The drive from Santa Rosa to Kenwood winds through the Valley of the Moon’s patchwork of vineyards, rural lanes and hillside estates tucked into the mountains above the valley floor. Even by Sonoma County standards, it is a striking stretch of road — every curve revealing another postcard view of Wine Country.
What’s harder to find is a place to sit and take it all in.
Salt & Stone has become something of a community living room for Kenwood. Its parking lot is busy from lunch through dinner, drawing a mix of Oakmont residents, weekend visitors and locals lingering over a drink. The appeal is broad: a menu that moves comfortably from steak tartare and duck confit salad to burgers and fried calamari, a full bar and a spacious patio overlooking the vineyards of Kunde Winery. A koi pond and steady stream of diners add to the sense of activity. There is almost always something happening here, whether it’s a midday business meeting, a family dinner or a glass of wine at sunset.
Here’s what to know before you go.
Background
Before Salt & Stone, the space housed KenWood, opened by the investor and restaurateur Bill Foss after a 26-year run led by chef Max Schacher, whose restaurant had built a devoted local following, particularly among nearby Oakmont residents. Foss and his team set out to update the menu with more locally sourced ingredients, though some longtime patrons felt the change came at the expense of the easygoing appeal that had defined the restaurant’s earlier years.
Most popular dishes
The classics never fail to win over diners: French onion soup, oysters, filet mignon, crispy-skin salmon, prawn and scallop tagliatelle, and Shanghai chicken salad top the list of favorites.
Fun fact
Look for the wall fresco from San Francisco’s legendary Poodle Dog restaurant, a wonderfully odd piece of pre-1906 earthquake history featuring a pig in chef’s whites, a goat in a topcoat and a dog in a bell captain’s hat hustling steaming platters to the table. This wonderfully weird art has been part of the restaurant since its days as Bunny’s Kountry Kitchen, a favorite Sonoma Valley gathering spot in the 1950s.
The vibe
The sprawling complex has a space for every mood: high-tops and bar seats for happy hour meet-ups, front-porch tables for midafternoon salads and multiple indoor dining rooms mostly ignored once the sun comes out. Regulars jockey for the best pond-side patio tables from May to October, when views of rolling vineyards and Northern California’s blue skies are at their best. The come-as-you-are vibe works as well for after-pickleball gatherings as for dressed-up date nights.
The food
Though ownership has changed over the years, the restaurant has maintained the kind of broad, dependable menu that has long made it a Kenwood standby, with daily specials providing just enough variety. Salt & Stone sits squarely in the Wine Country menu milieu, but its appeal lies in consistency: favorite dishes stay on the menu, sparing regulars the all-too-common fate of watching a beloved order disappear in favor of something more precious.
The menu, with more than 50 dishes, can be a lot to take in, but the service is unhurried, encouraging diners to settle in. The expansive wine and cocktail lists only add to the deliberation, making “I’ll have that next time” a perfectly reasonable strategy.
Generous Dungeness crab cakes ($26); blackened snapper tacos with mango salsa ($18); and truffled mac and cheese with Grana Padano, cheddar and Gouda make solid, shareable starters. Don’t miss the crisp-edged pork belly with pickled carrots, sambal aioli and Vietnamese fish sauce glaze ($19), a table favorite that disappeared quickly.
The crispy-skin salmon ($30) delivers on its promise, with tender flesh and crackly skin over creamy mushroom risotto with tarragon beurre blanc. The Pasta Bolognese ($26), made with housemade rigatoni, leans red-sauce Italian American, with plenty of tomato and cream, and is all the better for it. A supersize carrot cake cupcake special — one that deserves a permanent place on the dessert menu — was enough for four to share, and we did, not daintily, but with gusto, scraping up every last bit of cream cheese frosting with forks and fingers.
The deals
Happy hour starts early and stretches through most of the day, beginning at 11 a.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. Until 5 p.m., all bar bites are $7, with drink specials including $7 cocktails, beer and wine. Grab a seat early because nearby Oakmont seniors know a good early bird deal — and who’s going to argue with a half-price dirty martini?
The price
The menu accommodates both modest appetites and larger splurges: a substantial appetizer or salad and a drink can still come in under $30, while happy hour keeps bites and drinks to $7 apiece. At the other end of the spectrum are more indulgent options, including wine-braised short ribs ($36) and filet mignon with lobster tail ($67).
The spot
9900 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood, 707-833-6326, saltstonekenwood.com