the ADU’s sliding glass walls open up toward the vineyard. She says she looks forward to adding her own personal touch to the tiny home with artwork and furniture: “Little things to personalize the place. It’s a wonderful blank canvas,” she said.
Now, Scharf’s daughters can spend more time at the property they loved as children and where they both got married, together with their families. And Scharf likes her new ADU so much she’s ready to move in.
“If my kids want to come up here and take over the main house, I’d be happy to take over the Abodu,” she said.
An 1890s cottage in Healdsburg has been transformed into a comfortable California-casual home with a modern vibe. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom dwelling at 318 Grant St. is currently listed for $1,700,000.
The ornate character of the late 19th century home is maintained in the carefully restored exterior woodwork, interior moldings and rosettes, as well as a vintage stove. The living areas have been opened up, creating a modern and spacious layout with 12-foot ceilings and white-painted walls. Oak plank floors create a rustic and casual contrast to the typically busier Victorian-era design. Modern floor and wall tiles in the bathrooms add to the contemporary feel of the home.
The cottage’s staging, featuring lots of plants, modern furniture in muted colors and plenty of wood elements throughout, resonate with the streamlined modern design. And the refinished porch, which gets sun all day, connects beautifully with the outdoors.
Click through the above gallery for a look inside the home.
This home at 318 Grant St. in Healdsburg is listed with Joseph Noisat, 707-433-6555, 707-481-8736, Charlene Schnall, 707-483-3192, Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty, 1485 First Street, Napa, goldengatesir.com
Tikka Masala at Delhi Belly Indian Restaurant in Sonoma. (Heather Irwin/Sonoma Magazine)
Sonoma County is rich with the spices and flavors of India. From creamy North Indian curries to fiery South Indian stews, we’re fortunate to have a sampling of the culinary traditions from this part of the world. Some of our local restaurants also serve Nepalese and Himalayan dishes. Click through the above gallery for a few of our favorite Indian restaurants in Sonoma County.
HenHouse Brewing Co.’s 2023 Big Chicken Double IPA will be released Feb. 6. (HenHouse Brewing Co.)
A clucking good time is in store for beer lovers starting Monday, Feb. 6, when HenHouse Brewing releases its highly anticipated Big Chicken “Zero-Day” Double IPA at taprooms, bars and restaurants throughout the Bay Area.
This will be the eighth annual release of Big Chicken, and HenHouse expects to pour 60,000 pints of the sudsy stuff within the week. What makes Big Chicken special is that it’s packaged, delivered and served in a single day, preserving its arresting freshness.
Founded in 2012, HenHouse sells a variety of IPAs, plus pale ales, stouts, saisons and sours, many of them released on a rotating basis. Those who live in Sonoma County know a new HenHouse beer seems to appear on store shelves weekly.
The Santa Rosa-based brewery has inspired a sense of pride among Sonoma County beer drinkers who remain stoked on the brewery’s ultra-fresh, hop-driven beers and clever, esoteric packaging.
More than 400 bars and restaurants will serve the West Coast-style Double IPA beginning Monday, Feb. 6, through Friday, Feb. 10. But you also can sample Big Chicken during the weekend, by heading to the HenHouse taproom in Santa Rosa or Petaluma, where it will be poured through Sunday, Feb. 12 — if it lasts that long.
Sonoma County bar and restaurant locations that will serve Big Chicken were announced on HenHouse’s social media channels Jan. 31, including Acre Pizza in Petaluma and Sebastopol, Brew Coffee and Beer in Santa Rosa, Duke’s Spirited Cocktails in Healdsburg, Flagship Taproom in Cotati and Hopmonk Tavern in Sonoma.
Find all locations here:
Refreshed each year, the recipe for Big Chicken highlights the HenHouse production team’s favorite ingredients, techniques and trends from the previous 12 months. “Zero-Day” refers to the beer’s fleeting availability.
“One of the most exciting things about this year’s release is that we used Genie Barley from Crane Farms in Penngrove, which was malted at Admiral Maltings in Alameda,” said Zach Kelly, HenHouse’s brewmaster. “Sonoma County is really focused on agriculture, so using more locally grown ingredients and developing tighter relationships with our farmers is important to us.”
But blink and you’ll miss it. Big Chicken is expected to fly the coop in a matter of days. Cans of Big Chicken 2023 will only be available at the HenHouse Santa Rosa Brewery Tasting Room and Petaluma Palace of Barrels. Cans will be allocated each day from Monday, Feb. 6, to Sunday, Feb. 12. HenHouse said it can’t guarantee the daily allocations will last until closing or after Feb. 12.
At 10% ABV (alcohol-by-volume), this year’s Big Chicken is all you’ve ever wanted in West Coast-style Double IPA. A combination of Simcoe, Cascade, Centennial, Mosaic and CTZ hops provides burly, dank, resinous pine aromas lifted by notes of fresh, ripe grapefruit. The full-bodied mouthfeel gives way to a hop-imbued burst of fresh grapefruit, followed by a complex yet crisp finish.
Greener than hops
For HenHouse Brewing, this year’s release of Big Chicken is especially significant as it’s the first time the beer was produced with the brewery’s new carbon dioxide-capture system.
During the fermentation process, carbon dioxide is typically released into the atmosphere, where it adds to greenhouse gas emissions. With carbon-dioxide-capture technology, HenHouse is able to recover the carbon dioxide and use it to carbonate their beer.
“There are so many byproducts in beer production, and the CO2-capture system has allowed us to make a dent in our carbon footprint,” Kelly said. “At HenHouse, we think about how we can improve processes instead of just doing them as fast as we can.”
Now in its 100th year, the popular Costeaux French Bakery in Healdsburg has announced the addition of Jorge Flores as executive chef.
Flores is an alum of Campo Fina, the French Garden (where he began as a dishwasher), Chef Josh Silvers’ Petite Sirah and Bear Republic. A native of Mexico, he came to the U.S. at age 14, learned English and worked evenings and weekends to support his family. He was also a board member of the community services nonprofit Corazon Healsburg and supported its creation with former Campo Fino owner Ari Rosen.
Flores has created a new menu for the bakery cafe and the bakery’s first pop-up dinner, Olive You, Costeaux, on Feb. 14. The dinner will include an olive bar, olive tartine, carrot ginger soup, beef tenderloin, vegetarian Wellington (with olives, of course) and a lemon olive oil cake. Tickets are $100 per person and include a meet and greet with olive expert Don Landis, charcuterie from Journeyman Meat Co., olive oil from Dry Creek Olive Company and wines from Trattore Farms and Pedroncelli Winery in Geyserville. Details at costeaux.com/product/olivedinner
Mushroom Cubano with a pinot noir from Kivelstadt Cellars and WineGarten in Sonoma. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)Sushi Grade Ahi Tuna with avocado, kewpie and served with chips from served with Twice Removed Rosé from the taps at Kivelstadt Cellars and WineGarten in Sonoma. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
More dining news
Kivelstadt Cellars chef Jennifer McMurry is offering a five-part dinner series to highlight the delicious culinary variety of the place we call home (that’s Sonoma County, if you didn’t already know). Limited seatings under the stately sycamore trees are available for $58 per person (additional wine pairing for $30).
Menus include three courses with dishes such as local Dungeness crab salad, fresh pappardelle pasta with braised pork, chicken pot pie, petrale sole with pea shoot pesto and baked Alaska. Dinners are selling out quickly but can be reserved at exploretock.com/kivelstadtcellars.
Bartender Colin Carney serves up a pint of Old Speckled Hen fine ale at the Toad in the Hole Pub in Santa Rosa, Saturday, Sept. 8, 2022. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Toad in the Hole Pub in Santa Rosa, known for its British vibe and “Cheers”-like warmth, has closed after 17 years.
For many, the Railroad Square spot wasn’t just a place to get a pint. It was where friends gathered to watch live local bands, find camaraderie during World Cup matches or belly up to the bar with a basket of fish and chips.
But like so many other restaurant and bar owners, owner Paul Stokeld said he just can’t make the numbers pencil out anymore.
“It was a battle through COVID, and after that we were just trying to get back on a level playing field,” he said. “But we were behind the eight ball the whole time.”
In what’s come to be a sad procedure for many small businesses, Stokeld informed fans of the closure on Facebook Jan. 29.
“It’s been an incredible ride. We cannot dig out of the ‘hole’ that COVID gave us, and the cavalry is not coming,” he wrote.
Hundreds of comments flooded in immediately — from a family who brought each of their children to the Toad before going home from the hospital, a musician who played his first public show there, a married couple who met at the pub and many others who saw Toad in the Hole as an extension of the Old Vic, owned by Stokeld’s uncle, Chris Stokeld.
That downtown watering hole closed in 2003 but was a longtime destination for more than a decade. It’s also where the younger Stokeld learned to make his uncle’s much-loved meat pies, which were on the menu at Toad.
“My uncle established what a pub means here,” Paul Stokeld said. “It’s a community hub and has its own energy. I just took up the mantle proudly and kept it going.”
Stokeld said one of the main challenges was the food program.
“We became known as a restaurant, more than anything else, as tap rooms proliferated. Regulars became people that came here to eat, and there just isn’t enough money in that. We were doing all the bistro stuff, getting our food (locally) and then we had to charge higher prices,” he said.
“It all just snowballs, and there’s nothing you can do about it. When the numbers don’t add up, they don’t add up.”
The meat pies, pints and music aren’t going away entirely, however. Stokeld is co-owner of Healdsburg’s Elephant in the Room. He and KC Mosso, a longtime musician and promoter, have frequent events and bands at the tiny space (which Stokeld plans to expand), along with the famous pies.
“We established a nice little pub in Healdsburg for the proletariat,” Stokeld said.
Several people have expressed interest in buying the Santa Rosa pub, according to Stokeld, but so far no one has offered what he needs to come out above water, financially.
“All of the help the government said would come after COVID just isn’t true,” he said. “Everyone is shaking the tree for money. It’s just time to hang it up.”
Think of sushi rolls as the chimichangas of Japanese food—not exactly authentic, but “authentic adjacent.” Covered with a rainbow of sauces, tobiko, spicy mayonnaise, and eel sauce (always eel sauce!), they’re a gateway to more traditional ways of serving raw fish, like nigiri and maki. Love them or hate them, they’re here to stay, and getting flashier by the day. Click through the above gallery for some of our favorites.
Football fans will get a face full of Flavortown when Sonoma County’s celebrity chef Guy Fieri throws a mega-tailgate party for 10,000 people next to Glendale’s State Farm Stadium in Arizona on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 12.
Billed as the largest free culinary event in football history, Fieri’s Flavortown Tailgate will feature more than 20 restaurant pop-ups and bars, as well as musical performances by artists Diplo and LoCash, in an empty lot just a stone’s (or football’s) throw from the Super Bowl 2023 arena. The five-hour event will run from 11:30 a.m. until kickoff.
“I love the Super Bowl. It’s one of my favorite things in the world. But very few people have a chance to go. They want to be with other fans cheering on their team,” said Fieri from the set of “Guy’s Grocery Games” in Windsor, where he is shooting a new season.
A rendering of the setup of the tailgate event. (Courtesy of guysflavortowntailgate.com)
After years of hosting Super Bowl parties at his home in Sonoma County, as well as high-end culinary events at previous games, Fieri wanted to create a large-scale food and entertainment event for everyone.
“I always have these big ideas and visions. Why not throw a tailgate? I’m doing this to take care of people and have a good time in a fun environment and celebrate with other fans,” he said.
Fieri’s handpicked lineup for the tailgate includes 10 Arizona-based restaurants featured on his Food Network show, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” as well as local restaurants from the Phoenix area and “custom creations” from Fieri, such as bites from his fast-food concept Chicken Guy.
Within 18 hours of announcing the Super Bowl tailgate, the event’s ticket site received more than 34,000 requests, Fieri said. Event organizers are working to ensure fairness, he added.
Fieri is already being asked if the tailgate will become a regular event at Super Bowl games.
“Let me just get one off the ground,” he said. “It’s a lot, but it’s going to be amazing.”
