Hungry for something new? Click through the gallery for restaurant picks from Sonoma Magazine food critic Carey Sweet.
Best Sonoma Restaurants: 25 Picks from the Food Critics
Italian Aperitivo Hour Arrives in Sonoma County
Fern Bar at The Barlow in Sebastopol has launched an Italian Apertivo Hour, serving up low-ABV cocktails from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday.
On the menu are classic herbal aperitifs made to stimulate the appetite including the Aperol Spritz, Biciletta (Campari, white wine, soda) and French 75 (Gin, sparkling wine, simple syrup).
Guests can also mix and match liqueurs, vermouth and bitters for a personalized drink.
Need something stronger? Draft cocktails will be offered at a discount during happy hour.
There are special nibbles, natch, from Chef Joe Zobel who will riff on cicchetti — small snacks made to accompany cocktails (curried dumplings with roasted vegetable yogurt, beer-battered spring onion with fermented allium aioli or cabbage rabe kimchi with burnt sesame).
6780 Depot St Suite 120, Sebastopol, 707-861-9603, fernbar.com.
Santa Rosa Bar Serving Game of Thrones Cocktails
I lost interest in GoT a few years ago when they killed off every character I liked in the most disgusting and horrible ways possible.
Call me fickle, but I do still hold a place in my heart for Jon Snow.
If you’re a former fan, a current fan or just want to lament the fact that Khal Drago left us too soon, a lineup of GoT-themed cocktails at the new Railroad Stop Bar & Kitchen will have you drinking like a Lannister.
Starting today and running every Sunday from 5 p.m.-8 p.m. throughout the final season, the revamped restaurant at Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country has drinks like the Blood & Sand ($12) with blood orange, Johnnie Walker GoT White Walker Scotch, Cherry liqueur and sweet Vermouth.
They’ll also have Game of Thrones Chardonnay spritzers with club soda and cranberry and Ommegang GoT Beer along with steamed Manila clams with chorizo, Cubano sliders and grilled New York strip loin. 170 Railroad St., Santa Rosa, 707-636-7388.
(Did you know that a Sonoma winemaker produced GoT wines?)
Sonoma County Easter Brunch Eggstravaganza 2019
by Lindsay Musco
With Easter hopping around the corner, it’s time to make plans for where to eat. We’ve rounded up a few delicious brunches (plus a couple of dinners) for your Easter celebrations on Sunday, April 21. Click through the gallery for details.
The Best Sonoma County Wines at Trader Joe’s, Spring 2019 Edition
It’s no secret that Trader Joe’s is a favorite among foodies on a budget, but what about wine lovers in search of a steal? Sure, you can always count on finding a great deal at TJ’s (the grocery store’s most popular wine brand “Charles Shaw” is aptly nicknamed “Two-Buck Chuck”) but discerning wine drinkers might worry about the quality. As it turns out, there’s no reason to turn your oenophile nose up at Trader Joe’s wine selection if you know what you’re looking for – there are even local labels on the shelves! To aid my fellow wine lovers, I headed to the Cleveland Avenue store to check out their current selection of Sonoma County wines. Click through the gallery for my spring 2019 favorites.
From Boho to Country Cool: 10 Festival-Ready Pieces from Sonoma Stores
It’s the most musical time of the year! The festival season has arrived, finally. Put yourself in the scene with some great looks available in spades at Sonoma County stores. Whether the lineup includes country, indie, hip hop or pop, here’s some style inspiration for your days on the green, so to speak—click through the above gallery for details.
Cedar Enzyme Baths and More: How to Do a Self Care Day in Sonoma’s West County
The Osmosis Day Spa and Sanctuary in Freestone isn’t your typical luxury spa. There’s no sauna, no steam room, no sign of an infinity pool. The decor is minimalist and simple; the changing rooms modest and small. Despite this lack of extravagance and standard spa amenities, the West County sanctuary has earned worldwide acclaim. This year, it celebrates 30 years in business.
So what’s the secret to Osmosis’s longtime success? As it turns out, it’s the focus on simplicity, rather than opulence, that keeps attracting stressed out souls to this hidden gem.
The pièce de résistance of the Osmosis Day Spa is its cedar enzyme bath, a 1940s Japanese tradition imported by the spa’s founder, Michael Stusser, who discovered the healing treatment during a sojourn in Japan in the mid 1980s. Upon his return to Sonoma County, Stusser, then a student of Zen meditation and traditional gardening practices, constructed his first bath prototype out of recycled wood from a chicken coop. He found a home for his cedar enzyme bath on a friend’s ranch in Sebastopol, where he treated clients for years until requiring the Freestone property.
Today, the cedar enzyme bath experience at Osmosis – the only one of its kind in North America – starts with a tea ceremony. Guests then climb into large wooden tubs filled with a warm mixture of finely ground evergreens and rice bran, which swaddles the body like a weighted blanket. The guests relax in the bath for twenty minutes as their bodies absorb the heat, generated through fermentation. Among a long list of health benefits, Osmosis guests report experiencing reduced tension and stress, pain relief, clearer skin and a sense of elation (cedar oil is commonly used as a calming agent and to elevate the mood).
“It’s true healing medicine at the highest order,” says Stusser of the cedar enzyme bath. “It’s so transformative to the body’s many, many metabolic functions.”
When the Osmosis founder first stumbled upon the five-acre Freestone property alongside Salmon Creek it was a junkyard with a dilapidated building. An old truck in the zen garden now serves as a nod to those humble beginnings, and as a symbol of sustainability – a main focus at the spa.
As a founding member of the Green Spa Network, Osmosis implements a number of environmentally-friendly practices. They’ve constructed their own wetlands, which now allow the spa to save nearly 1,000 gallons of water each day, and installed solar showers that absorb the sun’s heat to raise the temperature of the water – they even donate the used enzyme bath mix, reused as mulch by locals, saving approximately 18 cubic yards of landfill space per month. The spa is now in the process of planting hundreds of redwood trees on the property in an attempt to bring back what early settlers cleared out.
While the cedar enzyme bath ritual takes place inside Osmosis’s spa facilities, the true magic can be found in the surrounding landscape. Guests can book sound therapy treatments in outdoor hammocks, eat lunch at the creekside bistro (proceeds are donated to local nonprofit Ceres Community Project), enjoy a 75-minute massage in a forest pagoda, wander through a bamboo forest, and relax post-treatment in one of several tranquil garden areas, including the crown jewel: the Meditation Garden.
Representing the “sanctuary” part of the property’s name, the Kyoto-style meditation garden was created by British landscape artist Robert Ketchell, a renowned designer of Japanese gardens. Over the past three decades, Ketchell has weaved a ten-stage narrative or a “living sculpture” into the terrain – each plant, rock and water feature is part of “an ancient tale of the liberation from the everyday concerns of the world.” Meandering through the carefully designed symbolic garden, guests are invited to find moments for quiet contemplation.
Just like the spa’s simplicity, those simple moments outdoors is what makes Osmosis special. “It’s the healing power of communion with nature,” says Stusser.
209 Bohemian Hwy, Freestone, 707-823-8231, osmosis.com
Don’t let your self care day end at Osmosis…
In Freestone
Before your treatment, visit locally-famous Wild Flour Bread, located just across the street from Osmosis. The bakery specializes in hard-crust breads, baked in a wood-fired oven, and offers up to a dozen different kinds of breads daily. Get there early to snatch up one of five flavors of whipping cream scones, like white chocolate or ginger; they sell out fast. Open Friday-Monday, 8am to 6pm. 140 Bohemian Highway, Freestone, 707-874-2938.
Stop in at Freestone Artisan Cheese to stock up on locally-crafted cheeses, as well as nuts, olive oils, honey, and all the other deliciousness found between these 1880’s redwood walls. Pro tip: If they have the uber-creamy water buffalo gelato, get it. Open Thursday, 12pm to 6pm and Friday-Monday, 10am to 6pm. 380 Bohemian Highway, Freestone, 707-874-1030.
During the summer months, Worker Bee Farm sells the freshest, organically-farmed veggies around at their painfully-adorable farm stand. Open Friday-Monday, 9am to 6pm, mid-July through October. 12983 Bodega Highway, Freestone.
Near Freestone
Freestone is at the south end of the 10-mile, two-lane Bohemian Highway. Make the quick scenic drive north to check out two equally-quaint West County towns, Monte Rio and Occidental.
Sebastopol is a 10-minute drive from Freestone. Peruse the many shops, galleries, and wine tasting rooms, like MacPhail (currently closed due to flooding) and Kosta Browne’s newly-opened The Gallery (by appointment) at The Barlow. Enjoy Happy Hour cocktails and bites at the newly-opened Fern Bar and a proper farm-to-fork dinner at Lowell’s. The Barlow, 6770 McKinley St, Sebastopol, 707-824-5600
Just outside of Sebastopol, Balletto Vineyards has its own “Field of Dreams” baseball field in the middle of the vineyards. Before getting into the wine business, the Ballettos had a ran a popular vegetable farm, but with the changing times, transitioned into growing wine grapes. They now save a small amount of fruit for themselves to craft Russian River pinot noir and chardonnay, plus make a Brut Rosé sparkling, pinot gris, sauvignon blanc, and rosé of pinot. Open daily, 10am to 5pm. 5700 Occidental Rd, Santa Rosa, 707-568-2455
Make it a getaway and book a room at the incredibly romantic Inn at Occidental, which Osmosis has partnered with to offer the Spring Into Summer Spa and Stay Special. This package includes a cedar enzyme bath treatment for two, a one night stay at the Inn at Occidental and complimentary wine tastings at select wineries. Special starts at $379, available Sunday-Thursday, through June 27, 2019. 3657 Church St, Occidental, 707-874-1047
Russian River Restaurants: 5 Guerneville Pop-Ups to Check Out Right Now
The Russian River town of Guerneville is known as many things – bohemian refuge, summertime hotspot, LGBTQ destination…the list goes on. Thanks to a series of new pop-up restaurants, it may be time to add “hip dining locale” to the descriptions. Craving Indian, vegetarian, even soul food? Guerneville’s got it all, and then some. Click through the gallery to discover five pop-ups that are making weekly appearances at Guerneville establishments.
Need an extra incentive to visit Guerneville? Post a beauty shot from the area on social media through April 30, with the hashtag #bettertogether, and a number of hotels, restaurants, tasting rooms, and stores will give you a discount. Participating businesses are displaying a #bettertogether poster – just show them your post to redeem the discount.
Cotati’s Acme Burger: The Pinnacle of Patties
Get used to seeing fine dining chefs flipping burgers, because running a high-end restaurant just isn’t paying the bills anymore.
The win? They’re really, really good burgers.
Chef Todd Kniess of Cotati’s new Acme Burger is one of a growing legion of classically trained chefs exchanging their sous vide immersion circulators for a griddle, fryer and spatula.
“The reason for me doing fast casual is because of the overwhelming expense of running a fine dining restaurant,” said Kniess, who ran upscale cafes in Berkeley for nearly two decades. Two years ago, he closed up shop and moved “to the country” — meaning Sebastopol. “It’s the best move I ever made,” he said. After a stint opening the Grove Cafe at Santa Rosa’s Redwood Credit Union, Kniess decided to go solo again, and Acme Burger was born.
Located at the former North Light Books and Cafe near the Cotati Oliver’s, the space has been transformed into a family-friendly eatery with heavy wood communal tables and benches, pretty much forcing interaction with your neighbors (unless you snag one of the handful of bar tables for two). That’s not a bad thing, because we saw lots of friendly French fry sharing and convivial chatting on every visit. A foosball table keeps wiggly kids entertained, along with an outdoor patio.
Burgers are the thing here, natch, made with freshly ground beef, daily. Their Sonoma Mountain burger is a grass-fed quarter-pounder with premium Sonoma Mountain beef. But “burger” is really a state of mind here, with a hard-to-pick-one lineup of Willie Bird turkey, plant-based burger, buttermilk fried chicken, ahi tuna, Bodega rock cod or seared pork belly confit sandwiched between soft, sesame buns.
On three different visits with three different friends, we all remarked on the perfection of the buns — not too bready, not too soft, not too big, not too small.
“I tested 12 to 15 different buns. I was thinking brioche, but these are a take on the classic potato bun,” said Kneiss. Made specially for Acme Burger by Franco American, they soak up the sauce and become part of the burger experience rather than a monstrous bread bomb threatening to carbo-load you whether you like it or not.
As summer approaches, Kneiss hopes to bring more to the menu, like an oyster night, live music and pig roasts.
“I want this to be a great place for everyone,” said Kneiss.
Best Bets
Acme Burger, $5.95 (single), $8.95 (double): Entry-level burger made with Angus beef. It’s as straightforward as you can get, with lettuce, tomato and “Awesome Sauce.” Toppings are add-ons, meaning you’ll fork out an additional 50 cents for grocery store cheeses (American, Swiss, cheddar), $1 for fancy stuff (brie, Pt. Reyes Blue, goat cheese, onion rings, sautéed mushrooms). For $1.50, you can get applewood smoked bacon, roasted red peppers, avocado, an organic egg, homemade chili or truffle butter. It’s still a deal, even loaded with toppings, for the quality of the product. The secret? A good caramelization on the griddle and not overcooking it, says Kneiss.
Sonoma Mountain Beef Co. Burger, $6.95 (single), $9.95 (double): Spring for the extra dollar it costs for this locally-sourced, grass fed, hormone-free burger. Because the beef is finished on grain, it doesn’t have the gamey flavor of some grass-fed meat, and plenty of juiciness to really sink your teeth into.
Seared Pork Belly Confit Burger ($8.75/$11.75): Here’s where Kneiss’ culinary prowess really shows. Crispy cuts of pork belly might be too heavy on their own, considering the bun and sauce, but get a fresh, crunch with a slaw of kale, Brussels sprouts, golden beets, carrots and cabbage. Don’t muck it up with anything else. Oh my god, good.
Daily Soup $4.50/$6.75: You might overlook the daily soup selection, but do so at your own peril. Kneiss makes soup from scratch daily because, as he says, it’s easy to do. On our first visit, the mushroom truffle soup was undeniably awesome. Made with three kinds of mushrooms and a truffle porcini paste he gets from Italy, we had to roshambo for the leftovers of the creamy, earthy, lush soup.
Fries ($2.95 to $3.50): If you love long, skinny fries with minimal grease, you’ve found your nirvana. Try them with the Cajun spice, which Kneiss doctors up with his New Orleans skills.
Impossible Burger ($8.75, $11.75): Plant-based “meat” that could pass for the real thing. We topped it with bacon, smoked Gouda and Awesome Sauce (made with a mix of condiments and sauces that’s similar to Thousand Island, but with more of a kick), and it was excellent. If you want it vegan, it comes with hummus. If you’re into that.
Buttermilk Fried Chicken Breast ($7.50, $10.50): A thick, juicy slab of breast meat with a crunchy coating. It’s not a game-changer, but it’s solid as heck.
Needs Improvement
Ahi Tuna Burger ($8.50/$11.50): This one fell a little flat, despite sounding amazing. Seared tuna, wasabi mayo, teriyaki glaze, pineapple salsa. What could go wrong? The tuna was overcooked and we didn’t see any pineapple salsa anywhere. We’re willing to give it another chance, especially since Kneiss promised to fix it on our next visit. Props for customer service.
Kale Salad ($6.95): Let’s just say, stick to the burgers. It made me feel a little sad.
And the rest…
Local brews like Old Caz and Cooperage, decent wines by the glass, shakes and cones.
Weekly specials for families, students and seniors.
Overall: A chef-led burger bonanza that’s fun with the family, affordable and will make everyone happy.
Location: 550 East Cotati Ave., Cotati, 707-665-5620, acmeburgerco.com.
After The Flood: Barrio Reopening at the Barlow
The teeth-chattering thrum of power washers on the sidewalk near Carlos Rosas’ cantina at The Barlow in Sebastopol are a hopeful sign of progress five weeks after disastrous flooding closed or damaged nearly half of the 40 businesses.
Though the road to rebuilding will be longer for some, Rosa’s Barrio Fresca Cantina will be the first restaurant to reopen on Monday, April 8.
“We are the tiniest space at the Barlow, that’s the reason we could reopen so soon,” said Rosas, whose entire kitchen is 249 square feet.
Diners either take the food to go or sit in the outside patio area. Barrio opened in November 2017 and employs three full time and nine part-time staff.
“It’s been a surprise and a blessing from God. When I saw (the restaurant), it was so bad. I thought we wouldn’t be able to open for two to three months,” said Rosas.
While the restaurant was closed, Rosas went to work for another restaurateur to help pay the bills, which kept coming despite the closure.
To help offset the loss, Rosas, like many Barlow businesses, started a Go Fund Me page that raised $7,000 to pay for lost equipment.
Rosas said Barlow management had helped with construction repairs. Barrio staff, said Rosas, had other work during the closure but are coming back to the restaurant on Monday. He’s mostly grateful that no one was hurt.
“Everything is easy to replace in the restaurant business.
“For me, the most important thing is the employees. They’re like a family, and I’m so happy to have my family,” Rosas said.
As to whether or not he thought customers would return to The Barlow, Rosas has a positive outlook, ironically, because of the name recognition the flood brought to the space.
“I used to be a commercial,” said Rosas. He explained that many people didn’t know where The Barlow was, or even that it existed.
“Now everyone knows where it is. I know it’s going to be successful. There will be even more people, more traffic, because people want to see what happened.”
So, with more rain possible in the forecast, is he worried Barrio could flood again?
“Something I learned from this is that I don’t know what is going to happen in the future. I used to worry about the future, I used to be stressed about business, numbers, customers, everything.
“I finally see the light, because it was all gone in three hours (during the flood). Now I just want to be focused on making good food, being happy and not worrying about what happens in the future,” he said.