Of course you’re perfect the way you are, but who wouldn’t mind being just a little more stylish this fall? Just a tiny upgrade here (enter, perfectly fitting shirt), or some high-functioning outerwear there (hi, stunning shawl), or quality suede shoes that side step the big box offerings. Here are some finds, all from Sonoma, that might impress your date, your clients or, the toughest one to win over, yourself.
A stylish necklace or earrings can punctuate your look, whether it’s an ordinary outfit or a super chic ensemble. Sonoma stores have some lovely pieces that are on the modern side of BOHO. Update your Bohemian vibe with a new statement piece—click through the above gallery for details.
When The Francis House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, it was already in bad shape, its glory days greatly in danger of becoming a lost memory.
Built in 1886 as a family home for successful merchant, James H. Francis, it’s the only stone building in Napa County with authentic French Second Empire architecture. From 1919 to 1964 it served as the Calistoga Hospital. After its doors were locked for good, the house remained the talk of the town – but, as time went on, it was for all the wrong reasons.
For more than 50 years the residence was uninhabited, essentially abandoned. Time took its toll. Those driving by, especially those aware of its history, would look and wonder. The Calistoga landmark was in ruins, said to be weeks away from demolition, when husband and wife team, Dina and Richard Dwyer took on the challenge of ensuring its future.
“When we settled on the property, the city planner said ‘congratulations’ and ‘my condolences,’” said Richard Dwyer.
Though there are a number of exterior photographs documenting the history of The Francis House, there was little to work with regarding the interior. A clean slate of sorts, three long years later, the house is the talk of the town again. This time for all the right reasons.
The Francis House is set to reopen September 7th as a luxury five-room inn. Guest rooms pay tribute to the property’s rich past, while at the same time ushering it into modern times. Antique desks mingle with smart TVs. Bathrooms feature Carrara marble and heated toilets. Amenities including an infrared sauna and salt room, billiards, and heated pool make it a place easy to linger longer.
As The Francis House gets closer to opening day, the curious have been stopping by, to take a peek, and say thanks. Calistoga is not just gaining a luxury property, it’s getting back a treasured piece of community history. In September, a Tiburon resident will be back for what, I guess, you could call his second stay. He was born at the Calistoga Hospital 81 years ago.
The Francis House of Calistoga was recently awarded a 2018 Preservation Design award from the California Preservation Foundation. Room rates range from $495 to $695, including breakfast. 1403 Myrtle Street, Calistoga, 707-341-3536. thefrancishouse.com
Nearby Spots Worth Saving Time for this Fall
The Francis House is just a couple blocks from Lincoln Avenue, making it easy to wander along Calistoga’s main drag. Plan on setting aside some time to soak up neighborhood hotspots, because, being in hot water is always a good thing in Calistoga.
At Indian Springs, weekday pool passes are $25 for all spa day guests who book a 50-minute treatment. On weekends and holidays, it jumps to $50. indianspringscalistoga.com
Established in 1952, the mud baths at Dr. Wilkinson’s Hot Springs Resort provide the kind of dirt legends are made of. drwilkinson.com
Located between Calistoga and St. Helena on Highway 29/128, the restored, water-powered grist mill at Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park, still grinds grain during tours every weekend. Admission: $5 for adults, $2 for children 6 to 17, those under 6 are free. napavalleystateparks.org
Enjoy some bubbly cheer while touring the 125-year-old wine caves at Schramsberg Vineyards. $70; reservations are required in advance. schramsberg.com
Sip Italian-style wines at Castello di Amorosa, a 13th century Tuscan castle in the middle of wine country. Tours start at $45, and reservations are highly recommended. castellodiamorosa.com
Downtown Santa Rosa’s food scene has undergone an extensive makeover in the last year, with plenty of sparkle, rouge and lipstick in the additions of swell destination spots like Perch & Plow, Gerard’s Paella, Parish Cafe, Acre and Naked Pig. But wait, there’s a whole lot more in store and we’ve got the, er, scoop.
This week, Healdsburg pastry and ice cream wunderkinds, Ozvaldo Jimenez and Christian Sullberg (Noble Folk, Moustache Baked Goods) announced the opening of a new Noble Folk on Fourth Street in Santa Rosa. Pause for head explosion.
Known for their ridiculously delicious house-made ice creams (strawberry miso, Thai tea, raspberry lychee sorbet) and pies (peach bourbon with streusel, vanilla sweet corn custard with strawberry compote), along with sleek aesthetics and community-minded activism, the 30-somethings say they’ve long contemplated expanding, and when restaurateur Sonu Chandi offered up the former salon next to his upcoming Bollywood Bar & Clay Oven, they jumped.
“Imagine if Moustache and Noble Folk had a baby,” said Sullberg, standing outside the 539 Fourth Street location, which they’ve already started rehabbing. “That’s the idea, a little bit of both,” he explained, offering up the pies and ice creams they’ve become known for at Noble Folk along with some cake creations along the lines of Moustache.
The co-owners and Sonoma County natives say they’re glad to bring some additional family-friendly sweetness to downtown. We say, Santa Rosa just got its kitten heels and a sassy hair flip with Noble Folk as part of its food reboot.
Concurrently, the Chandi Hospitality Group (Beer Baron, Bibi’s Burger Bar, Stout Bros, Mountain Mike’s) is working on a Bollywood-themed Indian restaurant to take over the former County Bench (535 Fourth St.). Sonu Chandi said that they have hired Chef Niven Patel, a Florida-based proponent of farm-to-table Indian cuisine, to create the menu and seasonal cocktail guru Scott Beattie (Cyrus, Ramen Gaijin) to create Indian-inspired drinks. Having tried their “secret Indian menu” at Bibi’s, call me enthusiastic.
The opening menu includes dishes like ghost pepper cheddar naan, local vegetable pakora, gooseberry chutney, lamb samosas with mint chutney, pomegranate biryani, whole turmeric-marinated grouper, channa masala and pork belly vindaloo. The restaurant is also slated to open in November.
Okay, I’m sorry for the clickbaity headline, but this one’s a bit of a heavy hitter we’re pretty excited about.
Remember Vignette in the Barlow? A while back, it seemed to disappear overnight along with its chef/owner Mark Hopper. The website went dark, the Facebook page wasn’t updated, and pretty much no one we asked knew exactly where Hopper had landed.
Surprise! News came out yesterday that Hopper will be the new executive chef for Barndiva in Healdsburg following the departure of Chef Ryan Fancher. Hopper has a stellar resume, working closely with Thomas Keller at the French Laundry, the opening of Las Vegas’ Bouchon and executive chef for casual dining at the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group. He was also instrumental in the opening of Farmshop in Marin, and the late Vignette, which opened in 2014, was a BiteClub favorite for his handmade pizzas and wood-fired veggies.
It’s a solid fit, as Hopper is dedicated to sustainable, local sourcing and should jive with the Barndiva aesthetic.
Stay tuned for more details on Hopper’s introduction to Barndiva.
Another great year at Taste of Sonoma, which happened Sept. 1, 2018 at the Green Music Center. Highlights included a rose tasting panel, great showings by Ramen Gaijin, Stockhome (Chef Roberth says they’re doing up to 400 covers a day at the new Petaluma restaurant), Jam’s Joy Bungalow, Chef Tom Schmidt of John Ash & Co, Gerard’s Paella and many others.
Enjoy the gallery above for some food pix.
Sia and Ashish Patel finished renovations on their historic Glen Ellen hotel just a year before the Nuns fire marched its way.
Purchased in 2011, the husband and wife fell in love with the property’s 200-year-old olive trees that rimmed the lush Sonoma Valley hillside it brushed up against (the trees gave name to the hotel; olea is latin for olive or olive tree). Together, they modernized its interiors and added four new guest rooms, setting down the final paintbrush in 2016.
When the Nuns fire came racing through Glen Ellen last October, the century-old Warm Springs Road hotel was right in its path.
“You never expect that it’s going to happen to you,” Sia Patel said.
But it did. Thanks to a couple of fire crews that set up camp on the property, though, the damage was surmountable. Gone are two of the property’s historical cottages, as well as a significant number of the olive trees the Patels so loved, but the rest emerged mostly unscathed.
This week, nearly a year after the blaze, the Olea Hotel reopened to the public. Burn scars still mark the hillside.
The damage was estimated to be about $1 million, though the final dollar amount will likely be more than that, Sia Patel said. After scraping the fire-damaged buildings from the land, the Patels took advantage of the closure, further modernizing the interiors and installing a pool.
“Luckily our weekends are totally booked,” Sia Patel said. “Our weekdays, I’d say, we’re 50 percent there right now. We’re just trying to get a couple months of the busy season in.”
Rates begin at just $199 and include a two-course breakfast. Olea Hotel is offering two special packages through February, 2019: Winter Escape – 20% off regular rates plus a $25 spa credit and Linger Longer – Stay one night, get 20% off; stay two nights or more and receive 30% off each additional night. Both packages include the hotel’s signature two-course breakfast of sweet and savory items plus breakfast buffet.
Click through the above gallery to see photos of the recently reopened Olea Hotel, and of the damage it sustained during last year’s wildfires. oleahotel.com
Fall is arriving and the warm, sunny days are slowly dwindling. Avoid the post-summer funk by brightening up your free time: enjoy time at the coast, taste wine in the countryside, try new foods, freshen up your look or simply embrace your weekend laziness. Click through the above gallery for 20 ways to upgrade your weekend in wine country.
Creating a great looking bathroom doesn’t have to involve taking a sledgehammer to your old tile and grout. A lot can be accomplished with some paint, clutter editing and the addition of a few (carefully selected) accessories. Here are some exquisite products, all available in Sonoma, to inspire some salle de bain style—click through the above gallery for details.
For the last 18 months, Down to Earth Cafe has been a cheerful neighborhood cafe with a fairly straightforward menu of sandwiches, salads and entrees. It doesn’t scream for attention by fussing over how their house-cured pastrami takes 16 days to make or how their butterscotch pudding is made with cream and butter and not butterscotch chips. There’s no indication that chef/owner Chris Ball has worked in some of the best restaurants in Europe, and has worked for years to perfect his shatteringly good fish and chips. Which is exactly why it’s escaped the radar for this long.
When the dazzle of six-figure restaurant makeovers, precious farm-to-table menus and a never-ending lineup of pedigreed Wine Country chefs is a constant, simpler neighborhood cafes can be lost in the shuffle. Also, they’re also usually not run by a Lark Creek Inn and Fish (Sausalito) alum, so there’s that.
“I just want to feed people,” says Ball, as we chat for nearly two hours on a Saturday afternoon between services. He’s been freshly featured on Guy’s Grocery Games on the Food Network, a local chef honor not uncommon since it is filmed in Santa Rosa, but Ball also worked for nearly a year with Fieri on a seasonal menu for Tex Wasabi’s when it was shelved during ownership changes.
“He is stunningly knowledgeable about food,” says Ball of the Food Network chef.
Down to Earth is housed in the former Nicolino’s in downtown Cotati (and briefly Stax), revamped from kitschy Italian to a cozy walk-up cafe where service and the menu are casual, but the technique behind the food is anything but.
Take the fish and chips — something I rarely order after years of flabby, greasy, anvil-heavy disappointments.
“Most of them are like sad pancakes on bad fish,” he says sensing my trepidation. Here, fresh North Coast rock cod is dipped in a light beer batter (and plenty of cornstarch) giving it a lacy, fizzled crispness that’s crackles in your mouth rather than laying there like a sodden blanket.
The fish is clean and whisper light rather than a rubbery mess smelling of low tide. It’s a bit of a revelation served with hand-cut fries (pretty much no one goes to the trouble of making fries anymore), spicy remoulade, a wedge of grilled lemon and coleslaw.
And Ball knows his fish. “We used to bring in fish two times a day,” says Ball of his time at Scotland’s most famous restaurant, the Witchery. During his stint at Sausalito’s Fish Restaurant, he would be awakened before dawn with day boat captains ready to drop their entire catch within a few hours.
The Grand Rapids, Michigan native, however, doesn’t feel the need to overcomplicate things at the 49-seat restaurant.
“It’s like turning a carrot into a carrot,” he says of his time in fine dining, where a simple carrot would be manipulated 20 times to become, well, a carrot, albeit with foams and gels and pumpernickel “dirt”.
“This is Cotati, I’m trying to feed people here. I want to make really good food. I want everything to be what it is, with just a few components that go together, and you have to put love into food,” says Ball.
Best Bets
Strawberry Balsamic Salad ($9.50/$11.50): This is a popular seller for a good reason. Sweet ripe strawberries are the star of this simple salad that plays ping pong on your palate with sweet candied pecans, pickled onion, creamy herbed goat cheese, peppery arugula, bitter frisee and a sweet, sour balsamic reduction.
Pastrami Reuben ($14): Ball’s house-cured pastrami is thinly sliced and slightly crisped, stacked with sauerkraut, Swiss and spicy remoulade on marbled rye. Each element of this sandwich plays nicely with its neighbor, rather than anyone trying to steal the show.
Slow-Braised Short Rib Poutine ($13/$19): This is the show-stopper. Throw out everything you know about Canadian gravy fries, because this is possibly the most elevated dish on the menu. Handcut Kennebec fries, Cabernet gravy that I have contemplated writing an ode to, blue cheese cracklings and a chunk of slowly braised short ribs so sweet and tender you’ll want to send it a Hallmark card. Speaking of which, if you’re more of an entree kind of person, you can get a giant plate of short ribs, mashed potatoes and grilled veggies for $19.50.
Shells and Cheese with House-Cured Bacon ($13): Check out the Yelp reviews. You’ll see a particularly loving review or two of this blockbuster for good reason. Let’s just say Ball knows his way around a Béchamel sauce. A throwback with the addition of a grilled hot dog for us 70s kids.
Butterscotch Pudding ($7): Like we said, no melted butterscotch chips, which tend to give short-cut puddings a gritty texture. Smoother than Michael Buble doing a Sam Smith cover in silk pajamas.
Needs Work
Fried Chicken Sandwich ($13): It’s not that I didn’t like this lovely little torpedo roll with crisp fried chicken, but both times I tried it, the use of chicken tenders, rather than the whole breast made the whole thing unwieldy. Java BBQ with Pt. Reyes Blue Cheese also got a little heavy handed.
We’ll Be Back For
Sunday brunch is simple, but Pastrami Hash ($13.50) with crispy potatoes, piquillo pepper and eggs has our name all over it, especially with a side of Meyer Lemon Hollandaise.
Overall: Chris Ball is a top-notch chef who uses his classic training to create comfort classics with a light touch and an earnest heart. A Cotati sleeper that’s snoozing no more.
Open daily. Monday through Thursday, 11a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday to 9 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Catering available. 8204 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati, 707-753-4925, dtecafe.com.
