Grabbing a beer with your mushroom purveyor is a point of pride for many Sonoma County chefs. And while high-profile, Michelin-favored restaurants get plenty of love for their agricultural ethos, there are also lots of neighborhood restaurateurs who wouldn’t go within 10 feet of factory-farmed, well, anything. Here’s a shoutout to a few of my farm-friendliest favorites.

The Priestess of Produce: Lunchette

Naomi Crawford doesn’t just source locally — she’s a superfan of local farms and ranches. Her Instagram (@lunchette_petaluma) is a daily reminder of the incredible bounty of Sonoma County. 25 Fourth St., Petaluma. 707-241-7443, lunchettepetaluma.com

Sea to Table: Handline

You’ll be hard-pressed to find fresher fish tacos, citrusy ceviche and raw oysters than at this casual Sebastopol café. Seasonal veggie dishes don’t take a back seat, carefully sourced from a who’s who of local farmers. Worth a pilgrimage in summer, too, for their sweet elote. 935 Gravenstein Highway S., Sebastopol. 707-827-3744,  handline.com

Classic Comfort: Americana

Burgers, shakes and piles of pancakes are almost virtuous, with painstakingly sourced Sonoma-centric ingredients at two locations. Even the mimosas get seasonal fruit infusions. 205 Fifth St., Santa Rosa, 707-755-1548; 162 N. Main St., Sebastopol, 707-827-3309. americanasonomacounty.com

Natural Pairing: The Redwood

This Sebastopol wine bar is all about not messing with what nature provides, both with the low-intervention wine list and the Mediterranean-inspired menu. Liberty Duck liver mousse, smoked black cod dip with yogurt and potato chips and warm pita bread with smoky baba ghanoush are best bets. 234 S. Main St., Sebastopol. 707-861-9730, theredwoodwine.com

Snail Approved: The Spinster Sisters

One of just a handful of local chefs awarded Slow Food’s Snail of Approval, Liza Hinman walks the walk of sustainable Sonoma County ingredients cooked with care. Even a simple side of beans and greens is magical. 401 S. A St., Santa Rosa. 707-528-7100, thespinstersisters.com

All in the Family: Glen Ellen Star

Most of the produce at chef Ari Weiswasser’s popular bistro comes from his father-in-law Mike Benziger’s Glentucky Family Farm just up the hill. You can’t get more local than that. 13648 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen. 707-343-1384, glenellenstar.com

You can reach Dining Editor Heather Irwin at heather.irwin@pressdemocrat.com. Follow Heather on Instagram @biteclubeats.

The post Here Are Some of the Best Spots for Real Farm-To-Table Dining in Sonoma County appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Sebastopol has ranked among the top Thanksgiving dining destinations for farm-to-table cuisine in America. According to Redwood City-based Mixbook, an online photo design service, a survey of 3,000 food enthusiasts placed Sebastopol at No. 7 on the list of 10.

“In Sonoma County, Sebastopol’s restaurants serve dishes that celebrate its agricultural and wine heritage,” stated the Mixbook article.

Mixbook spotlighted The Farmer’s Wife, located in Sebastopol’s The Barlow, for it’s seasonally crafted meals using organic, locally grown ingredients.

The café, which also has a location in Point Reyes, serves gourmet sandwiches, soups, colorful salads, pastries and a variety of French fries.

Kendra Kolling, founder of The Farmer’s Wife, started her business by creating and selling sandwiches at farmers markets and festivals throughout the region.

Other farm-to-table restaurants in Sebastopol offering fresh Thanksgiving fare include Muir’s Tea Room and Goatlandia Kitchen.

Muir’s Tea Room is offering an assortment of takeout holiday dishes for Thanksgiving this year. The plant-based menu includes butternut squash pasties, mushroom pie tarts, veggie quiche, vegan sausage rolls and a variety of pies.

According to its website, Muir’s Tea Room uses produce grown especially for the restaurant from its English farmer’s Cumbria Gardens, an “organic biodiverse Sebastopol farm.” Cumbria Gardens provides fresh vegetables, flowers, fruits and berries for 20 other local families, as well as the tea room.

The plant-based Goatlandia Kitchen opened in August and changed focus from restaurant service to catering in October. Goatlandia Kitchen also has Thanksgiving dinners to go, including mushroom Wellington and maple-glazed rosemary sage meatloaf.

Thanksgiving orders for both Muir’s Tea Room and Goatlandia Kitchen are now closed, but the restaurants still offer plant-based dishes for takeout. Additionally, Muir’s Tea Room offers Thanksgiving treats every year, and also hosts regular high tea services for holidays.

Check out more farm-to-table restaurants in Sonoma County here.

The post Sebastopol Restaurant Named Among America’s Top Farm-To-Table Dining Spots for Thanksgiving appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Dining editor Heather Irwin picks some favorite spots for summer dining in Sonoma County. Click through the above gallery for dishes to order. 

Folktable

Let’s not mince words. Cornerstone Sonoma has long sought, and sometimes failed, to find an audience. It’s a lovely spot with sculpture gardens, tasting rooms, and aspirational design shops.

But the glue necessary to bind it together was never there, as restaurants quietly came and went without adding to the cohesion of a larger whole.

Until now. Folktable — a project from “Top Chef” finalist Casey Thompson and executive sous chef Melanie Wilkerson — is transforming meh into magnificent. After an extended ramp-up, Folktable has spread its wings with an expanded menu, dine-in seating, and patio service in the magnificent gardens. With flowers blooming, warm sun shining, and a bustling brunch set packing the place, it’s safe to say this spot is one of summer’s big hits.

Sitting under a sprawling olive tree, we couldn’t imagine a lovelier meal: fried chicken, tater tots smothered in Kewpie mayo and bonito flakes, and a big farm salad, each dish better than the last. Folktable also has a menu for dogs (of course), coffee and pastries from an outdoor kiosk, and the Best Buttermilk Carrot Cake, which lives up to its name.

Best Bets

Fried Chicken Goujons, $18: This is just a fancy name for chicken fingers — juicy breast meat pieces covered in sticky chile-honey sauce and served with sweet, milk-washed Hawaiian rolls, pickles, and jalapeño dipping sauce.

Turkish Eggs, $13: This dish is a beauty. Poached eggs top warm Greek yogurt punctuated by Aleppo chile butter and crunchy shallots. Dip in crusty slices of sourdough for a satisfying breakfast or brunch.

Okonomiyaki Tots, $13: Here’s a riff on the savory Japanese pancake dish, topped with creamy Kewpie mayo, sweet barbecue sauce, scallions, and bonito flakes.

Open Wednesday through Sunday. 23584 Arnold Drive, Sonoma, 707-356-3569, folktable.com

Casino Bar & Grill – The Holly and Tali Show

The Casino Bar & Grill is a place to discover accidentally and then love unconditionally. As visitors crane their necks to see the steeple of the Saint Teresa of Avila church, made famous in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” they tend to overlook an old wooden building that leans into the road at the center of town. For more than 100 years, the nondescript structure — with its neon red “CASINO” sign out front — has stood as a simple roadhouse. (It’s never been an actual casino.) Inside, the space is dark and woody, with creaking floors and an old jukebox in the corner. It’s not a place begging for attention from hipsters for its lineup of craft brews.

On Monday through Thursday nights, local chefs and caterers Holly Carter and Tali Aiona put on the Holly and Tali Show at the Casino, preparing dinner menus reflecting the surrounding fields, farms, and fisheries.To call it a pop-up isn’t quite fair, because the duo have been creating destination-worthy food here for nearly six years — in a kitchen barely larger than its twoburner stove.

Recent menus included Panizzera sausage and brisket lasagna; orange-olive oil upside-down cake (their baked goods are incredible); Dungeness crab mac and cheese that beats every version I’ve ever had; kale and Brussels sprouts salad with prawns; tikka masala; and cider-brined pork chops with red lentils.

Don’t go in with any preconceived ideas. Just let Holly and Tali cook for you.

Open for dinner Monday through Thursday. 17000 Bodega Highway, Bodega. Order in advance; nightly menus are posted on Instagram @thehollyandtalishow. More details at thehollyandtalishow.com

Nimble & Finn’s

Guerneville’s legendary ice creamery has quietly opened a Santa Rosa outpost in Railroad Square with seasonal flavors like front porch mint chip, lavender honeycomb, and whiskey butterscotch. There are also boozy ice cream floats: We love the Permanent Holiday, featuring creamy Meyer lemon ice cream, Lo Fi sweet vermouth and Goat Rock rosé cider, and the summery Strawberry Letter, which combines strawberry sorbet, vermouth, elderflower, and Champagne. Either goes great with one of their gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.

Open Thursday-Sunday. 123 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, 707-666-9590, nimbleandfinns.com

Americana

The opening of Americana is a dream come true for Samantha and Ryan Ramey.

The owners of Estero Cafe in Valley Ford saved for years with the hopes of bringing their field-to-fork diner fare to Santa Rosa. After simmering on a back burner during the pandemic, the restaurant is all ready for summer, with odes to classic American comfort food—think 1950s favorites like burgers, fried chicken, and onion rings with a side of the best pie you’ve ever had, all sourced from local farms and ranches.

Even in its infancy, Americana is the kind of uncomplicated, from-the-heart food that speaks to the moment. Best bets include the burger with blue cheese, mushrooms, and bacon—a mouthful of a meal on a Village Bakery bun—plus a fried chicken sandwich with coleslaw for extra crunch, a classic Cobb salad, and thick milkshakes with Straus ice cream. Americana’s holy grail French fries are cooked in beef tallow, just like original McDonald’s fries. Frying fat comes from Stemple Creek Ranch (as does the beef for the burgers) and is rendered in-house. It’s not a simple process, but the results are undeniable.

Open Thursday- Sunday. 205 Fifth St., Santa Rosa, 707-755-1548, americanasr.com

Cafe Citti

After a long renovation of the former Whole Pie location in Santa Rosa, the iconic Kenwood Italian restaurant best loved for its Caesar salad, lasagna, and crave-worthy pasta sauces is once again in business – with a twist.

Owners Luca and Linda Citti are now focused on takeout (though there are a handful of coveted seats on the outdoor deck). Pizzas, pasta, salads and sandwiches are queued up with amazing efficiency and ready to shuttle home to your table. There’s a lot of mix-and-matching on the menu, pairing sauces with pastas or polenta, which we love. Don’t miss the fried polenta with mushroom sauce or the pollo affumicato, a smoked chicken with tomato, and lemon cream sauce that’s perfect on anything.

Open Tuesday- Saturday. 2792 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, 707-523-2690, cafecitti.com

Coyote Sonoma

“Beverly Healdsburg,” as locals sometimes call the once-sleepy ranch hamlet, is not known for its beer and chicken wings scene. But the one thing Healdsburg cannot abide, more than big-screen televisions the size of small trucks? Uninspired food. That’s why we’re smitten with Coyote Sonoma, in a hidden space in downtown’s Mill District. The spot’s Wednesday night trivia nights are becoming legendary, and the place feels like old times, when we could laugh and play games and shout out answers together.

Chef Tim Vallery has turned a ho-hum menu into something worthwhile: Reuben sandwiches with melted Gruyere; red wine arancini; and Pitman Farms chicken wings with housemade blue cheese dressing. Coyote Sonoma is just what we need right now: the familiar flavors of fun with a deft hand in the kitchen.

Open Wednesday – Saturday. 44F Mill St., Healdsburg, 707-433-4444, coyotesonoma.com

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Julie Golden’s dance card was full long before she opened The Golden Pig restaurant in Hopland earlier this summer.

There was the massive fire that wiped out acres of grazing land for the animals Mendocino Meats’ Adam Gaske raises on her 2000-acre ranch near Ukiah. Then there are she and her husband Joe’s winery and vineyards; four school-age children and a menagerie of animals. And her wine shop.

But it was her ongoing frustration about how restaurants source their food that made her a newly-minted restaurateur as well.

After years of selling her grass-fed beef, pork, and chicken to high-end chefs, then watching them cancel orders when she claims her prices were undercut by larger food suppliers, she figured she’d put her money where her meat was.

In late June, she opened The Golden Pig as an outlet for her beef, pork, chicken, eggs and produce—with that of nearby farmers—and as a sort of experiment in bringing true farm-to-table food to more people.

“I didn’t do this to just to be a restaurateur,” she said. “I did it because I love farmers and I want people to be able to thank me for bringing them great food.”

The Philosophy
Calling her restaurant farm-driven, rather than farm-to-table, the mission behind The Golden Pig is to grow honest food in healthy soil with clean water, lots of sunshine and minimal intervention, “to keep you healthy”, according to Golden. “We’re investing in the land and the farmer, creating a culture that strengthens goodwill among local businesses and delivers fine food to each of our customers. It feels good to cook with honest ingredients. And it feels even better knowing we’re nurturing the land for future generations,” says the menu.

Golden hasn’t hired a chef, but trains her cooks to execute simple dishes she’s helped to create, frequently based on what’s available rather than what can be delivered by a food service company.

“Farmers need somewhere for their food to go,” she said, adding that the claim of farm-to-table sometimes far exceeds the reality of what restaurants are actually serving.

As a producer, she said that frequently top San Francisco chefs would feature her locally-produced products for a while until food service suppliers were able to offer substantially lower prices than those being offered by her farm and other small producers.

Since restaurants frequently have slim margins on food costs, Golden said it’s understandable, but frustrating to lose those accounts.

“This wasn’t something I was just doing in my spare time,” she said. “I’m making good food, using the entire animal, and being sustainable. I thought it would be easy to make people understand. But until I opened a restaurant I didn’t understand,” she said.

“Now I understand why restaurants can’t easily work with small farmers. It’s complicated and there are market forces that incentivize restaurants not to. Yes, there are chef-driven restaurants like Thomas Keller’s that are truly farm-to-table but that’s just not affordable to the average person,” she said. By using her own products, and those of her friends, she hopes to both keep costs low and showcase the food of the region.

Location, Location
Hopland has long suffered from drive-by syndrome. Fifteen miles north of Cloverdale, the thousand-resident hamlet is bisected by Hwy 101 — only two slow-moving lanes here — with cars and trucks mostly passing through. But the Piazza de Campovida inn and tavern, along with the Emerald Pharms cannabis dispensary at the Solar Living Center, and other new wineries and other restaurants like Golden’s are suddenly catching the attention of travelers.

Beautifully remodeled with recycled materials and clean lines, The Golden Pig is actually housed in one of the oldest buildings in Hopland — a 19th-century saloon called the Cottonwood. The centerpiece of the dining room is the original bar from the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, PA, the nation’s oldest brewery. Her mother, says Golden, bought the piece at an auction, and used it for years in her Ukiah dress shop, Esther’s, with it later sitting in Golden’s barn, and now restored to its original glory. The full bar serves signature cocktails made with fresh local berries, muddled herbs and infused liquors, along with local beers on tap, a curated wine list with mostly nearby wineries (including their own Golden Winery), house made shrubs using seasonal produce from Heart Arrow Ranch.

More than just libations, they’re tasty symbols of Golden’s crusade toward of delicious sustainability.

“Opening this restaurant is giving me insight into the system, and I can affect change more easily. I want to have this conversation about food, I want farmers to continue farming. Otherwise, what’s my legacy?”

Best Bets:

– Kale Caesar, $10: Baby kale mixed with shaved Parmesan, anchovy and garlic croutons. A massive portion, gently dressed with tender kale that’s sweeter and less tooth-gnashingly hard than more mature leaves.

– The Golden Pig, $16: Pork-on-pork action with Mendocino Meats pork hot dog and sweet pulled pork snuggled into a pretzel bun. Whole grain mustard and kraut give a sharp contrast to all the oink. If you’re wiener fan, this is your dish. Served with fries.

– Pork Schnitzel Sandwich, $16: Golden’s favorite, based on her time as a consultant in Germany, it’s a sweet piece of breaded Dijon pork loin, Swiss, and onions on a soft Franco-American roll.

– Grass fed Burger, $12: Currently, Golden is using nearby Macgruder beef, served with all the fixings and garlic aioli. Grass fed beef that isn’t grain-finished can be a bit drier than corn-fed, so ask for your burger a little rarer than you might otherwise.

– Egg Custard, $3: Served in a jar, this homemade custard is creamy and rich without veering into the cloying sweetness of creme brulee. Addictive. Grab a few from the refrigerator to take home.

– Orange Rosemary Shrub, $4: Fruit vinegar is mixed with soda water for a refreshing, thirst-quenching drink. The combination of savory herbs and sweet orange is a winner.

– Elderflower Sparkler, $8: Vodka, Prosecco, muddled basil, grapefruit and elderflower liqueur. Pink, pretty and dangerously good–consume with caution.

If you go:
– Larger dinner portions are served after 6 p.m., including grass fed steak ($26), Heart Arrow Ranch chicken ($22) and smoked pork chops ($22), all served with mashed potatoes, carrots, and mixed greens.

– The building is broken up into three sections, with a small refrigerated section and walk-up counter for ordering, a tiny outdoor patio and larger dining room and bar. Take-out items are available at the counter.

– All dishes are available gluten-friendly, tapping nearby Pamela’s Bakery for their wheat-free bread. Vegan and vegetarian dishes including white bean chili and a garden burger are available. The restaurant is also family-friendly, with a creative children’s menu.

Needs Improvement: The restaurant is just getting started, so some inconsistencies, like dry vegan chili and slightly overcooked cornbread, will hopefully be sorted quickly. Ingredients do change up, and sometimes certain dishes aren’t available (we couldn’t get the delicious-sounding ceviche on our visit), so be a little flexible–this is farm-centric dining. The menu will expand in the fall with even more options, and we’ll look forward to that.

The Take Away: Supporting small local farmers always leaves a great taste in our mouth, and The Golden Pig is no exception.

The Golden Pig, 13380 S. Hwy 101, Hopland. Sun-Thurs 11am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11am-11pm, 707-670-6055, thegoldenpig.com

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Flower and Bone in Santa Rosa is one of Biteclub’s Hot Picks of 2017

Dalia Martinez wants your plums. She also wants your nasturtiums, your apples, your persimmons, your Meyer lemons and the baby pine cones on your fir tree. In fact, she forages for just about anything edible that might otherwise end up squished, rotted or otherwise ignored in the yards and fields around her Santa Rosa restaurant.

Martinez combs her neighborhood and backyard farm daily looking for tasty tidbits she can preserve, can, puree or otherwise incorporate into the sweet and savory stories she concocts at Flower + Bone, a new eatery she’s opened with partner Jason Sakach. The couple also owns Santa Rosa breakfast/brunch/lunch spot Naked Pig.

Preservation is the thread that runs through just about everything at Flower + Bone. Jewel-colored jars line a wall of the restaurant, filled with preserved tomatoes, plums, relishes and pickled vegetables, memories of a summer past that will brighten dishes for the months to come.

The restaurant’s broader mission, however, is preserving the Old Ways of eating—ancient traditions—from slow-cooked meats and fermented breads cooked in a tandoor oven to bone broths and handmade dumplings.

“You may be the only person in the world to eat exactly this,” said Martinez, placing a dish of **Polish dumplings with brown butter, wild foraged chanterelles and tiny green fir cones on the table**. Tomorrow, the ingredients may change slightly, as the fir cones she collected this morning run out, and she stumbles across something new. But in this exact moment, eating this exact dish, in this exact place, the dish has an entirely unique character with the creamy, nutty richness of the butter, the wet earthiness of mushrooms, the faint antiseptic flavor of the young pine cones.

With that kind of thought being put into every dish, it feels almost rude to lumber clumsily through the meal without intention. Instead, Flower + Bone is best enjoyed thoughtfully, slowly, contemplatively. The “Full Story” six-course tasting menu ($67) provides that kind of context.The first course, a simple cup of **steaming toasted rice broth**, sets the tone. Like everything here, it beckons to every sense: The calm blue of the clay cup, the smell of toasted rice, the warmth of the vessel in your hand, the barely-there flavor that lingers in the back of your throat.

Each successive course tells another part of the Flower + Bone story. Pulling from culinary traditions of Eastern Europe, India, Pakistan and Asia, the dishes feel both familiar and exotic; refined and homey; worthy of introspection, but best shared with friends and family who can appreciate the intent of the chef.

Here’s a sample journey through Flower + Bone…

**Sieved egg salad with paprika, wax beans and spelt toast** (out of my great-grandmother’s playbook) that’s as sturdy as babushka’s support hose. But way more delicious.

**Tandoor chicken, naan, lentils with sour cream and wild foraged weeds**: Another sturdy course, that’s leavened with moist, flavorful “morsels” of chicken from their wood-fired tandoor. Smashed lentils with tangy sour cream they’ve cultured at the restaurant is my new obsession, and the tiny salad is literally a collection of edible flowers and leaves with just a splash of vinaigrette. The wheat and rye naan uses natural yeasts in the air, giving it — and many of the other dishes — a flavor that’s not just unique to the region, but of the restaurant itself, and even of a particular day. That’s serious terroir.

**Nihari beef shank stew, quinoa pilaf, foraged orange and house cheese**: A Yelp review of the restaurant bemoaned the fact that her meat had fat on it. Martinez intentionally leaves some fat on her meat, because fat is flavor. Braised in bone broth, wine and spices this is luxe peasant food. The flavorful, nutty pilaf has bits of fruit leather and raisins to give it a sweet complexity.

**Pluot hooch and gold truffle, cheesecake with preserved plum sauce, lemon curd and nettle tea**: Infused with bang-pow flavors, these tiny bites packed more punch than a clunky cake or pie. I rarely use the word perfect, but Flower + Bone’s lemon curd is, well, perfect. Nettle tea helps digestion and lets the diner linger a bit.

**Plum Hooch**: Don’t miss a chance to try their homemade plum booze, a slightly tart, slightly fruity sip made from foraged fruit. Other drinks: Fennel, salted orange and soju ($12), whey and lime on ice, or various wines, beer or coffee.

Though Flower + Bone, with its large communal table in the back and smaller, more intimate tables up front, is meant to be a gathering place for the community. But it’s also not a place that everyone is going to appreciate. The prices reflect the commitment Jason and Dalia put into each dish, using manual techniques, supporting local farmers and ranchers, and wanting perfection in ingredients. They waste almost nothing, and portions are small, though not stingy.

“No one leaves hungry,” said Dalia. “We ask if people are full. If they’re still hungry, we can serve them more,” she said. So far only one patron has asked for seconds she said.

Some dishes can be ordered a la carte, or mezze style, ranging from $11-18 if you’re just looking for a nibble or two. Lunch is also served two days a week, with simpler naan wraps, cheese and preserve-stuffed philo pastries and salads, though the daily specials change up frequently.

In a world of fast-casual, buffets and drive-thru, sometimes it’s nice to stop and smell the roses along the journey. Just leave a few for Dalia to collect for her summer preserves.

Flower + Bone is at 650 Fifth St., Santa Rosa, 707-708-8529, flowerandbonerestaurant.com. Lunch is served from 11a.m. to 3p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; dinner Thursday through Saturday from 6-9p.m. Reservations suggested but not required.

The post Ancient Food Journey at Flower and Bone in Santa Rosa appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

It was just another Sunday morning at the Stewart-Estes home in rural Forestville. John Stewart fed the pigs, rabbits, chickens and duck, as Duskie Estes made breakfast for the couple’s two daughters and the family dog, Chloe.

Then it was off to Davis Family Vineyards in Healdsburg, to test making BLTs and pork-belly poutine in their new food truck, “The Black Piglet.”

The custom vehicle had finally passed a yearlong inspection process the evening before, and would be rolled out for its first service at the Davis winery the following weekend. Next, they headed to their zazu kitchen + farm restaurant in Sebastopol, where Stewart butchered a Front Porch Farm pig while Estes prepped dishes for the day’s lunch and dinner service.

A quick run back home, and the couple tossed some of the just-cut pork into the wood-fire oven that overlooks their orchard and vegetable gardens. A meal of roast pork loin, backyard plums and squashblossom panzanella with the kids, and it was back to zazu to feed their customers.

“It’s just this thing for us every day, dude,” Estes said with a laugh. “Energy makes cool things happen.”

For the duo, who opened zazu 15 years ago, energy trounces easy. Even in Sonoma, land of handmade, farm-to-table food, this couple goes to the extreme.

Best known for their artisanal ways with pig, their menus often read simply, such as bacon-wrapped dates drizzled in sweet saba, chitarra pasta draped in slow-simmered pork-cheek sugo, and golden roasted pork chop atop faro and fagioli beans.

It’s soul-warming fare in a rustic, California-Mediterranean style. Yet sketching one of their recipes actually goes like this:

Step one: Find some rare, European heritage-breed Mangalitsa piglets. Step two: Cut through red tape to procure the animals. Step three: Build a “pig palace” in the backyard (complete with a rain shower to keep the piggies cool), raise the creatures on a luxury organic diet, then humanely slaughter them and butcher in your very own USDA certified kitchen. After so many years, it’s still the stuff of wonder for Estes and Stewart, who admit that before moving to Sonoma in 2000, their pork came from packages delivered by a food-service company. In fact, Estes was a vegetarian for 23 years until zazu came along.

And they’re constantly experimenting, from a new lip balm called Lip Lardo (made with their own pig lard, grapeseed and avocado oils, beeswax, avocado and shea butters, and almond extract), to a Lard Lather soap, to a prototype of bacon Pop Rocks, which Estes acknowledges may die a snap-crackle death because “they smell like feet.”

But flash back to 1997, when Stewart, now 48, and Estes, now 47, met while working together at the acclaimed Tom Douglas collection of restaurants in Seattle. Stewart had grown up in New York, Estes in San Francisco.

“We’d been chefs in big cities who just ordered food,” said Stewart, who catered Bill Gates’ wedding in 1994. “Tom worked with farmers, and we liked that. Except at zazu, farmers came in with whole pigs. We had few resources for butchering, so we had to figure it out, and then to make money, we had to learn how to use all the parts in a restaurant way.”

Call it artisanal, or survival, the couple has done the heavy lifting needed to create what is now a successful operation featuring hearty restaurant dishes such as pork belly and Liberty Duck cassoulet, cocktails including a Black Pig bacon bourbon sour with maple and Madeira, and signature porky delights such as Black Pig bacon caramel popcorn and maple bacon donuts.

“Survival,” Estes said, with her hallmark laugh that expresses constant joy. It was sink or swim in Seattle, when she was hired to cover for a sous chef headed into a recovery program — he had fallen in a deep-fat fryer after drinking a pitcher of lemon drop cocktail. She worked in three Douglas restaurants, each with menus that changed nightly.

“Shove in, dig in, figure it out,” she said.

She immediately fell for Stewart, whom she called “crab cake guy,” since she didn’t know staffer names and because he was the only one who nailed the oil-and-butter ratio for perfect pan browning. “That stole my heart,” she said.

Stewart, meanwhile, was smitten with Estes’ go-get-’em attitude. “Duskie has always been a whirling dervish of energy,” he said.

After the two married in Calistoga in 2000, they had dinner at Willowside, a weathered roadhouse on Guerneville Road on the outskirts of Santa Rosa.

The restaurant was for sale.

“It made me want to move back (to California),” Estes said. “But I was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with my daughter, Brydie. So I offered half price, and the owner hung up on me.”

The day of Brydie’s birth, Estes returned from the hospital to find a message on her answering machine, accepting the offer. A week later, she got on a plane with the baby, looked at the restaurant’s books and its closet-size kitchen, and offered half-again less.

“I couldn’t believe we got it,” she said. “We moved here July 1, got the keys Aug. 1, worked around the clock to fix it up, and opened Aug. 13, because we had a client party scheduled.”

Then 9/11. The couple had to rent out their new home to keep the restaurant going, staying in Healdsburg with Estes’ mom for two years in a one-room loft above her garage.

Baby MacKenzie was born in December 2012.

“I wore her to work with me (in a chest carrier),” Estes recalled. “She was happy, until she was 7 months old and could reach the plates to steal food.”

Their accomplishments have piled up. Stewart runs Black Pig Meat Co., selling heritage-breed bacon and salumi, with his coppa winning a Good Food Awards medal this year. Estes beat out fellow former “Iron Chef America” challengers to compete in season five’s “Next Iron Chef” TV show in 2012, and took home the gold medal in a web-exclusive “Road to Redemption” tournament on foodnetwork.com that same year.

In 2011, Estes and Stewart were chosen King & Queen of Porc at the Grand Cochon competition in Aspen, Colo., after winning the regional Cochon 555 cook-off in Napa a few months earlier. It was a major honor: Cochon is a national nose-to-tail pig contest where fine-dining chefs create inventive recipes based on locally raised heritage-breed pigs from family farms.

Just three years ago, the duo relocated zazu from its original, casual roadhouse setup in west Santa Rosa to a modern, much larger space in The Barlow center in downtown Sebastopol.

They now produce their own salumi, pasta, pizza dough, gelato, bacon-infused bourbon, and chicharrone peanut butter cups. They grow their own produce at home, and at The Barlow and Davis Family Vineyards. On the side, Estes and Stewart work with Thomas George Estates in Healdsburg to make Pink Pig sparkling wine and Black Pig Pinot Noir, and with Tilted Shed Ciderworks in Windsor for a bacon hard cider on tap, and Davis Family for a Slaughter House Syrah.

Now, showing a visitor around their yellow clapboard farmhouse, Estes and Stewart introduce a stud pig, Big Papa, a 600-pound hybrid. He came to be a preferred sire after the couple played mad scientist three years ago, crossing a rare heritage Mulefoot with a Red Wattle in their backyard, for what they think might be an entirely new breed.

“Mangalitsa piglets were nearly impossible to get, and $600 each,” Estes said. “So we tried raising diŒerent kinds, winners from Cochon competitions. Then we did dinner taste-oŒs.”

Currently, Big Papa is dating Tamworth/Duroc and Berkshire/ Hampshire crossbreeds. “That’s enough genetic diversity, and they’re not as tall and skinny as purebreds,” Stewart said. “They’re more round, like I love.”

Every day is a new adventure, Estes said. “It’s a ride, dude. We’ve gotta try, even if it seems everything I want to do now” isn’t yet accepted.

zazu kitchen + farm, 6770 McKinley St., Suite 150, The Barlow, Sebastopol, 707-523-4814, zazukitchen.com

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