From Swedish meatballs to Kansas City-style burnt ends, the North Bay’s culinary range will be on display next month when KQED’s Emmy Award-winning series “Check, Please! Bay Area” spotlights two Wine Country restaurants as the show’s 20th season comes to a close.
Stockhome restaurant in Petaluma and Stateline Road Smokehouse in Napa will be featured in the first installment of the final four episodes of the season, airing at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 5 on KQED 9.
In announcing the new slate, KQED praised Stockhome’s “casual yet deeply personal take on Swedish street food influenced by Middle Eastern flavors,” reflecting chef Roberth Sundell’s Scandinavian heritage. Stateline Road Smokehouse was noted for chef Darryl Bell Jr.’s Kansas City-inspired barbecue, described as “rooted in Bell’s childhood memories and community traditions.”
Personal heritage, community values and nostalgia have emerged as unifying themes this season. In the fall, the show featured Petaluma’s Brigitte Bistro, spotlighting chef-owner Nick Ronan’s menu of French classics inspired by his upbringing in Southern France.
Though the cuisines at Stockhome and Stateline differ sharply, both reflect chefs who draw from their backgrounds to produce food that honors tradition while remaining distinctly their own.
From meatball to kebab
Chef Roberth Sundell and his wife, Andrea, opened Stockhome in downtown Petaluma in 2018. The restaurant serves traditional and contemporary Swedish dishes alongside Nordic staples and Middle Eastern street food, a blend that reflects modern Stockholm’s culinary landscape.
“It’s basically what you eat when you go to the city of Stockholm,” Sundell said in a recent phone interview, noting Sweden’s long-standing Middle Eastern influences, where you’ll find everything from classic schnitzel to gyros to Turkish kebab.
“That’s where I created this concept of ‘Stockhome,’ of traditional but also street-food fare” that you can find on the corners of the Swedish capital, he explained.
Before opening Stockhome, Sundell owned Pläj, a Scandinavian restaurant in San Francisco that opened in 2012 and closed in 2021. Pläj was featured on “Check, Please” in 2014.
Sundell was surprised when producers reached out again.
“It was just such an honor. I was over the moon,” he said. “It’s such a big thing to run a restaurant and do your best every day. So I’m just feeling so fortunate and lucky that I got a mention again.”
For the episode, Stockhome showcased several signature dishes, including Swedish meatballs, beet-cured gravlax and falafel plates. Sundell’s personal favorite remains the lamb and beef kebab plate with rice and fries.
“It’s so good, I almost can’t get enough of it,” he said.
The menu also includes shrimp skagen, Swedish pancakes and semla buns, traditionally served in February for Fat Tuesday. Other offerings range from Wiener schnitzel and frankfurters to fried Halloumi and tabbouleh. On the counter, jars of “Saturday candy,” or “lördagsgodis” add a final cultural touch. This sweet Swedish tradition has children wait to eat candy on Saturdays.
220 Western Ave., Petaluma, 707-981-8511, stockhomepetaluma.com
More than barbecue
After nearly two years of anticipation, chef and co-owner Darryl Bell opened Stateline Road Smokehouse in the summer of 2024 with business partner Jeremy Threat. While the restaurant is grounded in Kansas City-style barbecue, Bell describes it as something broader.
“It’s what I call ‘barbecue plus,'” Bell said. “It goes beyond barbecue … It goes to a level where it’s chef-driven.”
Bell spent 16 years working in Michelin-starred and fine-dining kitchens and studied pastry in France before turning his focus to barbecue. Growing up in Kansas City, he assumed barbecue culture was ubiquitous.
“Moving out here, it kind of hit me like, ‘oh shoot, it’s not everywhere,'” he said.
The idea for Stateline took shape with encouragement from his wife, who urged him to stop lamenting the absence of Kansas City barbecue in Northern California and create it himself. What first felt like a step backward from fine dining became an opportunity to merge disciplines.
“I realized I don’t have to do it the way it’s been done for a hundred years,” Bell said. “I can do it my style — I can mix what I’ve learned out here with my roots of barbecue, and do both at a high level.”
Alongside staples like burnt ends, pulled pork and baby back ribs, Bell rounds out the menu with lighter fare and an off-menu fish selection, an option he attributes partly to personal preference.
“Ironically, I just don’t eat that much meat,” he said, noting that he does taste every single piece of meat the restaurant cooks. “So I realized I would have to put on nonmeat items. It actually has turned into a pretty cool outlet for the team and me to be creative and have fun.”
Bell hopes “Check, Please!” viewers see the throughline connecting his varied culinary experiences.
“There’s some background here to all of it,” he said. “Whether it’s studying in France for pastries to make these desserts, or studying fine dining to do the fish, or growing up in Kansas City to do the barbecue.”
In addition to barbecue classics, the menu features an American Wagyu tri-tip sandwich, smoked maitake mushroom salad, mac and cheese with aged cheddar Mornay, and desserts such as caramelized banana pudding.
872 Vallejo St., Napa, 707-699-2793, stateline-road.com
The “Check, Please” episode featuring Stockhome and Stateline will air at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 5, on KQED 9.
