On a very recent trip to Healdsburg, Marc posed the question, "what are your top 5 favorite restaurants?" I thought for awhile because Healdsburg, while very small in size, has a plethora of great food options for people to choose from. Of course I had to ask a clarifying question around if 'favorite' just encompassed food, or if it included food and atmosphere (inc. service). We started with just food, so my list was (in no particular order):
So in the end, we both ended up with Top 4 lists. If we took service into account, Dry Creek Kitchen would drop off of the list based on our most recent experience. Unfortunately we were not able to hit Restaurant Charcuterie on this last trip, but the concierge at the Hotel Healdsburg enthusiastically recommended we try Scopa, which had just opened in the past month. For such a new place, there were surprisingly very few kinks that were noticeable by the two of us. If you are in Healdsburg, check it out as it's right on the square.
Our friend, Erik, who is the Manager/Sommelier at Daniel's Lake Union, hooked us up with a tour at Jordan Winery, which is in the Alexander Valley. The grounds at Jordan are gorgeous, and they do a number of food and wine events, so we saw the garden where they source their vegetables and herbs from. What made this tour different than other tours that we were on was that it was an "industry tour" so the questions being asked by the participants were very different than the typical customer tour. We had restaurant owners, people who worked at other wineries, buyers, etc. so Marc and I were able to learn a great deal about some of the business aspects of making wine. They do customer tours as well, but they are serious when they say you need an appointment. Marc and I biked up some serious hills on a lark on a previous visit, and we were graciously turned down when we asked to join a tour. So make an appointment because it is worth checking out. Thanks to Erik for the great experience!
Jill's List
|
Marc's List
|
| Cyrus | Cyrus |
| Zin | Zin |
| Willi's Seafood | Willi's Seafood |
| Dry Creek Kitchen | Restaurant Charcuterie |
| ….. | ….. |
So in the end, we both ended up with Top 4 lists. If we took service into account, Dry Creek Kitchen would drop off of the list based on our most recent experience. Unfortunately we were not able to hit Restaurant Charcuterie on this last trip, but the concierge at the Hotel Healdsburg enthusiastically recommended we try Scopa, which had just opened in the past month. For such a new place, there were surprisingly very few kinks that were noticeable by the two of us. If you are in Healdsburg, check it out as it's right on the square.
Our friend, Erik, who is the Manager/Sommelier at Daniel's Lake Union, hooked us up with a tour at Jordan Winery, which is in the Alexander Valley. The grounds at Jordan are gorgeous, and they do a number of food and wine events, so we saw the garden where they source their vegetables and herbs from. What made this tour different than other tours that we were on was that it was an "industry tour" so the questions being asked by the participants were very different than the typical customer tour. We had restaurant owners, people who worked at other wineries, buyers, etc. so Marc and I were able to learn a great deal about some of the business aspects of making wine. They do customer tours as well, but they are serious when they say you need an appointment. Marc and I biked up some serious hills on a lark on a previous visit, and we were graciously turned down when we asked to join a tour. So make an appointment because it is worth checking out. Thanks to Erik for the great experience!
Other activities on the trip included some biking around Dry Creek Valley to wineries we hadn't been to before including Bella (great wine caves and they had a dog named Mollie), Kokomo and Amphora.
There is a great 'general store' in the middle of the valley called the Dry Creek General Store, which continues to make great sandwiches. Marc also found a canoeing company that allowed us to boat down the very pedestrian Russian River. That was fun except when the water was so shallow that we needed to walk the boat down the river, so no 'Captain Nemo' moments this time around. We picked up some great picnic food for the ride at the Oakville Grocery – good stuff. Marc also continued his love of skin treatments by getting a 'honey wrap' at the Spa at the Hotel Healdsburg. And of course, we needed to do some wine tasting in the Russian River Valley.
And we have no official comment on how much wine was purchased on this trip. J