We were looking forward to dining here and spending a little bit of time in Sonoma which we don’t do often enough. We just walked from our AirBnB which was located a couple blocks south of the plaza. The restaurant was just barely east of the plaza on Napa Rd. and coincidentally next to Sojurn where we tasted last year during Kristine’s b-day weekend and before this restaurant opened last December. As we walked up to the restaurant, there was a another couple taking pictures. I asked if they wanted us to take their picture, they said, no it was ok, since they were just brother and sister, lol, but they offered to take our picture which we took them up on that. From the front, the restaurant looks like a Victorian home. We enter on the right side where we are greeted by the hostess. Behind the hostess is the lounge which is more casual with many plants giving it a bit of a tropical lounge feel.
The restaurant proper is to the left side. As you enter you see a view into the kitchen. We continue past handful of tables back towards the front of the house into another room/dining area that is a bit more private since it is away from the entryway into the dining area and and kitchen. We are given seats in front of the front window, but facing inwards back towards the first dining room and with a view towards the kitchen. For our preferences, this was the best seating in the restaurant.
We sat down in the cushiony chairs and there was a notecard with a cute hand drawn picture of a presumably male dog giving a bone to a blonde female dog. Our notecard was wishing us a Happy Anniversary. Looking around at the other tables, I could see that most had a notecard as well (I’m curious what picture was on them for the different occasions).
As we were seated, we were soon offered the infusion of galia melon & wild chamomile served in a beautiful transparent sided, what I would call a “canteen” that was designed by/used by Grant Achatz at The Aviary.
They brought by the champagne cart. With the traditional beverage pairing, a you receive a glass of champagne to enjoy with the first 4 bites. One of the choices was the 2013 Cristal (they mentioned that the current vintage was 2015 and that 2014 they did not produce a wine since the harvest did not meet the vintners’ standards) which had a $45 upcharge, which is what we went with (and it appeared many others did as well as far as we could see at other tables).
There were 3 options for wine pairings – one was a pairing with Stone Edge Farm wines (the restaurant is owned by the winery), a reserve wine pairing from Stone Edge Farm, and then a typical beverage pairing with wines and sake from various providers. We opted for one beverage pairing and one reserve pairing. As our meal progressed it did appear as if almost anyone else who chose a pairing also went with the traditional beverage pairing.
There were two guys who were in black suits. One of them, Larry (dining room manager), introduced himself to us early in the service and welcomed us to the restaurant. My wife thought she recognized the other guy (I couldn’t remember). When he was serving us one of the dishes later in the meal, we said he looked familiar and asked him where he had worked before. He said Nisei which explained it. He said was a GM at there from the early days. He didn’t give us his name, but looking him up on their web site, it was Ian Cobb.
We started with a quartet of amusé bouches. The first was a gougère with a savory cheesy filling and cherry blossom flavored topping. The second bite was visually stunning. It was the chef’s take on a lobster roll croustade (since he’s from back east, this was a nod to his background). This croustade though was a ring that made think of perfectly round onion ring or Funyon, but was stuffed with Main lobster. The top of the ring was dotted with avocado and a “brain emulsion” (lot of Asian peeps know that it’s the head of that is one of the most flavorful bits in crustaceans). All this was set atop a beautiful blue Zelmer Olsen glass plate/pedestal. The third bite was the venison tartare in a mini tart shell and topped with some fried lichen. This was served atop a deer antler. We haven’t had great venison dishes lately, but this was fantastic. They showed us a bottle of 100 year old balsamic since a couple drops would be used in the next bite. This was the fermented rutabaga bread which was topped with a bit of cured meat. We’ve definitely never had fermented ruttabega anything much less a bread pudding. The sweetness of the bread pudding and the savory of the meat was not surprisingly a great combination.
Then we started in to our first course called Summer in Sonoma. First they presented a list of all of the produce that would be used in the dish. Then they presented the olive oil they use which came from Stone Edge Farm. And then the dish was presented and they drizzled s bit of olive oil onto it. The dish had most of the the individual ingredients artfully arranged (with a few having combined into the light buttermilk-based sauce). With the ingredient list, it became a bit of a scavenger hunt to try to find each of the individual ingredients. It was beautiful and fun and individual elements were tasty. With a deconstructed dish and small quantities of each ingredient, it did lack a cohesive flavor to bring it all together, but again that was the point. I appreciated this dish more than I loved it. This dish was paired with a Domaine Ostertag Riesling on the bevereage pairing which worked beautifully. On the Stone Farms Reserve pairing, it was paired with one of their Bordeaux style Sauvignon Blanc with a touch of semillon.
The next dish was the Spot Prawn with a pluot consommé. It had wafers of nectarine and tiny shiso leaves (so very very mild which is good since Andrea doesn’t like the mature, full flavored shiso we usually find in Japanese cuisine). The bowl this was served in was set atop some seaweed and ice. They warned us that although that part was edible it was not meant to be eaten as part of the meal (I suppose have edible elements not part of a dish are as potentially confusing as non-edible elements on a dish with the food.). The wine was a 2019 Soave Classico from Prà.
Then came the bread and butter. Of course this was not a simple run of the mill bread and butter. The bread was a laminated brioche and a cultured seaweed butter. You could see all the individual layers of the brioche which would come apart as you pulled off a piece. The seaweed butter was served as a mound of ribbons. The bread was already buttery and lightly salted and enhanced with the seaweed butter. This was also strategically served before the next dish since presumably you could use the bread to mop up some of the extra sauce.
Then came the Clam ‘Chowder’ Custard or as I would call it New England Clam Chowder x Chawanmushi collab, haha. With the chowder, this was another homage although combining it with chawanmushi (I guess you could also call this east meets far east…) sounded odd. The chawanmushi had the proteins in it including the clams and aged pork and was topped with some specially made Tsar Nicolai caviar (they source their own saltwater for the packing of the caviar). Then the the chowder broth which made with white asparagus was poured over. Pairing was a 2022 ‘VGW’ (Very Good Wine) Chardonnay from 00Wines from Willamette.
Next came the 60 Day Dry Aged Tuna Belly. The aged tuna was presented by one of the chefs. He mentioned how the tuna is aged in 80% humidity. The chef pointed out the three areas of the tuna that were used – otoro, chu-toro, and akami. The aged tuna was served with koshihikari rice from Sacramento, a passionfruit sabayon, topped with some succulents. This was such a comforting dish with the tuna and rice with the sabayon adding a bit of fruity richness to it. This was definitely one of my favorite dishes of the evening. I only wish had more! This was paired with red grain sake called “Rose” (or Amaiirro Rose Koshu from Kimmon Akita to be more complete) and were told that it was called that because of the red dust that is created as the rice is polished.
The next dish was the Wolfe Ranch Quail. I made a smart-ass comment about eating our state bird and the waitperson mentioned that these were an Israeli breed because they were tastier. This also came with some artichoke, grilled roses, burnt citrus on the side. In addition, we were served some quail broth from a large silver urn. The broth also contained ginger, garlic, and chive and was a deliciously rich accompaniment. Wine: Feudo Montoni, Nero d’Avola, Vrucara, Sicilia DOC 2019
For our final savory course, we received the Emigh Lamb chop. The rib bone on the chop had a silver bone clamp so that you don’t soil your fingers to handle the lamb (although it looked very cleanly frenched anyway). The dish also included various local sides including a fermented Jimmy Nardello pepper, summer squash, eggplant. The lone non-local ingredient was the morel. In the center they spooned a sauce made of Nantes carrot.
As an additional bite, they gave us Smoked Rib. For the presentation, they brought over a wooden box with a wooden grate on top and inside was the smoker. The already cooked bites of smoked rib were on skewers.. It was a nicely browned piece of meat and quite tasty. Wine even for the regular beverage pairing was from Stone Edge Farm, 2014 Surround, which was a Bordeaux style blend with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot.
Then came a sort of palette cleanser made of apricot, bergamot, green Szechuan, and almond.
The next dessert was beautifully presented in a glass spheroid filled with flowers and leaves. The actual dessert was essentially an elevated strawberry parfait, but that still sounds so reductive. The crust on the bottom was crushed pretzels, then a layer of triple crème bavarois, then some macerated strawberries and a strawberry sorbet. I absolutely love strawberries so I enjoyed this dessert with the fresh strawberries, the richness of the bavarois, and the salty crunch of the pretzel.
Then came a trio of dessert bites. The first was a stark white rangeur lime macaron served on a black plate. Second was the sunflower bonbon served, of course, atop a sunflower. Third was the sweet corn canelés. We’ve had our share of canelés ever since visiting Bordeaux, but this is the first time having a corn one. Despite the substitution of corn for flour, it still had the carmelized outside and the custardy inside. And if that weren’t enough then came the fourth dessert bite making this a quartet and essentially bookending the end of the meal the way it started with the amusé bouches with a memorable presentation. They brought out a frozen honeycomb and atop sat little cornet/cones with a swirl of the honey on top and all that served as a backdrop for the first three dessert bites.
We had such a fun time that we didn’t want the evening to end so we asked about aperitifs. The waitperson who was primarily serving us the wine overheard us and came by and asked us if we like Madeira which we said yes. He offered a madeira flight which sounded great to us. He gave us 1990, 1982, and 1977 vintages of D’Oliveira. All the vintages still had plenty of acid to them, but of course the 1977 had developed more nutty and caramel flavors (and of course that was the year Star Wars came out…). Hard to believe that the 1990 is 35 years old, but tastes so young. In any case, it brought a nice finish to our meal.
Service was generally excellent all around. One thing that was a bit of a miss was with the Stone Edge Farm reserve pairing, there are fewer wines than in the traditional Beverage pairing (regular pairing has one per course), so the did have some larger pours, but didn’t make it clear that the pour was two courses so on two occasions we had finished the wine before the following course which wasn’t apparent until the next course arrived. So for sure we’d just get the regular beverage pairing and no doubt we’ll be back, probably for the autumn season menu.
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