with kids

Solid · Geyserville

walk-in

Dino Bugica cures prosciutto, salumi, sausage and lardo on the property, and the board of it costs $30. There are pig skulls in the back garden.

Solid · Healdsburg

walk-in

Kathleen Stewart opened this on the Healdsburg plaza in 1987 with Lindsey Shere, Chez Panisse's pastry chef. The sticky bun is $4.50 and there is a line out the door at weekends.

Solid · Healdsburg

booking essential

Lou and Susan Preston farm 125 acres of Dry Creek Valley and sell the vegetables next to the wine.

Solid · Healdsburg

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In 2022 this became the first Sonoma County winery certified Regenerative Organic.

Solid · Santa Rosa

walk-in

Brian Hunt opened the first microbrewery in Santa Rosa in 1992 and still decides a beer is done by sight, smell and taste. Death & Taxes is the black lager people come for.

Solid · Santa Rosa

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Fried chicken coated in arborio rice flour, on smashed potatoes loaded with butter and cream, under a caramelized pancetta glaze.

Listed · Healdsburg

walk-in

Charlie Palmer put Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon on the menu at $25 and deglazes it with beef stock instead of red wine. He cooked next to her on PBS.

Listed · Windsor

walk-in

Mary Fazio started in Boyes Hot Springs in 1959 with her father's recipes and her own pots.

Listed · Healdsburg

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Thirty-five dollars buys five current releases and nobody stands over you. You take a glass into the garden and come back to the bar when you want the next one.

Listed · Valley Ford

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The burger carries Sonoma Mountain grass-fed beef and Estero Gold from the creamery across the street. Highway 1 at Valley Ford, with the hotel upstairs.

Listed · Sebastopol

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They opened in the Barlow promising no flagship beers, no kegs out the door and nothing in stores.

Listed · Healdsburg

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Molotes, tasajo and chapulines on a Healdsburg menu, ten to nine daily with a patio. Those are Oaxacan dishes and they are not standard around here.

Listed · Healdsburg

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Cyrus Alexander's homestead, in the valley named after him, with a 48,000-square-foot cave underneath. Twenty dollars for four estate wines at the bar.

Listed · Glen Ellen

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Mike Benziger converted the Sonoma Mountain estate to Biodynamic farming in 1995, and Tribute in 2001 was the first Demeter-certified Biodynamic wine released out of Sonoma County.

Listed · Kenwood

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One of the few Sonoma Valley estates that still takes walk-ins, and three wines at the bar is $30. The chateau is 1920s and the single-vineyard programme dates to 1973.

Listed · Santa Rosa

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Roasted zucchini flowers for $18 next to a wood oven, in a Santa Rosa complex that also holds a brewery and a set of micro-wineries.

Listed · Santa Rosa

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Mark Dierkhising cooks a Country Benedict and a duck confit hash on Santa Rosa Avenue, and finishes with his grandmother's cinnamon-sugar pull-aparts.

Listed · Healdsburg

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The winery names its Fume Blanc and its Dry Chenin Blanc before its Zinfandels, which in the Dry Creek Valley in 2026 is a choice somebody made on purpose.

Listed · Santa Rosa

walk-inthe room’s own account

Named for the belt of coastal fog between Big Sur and the Oregon border where the redwoods grow. The barrel-aged and experimental beers are cellared at this original Santa Rosa site.

Listed · Kenwood

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Damaris Deere Ford started this in 1974 and hired Helen Turley in 1993 to rebuild the Chardonnay. There are bocce courts, and the tasting is $60 an adult and $15 for children over seven.

Listed · Healdsburg

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Ben Papapietro and Bruce Perry started with a garage, old equipment and friends, and now make single-vineyard Pinot Noir and Zinfandel.