3 Best Restaurants in Guerneville, Napa and Sonoma

A casual storefront restaurant on Guerneville's main drag, Boon Eat + Drink has a menu built around salads, smallish shareable plates, and entrées that might include vegan risotto, Moroccan chicken, and pan-seared local cod. Like many of chef-owner Crista Luedtke's dishes, the signature polenta lasagna—creamy ricotta salata cheese and polenta served on greens sautéed in garlic, all of it floating upon a spicy marinara sauce—deviates significantly from the lasagna norm but succeeds on its own merits.

The roadhouse decor—corrugated-metal walls, Mexican-tile floor, thick-wooden-slab tables, neon beer signs, and Edison bulbs hanging by ropes from the tall ceiling—contribute to this chipper soul food restaurant's let's-party ambience. Crispy fried catfish, buttermilk fried chicken, barbecued pork ribs, and the Yabba Dabba hunk of beef on a single bone top the entrée list; "lighter" fare includes several sandwiches and sides like deep-fried chicken skin with hot sauce.

A clean, white-walled nook ideal for a seafood-oriented lunch or light dinner, Trillium serves oysters raw or cooked (some of the latter pepped up with jalapeño or chipotle bourbon butter), a heavy-cream seafood chowder, hamachi crudo, tinned-fish platters, and a show-stopping crab roll on house-made brioche. The wines range from ones produced down the street to European and South American bottlings; the draft beer selection tilts Californian.