Della Fattoria Downtown Café
Kathleen and Ed Weber learned wood-oven baking from Alan Scott, built ovens to his blueprints on a chicken ranch, and swept out the ash to bake on the heat left in the brick. That bread went to the French Laundry when it opened.1
Why go
Ed Weber's father was a German chicken rancher who baked bread in a Wedgewood oven, and that is where Kathleen started.1 She learned the brick-oven method from Alan Scott, and Ed's account of what followed is that they were the first on the West Coast making bread that way commercially, in very small quantity.1 They sold it door to door in Petaluma before Thomas Keller began buying it for the French Laundry.1 The cafe on Petaluma Boulevard opened around 2004 as a breakfast and lunch room built on those loaves, with Kay Baumhefner of the old Opera House Cafe running the kitchen.1 Kathleen Weber died in 2020, aged 75.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the bread, in whatever form the counter is selling it. It is the reason the cafe exists and the reason Keller called.1
- Avoid: Monday through Wednesday. The cafe runs Thursday to Sunday, 8 to 2.2
Good to know
- Kathleen Weber's cookbook, "Della Fattoria Bread," was a 2015 James Beard Foundation Book Awards finalist. That is a book prize to the author, not an award to this room.1
- The family still runs it. Aaron Weber built out the food side and added a dinner menu in 2018; Elisa Weber designed the dining-hall expansion and made the furniture.1
- The published hours are 8 to 2, so do not plan on that dinner service without calling 707-763-0161.2
Verdict
could-visit — Held at could-visit because everything below comes from a 2020 obituary. What the Webers built is not in doubt: they learned wood-fired baking from Alan Scott, built their ovens to his blueprints on a Skillman Lane chicken ranch, baked on the heat retained in the brick after the ash was swept out, and sold that bread to Thomas Keller when the French Laundry opened. Kathleen Weber died in 2020, aged 75, and her children Aaron and Elisa run it now. Nobody has published on what the cafe kitchen is turning out today.