9 Best Restaurants in Sonoma, Napa and Sonoma

Even before charting on Esquire's list of 2022's best new restaurants, the intimate, bungalowlike establishment of New York City transplant Joshua Smookler (formerly chef at his own Mu Ramen and Thomas Keller's Per Se) was already drawing a crowd for its mash-up of Basque, Jewish, and Korean cuisines. Smookler, whose wife, Heidy He, runs the front of the house, consistently delights with idiosyncratic flavor combinations in dishes like feather-cut ibérico pork, lobster in XO sauce, grilled whole turbot, and dry-aged rib eye.

No cheese is made at the factory, but the 2024 resurrection of this Sonoma Plaza fixture for picnic fixings surpassed previous iterations with the addition of The Butcherman, whose executive chef, Oscar Gomez, held the title of head butcher at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. Gomez and his team prep brisket, tri-tip, pulled-pork, turkey, and other smoked meats (there are also non-smoked options) for sandwiches or plates.

In a postage-stamp-size open kitchen (the dining room, its white walls adorned with contemporary art, is nearly as compact), the chef turns out understated sophisticated fare emphasizing seasonably available local ingredients. Meats, pastas, and seafood get deluxe treatment without fuss or fanfare—and the daily risotto special is always worth trying.

Inside a soigné Victorian former residence with textured wood walls and adorned with contemporary textiles and artworks, the downtown Sonoma restaurant operated by Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards & Winery presents a tasting menu built around ingredients from the winery's nearby organic farm. Founding chef Brian Limoges describes Sonoma County and its rigorously farmed, raised, and caught ingredients as his “muse,” with his New England youth, French culinary training, and turns at four iconic San Francisco restaurants providing additional inspiration.

At this hot spot for inventive French cooking inside the historic Sonoma Hotel bar, you can always find a dish with the signature figs on the menu, whether it's a fig-and-arugula salad or an aperitif blending sparkling wine with fig liqueur. Also look for duck confit, steak au poivre, mussels and frites, and wild flounder meunière.

Born in the Azores and raised in Sonoma, chef-owner Manuel Azevedo serves cuisine inspired by his native Portugal in this warmly decorated spot with a heated patio out front. The wood-oven roasted fish is always worth trying, and there are usually boldly flavored pork dishes, along with a casserole, pot roast, stew, salted cod, and other hearty fare.

Chef Efrain Balmes attracted such throngs for his "real Mexican food" truck specializing in his native Oaxacan cuisine that he finally went full brick-and-mortar, creating a colorfully casual order-at-the-counter space with wooden-top tables and pastel blue metal chairs (there’s also a covered outdoor patio). The tacos—fish, shrimp, potato, mushroom, pork, and an outstanding lamb one—and the signature mole Oaxaqueño sauce are the must-tries here, the latter with either an enchilada or a burrito.

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.

A San Francisco culinary star with establishments worldwide, Michael Mina debuted his first Wine Country restaurant in 2020, its interior of charcoal grays, browns, and soft whites dandy indeed, if by evening vying with outdoor spaces aglow with firepits and lighted water features. Seasonal regional ingredients—Pacific Coast fish, pasture-raised meats, freshly plucked produce—go into haute-homey dishes, prepared open-fire, that include pizzas, handmade pastas, steaks, and the signature lobster potpie with brandied lobster cream and black truffle.