Welcome to my annual list of most memorable bites and dishes of the year, the ones that I still dream about and can’t wait to enjoy again.
I hope they’ll inspire you to try some new places or to revisit ones you haven’t been to in a long time.
Here, in no particular order, are my Top 10:
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The resort now known as Alila Napa Valley (formerly Los Alcabas) has always been one of my favorite properties in St. Helena for its striking juxtaposition between old and new.
In 2021, the Alila hotel group took over the property with its oversized, minimalist, gray-toned rooms with spectacular vineyard views, with the vines so close to the ground-floor rooms that you could walk out your terrace to touch them.
In May 2024, it completed its transition by debuting its new restaurant, Violetto, housed in the property’s beautifully ornate 1907 mansion.
Chef Thomas Lents serves a French-Italian menu with thoughtful options for a 7-course tasting menu ($145) with optional wine pairing ($85), four-course prix fixe ($105) with optional wine pairing ($65), or a la carte. There are also supplemental items you can choose to add.
Recently, I was invited as a guest of the property and restaurant to stay overnight and to experience the new menu.
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Kyoto, JAPAN — One can eat exceedingly well for little in Japan, and goodness knows that my husband and I did. However, we decided to splurge for one dinner during our recent two-week trip to Japan, and that was to Michelin-starred Koke in Kyoto.
Japan is a dichotomy, where both the ancient and the futuristic are revered. So, when it came to picking a kaiseki restaurant, I chose one that breaks from tradition, one that blends Japanese and Spanish sensibilities in surprising ways.
It serves a 13-course tasting menu with a few of the courses composed of several small bites. You can opt for a regular wine pairing (a total of 700ml) or a small-sized pairing (350ml). The latter is what my husband and I chose.
For all food and drink for the two of us, we paid a grand total of $515 U.S., which is not too bad when you consider that in the Bay Area, many fine-dining tasting menus are easily more than $300 per person for the food alone without gratuity.
The restaurant hides behind a wall. On the other side, you’ll find a serene Japanese-style courtyard with a floor-to-ceiling window at one end that has a view into the restaurant’s dining room and kitchen. Koke is the Japanese word for “moss” and you’ll spot patches of it in the courtyard. It’s also a symbol of renewal, resilience, and interconnectedness.
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Tokyo, JAPAN — I just spent two weeks in Japan, my first time there, in what can only be described as an eating adventure of a lifetime.
Scan my Instagram or Facebook pages, and you’ll get a taste through photos and words of all the fine tempura, sushi, tonkatsu, ramen, pastries, and other specialties I thoroughly enjoyed at a pittance, given the very favorable exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to the Japanese yen. Today and Friday, I’ll spotlight two very different restaurants worthy of particular mention.
Though I did online research, and solicited recommendations from friends and chefs who travel to Japan regularly, I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong eating pretty much anywhere in Japan, even if all you do is wing it when you’re there.
Even eating tiramisu or flan or crustless egg salad sandwiches from a convenience store there is a revelation. Each of those items is less than $2 U.S. at a 7-Eleven or other Japanese convenience store — and the quality just phenomenal.
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Fort Bragg, CA — Will Jackson, a retired Wall Street investment manager on the East Coast, had never set foot on this rugged and picturesque Mendocino coast before. Even so, when he spied a for-sale ad in the Wall Street Journal in 1985 for an 850-acre cattle ranch here with more than a mile of oceanfront land, he grew intrigued.
So much so that he called a friend who lived in the area and asked him to go investigate. The friend’s verdict? That Jackson ought to high-tail it out this way to snap it up.
He did just that, falling in love at first sight. In 1986, Jackson took over the property, which back then had only a small B&B.
In 2016, he officially opened The Inn at Newport Ranch, an intimate luxury inn that boasts 10 distinct accommodations, plus a gourmet restaurant that’s open only to guests.
Over the years, he’s expanded the property to more than 2,200 sweeping acres. I had a chance to explore this secluded property recently when I was invited to stay as a guest of the inn.
About a 3 1/2-hour drive north of San Francisco, the last mile or so on Highway 1 will take you on winding turns surrounded by breathtaking, old-growth redwoods. The oft-present foggy mist will eventually reveal the California ranch-style inn built next to a majestic cypress tree that’s more than 130 years old.
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