20 Best Restaurants in Napa and Sonoma, California

Not one to rest on her laurels, the creative director of this urban-rustic restaurant responded to winning a prestigious fine-dining award by welcoming a new chef, mixologist, and wine lead, all with impressive credentials themselves. The worth-the-splurge cuisine, hinging on hyperfresh local ingredients from superstar purveyors, comes off even more intricate than before in dishes that might include kanpachi crudo or goat-cheese croquette apps or a smoked pork chop with Japanese sweet potato entrée.

Skilled baristas churn out a dizzying array of coffee drinks—drip, cold brew, nitro cold brew, all the fave espresso options—in a clean downtown space with white walls and teal wainscoting. Pastries, tartines, avocado toast, quiche, and egg-inflected sandwiches (some vegan or gluten-free) are the breakfast hits, with banh mi and the like added for lunch.

Shortly after graduating from a local college's culinary program, chef Carlos Mojica opened this warmly lit Latin American–Caribbean restaurant with a handful of tables inside and out. Loyalists pine for enchiladas with salsa verde and pupusas (corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and pork or vegetables), a prelude to signature entrées like pescado en salsa con coco (fish in sweet coconut) and Caribbean-style paella suffused with smoky-garlicky tomato broth.

Seasonal pies including blood-orange custard with graham-cracker crust are the specialty of this white-walled, brightly lit pie palace with a few tables and barstool window seating. The bakers use heritage grains like buckwheat and farro in the crusts, filling them with local fruits and other ingredients, and, if desired, topping the ensemble with ice cream in flavors from Swiss chocolate and vanilla bean to Thai tea, salted caramel, and almond cardamom.

The seasonally oriented Japanese dinners known as kaiseki inspire the 10-course prix-fixe vegetarian, meat, and seafood menu at the spare, elegant restaurant—redwood walls, walnut tables, mesquite-tile floors, muted-gray yarn-thread panels—of internationally renowned culinary artists Katina and Kyle Connaughton (she farms, he cooks). As Katina describes the endeavor, the micro-seasons of their nearby farm plus SingleThread's rooftop garden of fruit trees and greens dictate Kyle's rarefied fare, prepared in a theatrically lit open kitchen.

The location of Dustin Valette's farm-to-table restaurant holds a special place in his heart: the bar and its Wine Wall taps dispensing mostly Sonoma County wines occupy the space where the Geyserville native's great-grandfather ran a bakery a century ago. Valette describes the menu—aged meats creatively adorned, local fish with recently plucked vegetables—as a "love letter" to local agriculture, a point driven home by the large, bright paintings of farm and culinary activity hanging above the dining-room floor.

The founders of Quail & Condor, both formerly of SingleThread Farms, followed up the success of their small bakery in town with this shop and restaurant that by day showcases their naturally fermented sourdough breads in sandwiches ($–$$) distinguished by their expressive flavors. Come evening, the kitchen shifts into fine-dining mode, producing multicourse prix-fixe French-inspired "Le Dîner" meals, served at counters and a communal table, that quickly evolved into a local hot ticket.

Northern Sonoma native Dustin Valette opened this homage to the area's artisanal agricultural bounty with his brother, who runs the high-ceilinged dining room, where the playful contemporary lighting tempers the austerity of the exposed concrete walls and butcher-block-thick wooden tables. Charcuterie is an emphasis, but also consider the signature day-boat scallops en croûte (in a pastry crust) or dishes that might include coriander-crusted duck breast, Duroc pork tenderloin, or pan-roasted trout.

Boston-style slush in flavors from root beer to raspberry that change with the season are the specialty of this shack in southern Healdsburg across from the beach. The owner's nostalgia for New England summers past extends to soft-serve ice cream in ever-changing flavors.

A neighborhood trattoria with cream-yellow walls, zinc-top tables, and colorful artwork and banners, Baci bustles with tourists during high season, but after things die down, locals continue dropping by for pasta dishes, gnocchi, risotto, and osso buco, saltimbocca, and other stick-to-your-ribs Italian standards. The Iranian-born chef, Shari Sarabi, applies a pan-Mediterranean sensibility to area-sourced, mostly organic ingredients, and his dishes satisfy without being overly showy.

Spanish-style tapas and an outdoor patio in perpetual party mode make this restaurant, headquartered in a restored 1920s bungalow, a popular downtown perch. Contemporary Spanish mosaics set a perky tone inside, but unless something's amiss with the weather, nearly everyone heads out back for flavorful croquettes, paella, jamón ibérico, pan tomate (tomato toast), grilled octopus, skirt steak, and crispy fried chicken.

Breakfast, served all day at this bright-yellow French-style bakery and café, includes the signature omelet (sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, spinach, and Brie) and French toast made from thick slabs of cinnamon-walnut bread. French onion soup and cranberry-turkey, chicken with Jarlsberg, and (on the cinnamon-walnut bread) Monte Cristo sandwiches are among the lunch favorites.

Even before diners settle in their seats, the Montage resort's glass-walled destination restaurant captures the imagination with exterior views of vineyards, oaks, and far-off Mt. St. Helena and interior haute-luxury touches like chandeliers of locally handblown Czech glass. The Cali-Continental connection comes full circle in dishes—Pacific oysters with a spicy mignonette, perhaps, or halibut with shrimp, corn, and chanterelles—whose French flourishes elevate the seasonal ingredients.

Beef brisket and St. Louis ribs are the hits at this saloonlike, order-at-the-counter joint whose house-made sauces include espresso barbecue, South Carolina mustard, and the sweet-and-sourish KIN blend. Along with the expected sides of potato salad, corn bread muffins, and baked beans (the latter bourbon-infused), the spiced sweet-potato tater tots and Granny Smith–and-horseradish slaw stand out.

Inside a metal-and-glass structure design writers have described as industrial grange-hall chic, the chefs at this "farm-forward gathering place" prepare satisfying plant-based cuisine supporting the founders' goal of creating Healdsburg's first entirely vegan restaurant. With most ingredients rushed over from Little Saint's nearby 8-acre Russian River farm, the menu items change often.

Owner-designer Jay Jeffers initiated a top-to-bottom makeover of this restaurant and its same-named hotel but retained the farm-to-table, French-inspired cuisine, the chef freshening it up a little to reflect The Madrona's flashy-elegant look. Inside a 19th-century mansion, with ornate molding and high ceilings but ultracontemporary to the max, diners feast in chic splendor on multifaceted preparations that make ample use of locally raised proteins and the on-site organic garden's fruits and vegetables.

A few blocks south of Healdsburg Plaza at the busy roundabout, Parish's chefs whip up beignets, gumbo, muffulettas, and heapin' po'boys—from fried oyster, shrimp, or catfish to roast beef, turkey, or ham and cheese—along with other New Orleans delights. Borderline decadent breakfasts served inside a white-trimmed yellow house or on its patio include bananas Foster French toast, egg po'boys, and the crawfish and andouille omelet slathered in Creole sauce.

At this storefront a block north of Healdsburg Plaza, Japanese-style prints and furniture offset the mildly industrial feel of an enterprise whose offerings include tea flights, light cuisine, and a spalike tea treatment involving a foot soak and a facial mask. Ramen cold or hot and rice bowls are the highlights, the former accompanied by shoyu-marinated egg, fish cake, tofu, and other ingredients as desired.

"The Wurst is the best" is the motto at this glass-fronted fast-food joint with a menu of sausages and dogs with specific toppings like the Detroit Polish (with sauerkraut, beer mustard, and onion rings) or augmented with (choose two) caramelized onions, sweet peppers, hot peppers, or kraut. Burgers are another specialty, with the blue-cheese and smoked bacon and barbecue ones from a local beef purveyor among the top sellers patrons enjoy at communal and single tables inside and on the front patio.

Willi's occupies a corner storefront with street-side outdoor seating and a compact dining room that curls around the full bar. The warm Maine lobster roll with garlic butter and fennel remains a hit among the small, primarily seafood-oriented plates, with the ceviches, local barbecued oysters (also Buffalo-style crispy), and bacon-wrapped scallops among its worthy rivals.