Oso Sonoma
David Bush built the pairing program at St. Francis Winery and then opened a small-plates room on the Sonoma Plaza. Jeff Cox reviewed it for the Press Democrat and thought he was trying too hard.1
Why go
Bush washed dishes in Minnesota as a teenager, graduated from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, and cooked the line around the Bay before moving north in 2001.2 He ran the kitchens at The Girl and the Gaucho and The Fig Cafe, took a history degree at Sonoma State, then went to St. Francis Winery as executive chef and built the multi-course food and wine pairing program there.2 He describes his own cooking as eclectic but not esoteric,
and says the sourcing follows from where he lives: Living in Sonoma County I would have to go out of my way to not be local, seasonal, and organic.
2
The room is a small nineteenth-century building on the Plaza.2 It is long and narrow, tables down the left and a bar down the right, with an open kitchen at the back under red lights against black walls.1 It is 21 and over.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: off the wine list. Cox rated it above the plates: extensive, interesting, nicely priced, 23 by the glass, and a 2011 Bucklin
Ancient Vines
at $49 in 2014 from some of the oldest vines in Sonoma County.1 - Order: the raw fish of the day, which the chef picks. It was hamachi at $16 on Cox's visit.1
- Avoid: the baked mussels. Cox found two of his first three unopened and wrote the reason down:
Unopened shellfish should never leave the kitchen, as they may be rotten.
1 - Avoid: a conversation after seven. Cox says the noise
achieved lift-off
and made talking impossible even by shouting.1
What locals & experts say
- Jeff Cox, The Press Democrat (18 December 2014):
Chef David Bush's last gig, at St. Francis winery, earned him 'Best Restaurant in America 2013' by Open Table users. So his new venture, OSO on the Sonoma plaza, was eagerly awaited. Now that the wait is over, it may be that he's trying too hard.
His closing line:Sometimes less is more.
1 - Cox on the seared New York steak, which arrived on kimchi with butternut squash, pickled shiitake and ponzu:
Talk about worlds in collision!
1
Good to know
- Call before you go. The restaurant's own contact page returns a 404, it publishes no hours or menu, and nothing has been written about it since 2014 in anything I could read.
- The 2013 award was St. Francis Winery's, voted by OpenTable users while Bush was executive chef there. It is not this restaurant's award.1
- Cox's review is eleven years old. Everything he ate and every price he quoted belongs to December 2014.
Verdict
listed — Jeff Cox found bland citrus in the ceviche, salmon gone soft in the marinade, vegetables buried under preserved lemon and salt, and two unopened mussels in the first three he pulled from the bowl. He liked the wine list, which ran to 23 by the glass and a Bucklin Ancient Vines off some of the oldest vines in the county, and he liked the room less: 21 and over, and loud enough by seven that shouting did not work. Bush had the resume, and the 2013 award people cite for him belongs to St. Francis Winery, not to this address. Nobody has judged the room since the opening year and the record does not show whether it is still trading, so call before you cross the plaza.