4 Best Restaurants in Sonoma, Napa and Sonoma

The team behind this wineshop, bar, and restaurant across from Sonoma Plaza revamped a 19th-century adobe (though inside you'd never know it's this old) and expanded its outdoor patio, where most dining takes place. Sustainably produced seafood and meats find their way into "California home cooking"—summer dishes that might include halibut with corn and cherry tomatoes and winter ones like pork adobo or a half chicken.

This restaurant owes its visual appeal to its clean lines and svelte decor, but the eye inevitably drifts westward to the open kitchen, where longtime executive chef Armando Navarro's team crafts dishes full of subtle surprises. The menu might include ceviche or roasted maitake mushrooms as starters and pan-roasted salmon, fettuccine carbonara, or paella awash with seafood among the entrées.

The owner of this bright storefront restaurant and marketplace across from Sonoma Plaza's southern edge escorts her customers on a round-the-world journey via street-food mashups like tandoori “tacos” on naan and healthful “blue zone” salads for lunch, retaining many of these items for “supper,” which might also include berbere-spiced chicken thighs. The through line on the dishes is that all are baked (nothing’s deep fried), their ingredients from reputable purveyors employing sustainable growing practices.

Decorated in shades of brown and white and softly lit at night, the Grille is the type of spot where old-schoolers start a meal by washing down oysters on the half shell with a stiff gin martini or cut to the chase with vodka oyster shooters. The menu at lunch and dinner covers all the bases with grilled, baked, or roasted beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and fish dishes, plus risotto and pasta plates.