Bird & The Bottle
Mark Stark cooks over a custom grill that weighs 1,600 pounds and runs near 800 degrees, with a V-channel cut into it to catch the fat and baste the meat back.
Or I just take a spoon to it,he says.1
Why go
This was the sixth restaurant Mark and Terri Stark opened in thirteen years, and it took two years and $1.5 million of renovation to get the doors open in late September 2015.1 The menu runs Jewish deli, Southern and Korean cooking through that one fire.1 A schmear at a New York deli is cream cheese on a bagel; here it is smoked black cod with sour cream and horseradish on Costeaux pumpernickel rye, or chicken liver mousse with pickled shallots.1 The grits are built like congee, under a soy-cured egg and hen of the woods.1 Eric Foster came over from Willi's Seafood to run the kitchen.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the whole wood-grilled snapper with pine nut gremolata. The reviewer's line is that it shows off the best of what the grill does for fish.1
- Order: the smoked eggplant schmear with pumpernickel rye and pickled raisins, which she rated one of the best things on the menu.1
- Order: the grilled radicchio with smoked blue cheese, roasted grapes and hazelnuts.1
- Avoid: it entirely if you are vegan. Cheese runs through most of the menu, substitutions are difficult, and the reviewer says so plainly.1
What locals & experts say
- Sonoma Magazine's BiteClub column, on the opening (late 2015):
the menu is by far my favorite, with constant surprises and far-flung flavors that somehow mesh perfectly.
She adds that she had already eaten there four times on her own money.1 - Terri Stark, on the welded steel elephant head over the bar:
Let's talk about the elephant in the room.
She designs every Stark room.1
Good to know
- 116 seats, two patios and a communal table facing the kitchen for people eating alone.21
- Corkage is $35 a bottle for the first two and $45 after, waived one for one against bottles bought off the list.2
- Happy hour runs 3 to 6pm, seven days. There is a gluten-free menu, and dogs are welcome on the main-level patio.2
Verdict
could-visit — One fire does the whole menu, which is why the Jewish deli, Southern and Korean strands hold together instead of reading as a list: smoked black cod on Costeaux pumpernickel, congee-style grits under a soy-cured egg, a whole snapper with pine nut gremolata. Sonoma Magazine's reviewer called it her favorite Stark menu and admitted to four visits on her own money. Held here because that review is from 2015 and I could not find anything published since.