Tag Archives: Healdsburg restaurant

Troubadour Bread’s Exquisite Metamorphosis From Day to Night

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In the daytime, you might get Italian salumi sandwiches. But at night, this stunner is on the menu at Troubadour.
In the daytime, you might get Italian salumi sandwiches. But at night, this stunner is on the menu at Troubadour.

By day, Healdsburg’s Troubadour Bread & Bistro is a sandwich shop, albeit an extraordinary one. But come night, it morphs stunningly into a veritable Michelin-starred dining experience.

Yes, the popular downtown cafe, where you can pick up a pumpkin seed dukkah-dusted chicken salad on heavenly bread baked by sister bakery Quail & Condor, transforms into Le Diner, four nights a week. That’s when it serves a French-California prix fixe worthy of blinding the radar of those discriminating inspectors.

That’s because there’s major talent behind this endeavor in the form of the husband-and-wife team that opened Troubadour and Quail & Condor, Executive Chef Sean McGaughey and Executive Pastry Chef Melissa Yanc McGaughey. They both worked previously at nearby Michelin three-starred SingleThread Farms & Restaurant. He was its chef de cuisine, and she was its hotel baker.

Look for the sign for Troubadour in downtown Healdsburg.
Look for the sign for Troubadour in downtown Healdsburg.

The couple also heads up the kitchen team at Molti Amici, founded by Jonny Barr, a former general manager at SingleThread, whose wife Tiffany Spurgeon, another SingleThread alum, runs front-of-house at Troubadour’s Le Diner.

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Dining at Healdsburg’s New Molti Amici

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A glorious hen of the woods pizza at Molti Amici.
A glorious hen of the woods pizza at Molti Amici.

The name of Healdsburg’s newest downtown restaurant loosely translates from Italian to “many friends.”

It’s emblematic of the convivial vibe to be found at Molti Amici, which took the place of locals’ favorite, Campo Fina, in late June.

It’s the brainchild of three alums of Michelin three-starred SingleThread Farms restaurant, just a block and a half away. Owner and sommelier Jonny Barr is that venerated restaurant’s former general manager. Husband-and-wife Chef Sean McGaughey and Melissa McGaughey, are SingleThread’s former chef de cuisine and hotel baker, respectively. The couple also own Healdsburg’s Quail & Condor bakery and Troubadour cafe. At Molti Amici, Seth is the executive chef and Melissa is the pastry chef. They are assisted by Chef de Cuisine Matthew Cargo, former executive sous chef of Gjusta in Los Angeles, who honed his pasta and pizza skills through extensive travels throughout Italy.

The bar in the main dining room.
The bar in the main dining room.
The dining room.
The dining room.
Light streaming in on an early Saturday night.
Light streaming in on an early Saturday night.

Don’t expect fancy, white tablecloth, tweezer-food here, though. Instead, it’s all about handmade pizzas and pastas, made with a confident, deft hand that befits their impressive backgrounds. When I visited a couple weeks ago, as a guest of the restaurant, I enjoyed some of the best pastas and pizzas I’ve had in a while. And if you know my carb addiction, you know that’s saying something.

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A Visit To The Matheson

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The eating and drinking -- and luscious desserts -- are indeed fine at the new Matheson in Healdsburg.
The eating and drinking — and luscious desserts — are indeed fine at the new Matheson in Healdsburg.

Walking through the doors of the soaring, three-story The Matheson in downtown Healdsburg, which opened this summer, there is no doubt that this place is as personal as it gets for Chef-Owner Dustin Valette.

All you need do is turn your head left and right, as you look high up on the walls. There, you’ll spy the evocative, colorful murals by San Francisco painter Jay Mercado that vividly depict “Sonoma heroes.” Prominent among them are Valette’s father Bob, a recently retired CalFire pilot who helped battle wildfires far and near; and Valette’s French immigrant great-grandfather Honore, who owned the Snowflake Bakery, which nearly a century ago sat on the same site as The Matheson. Lushly hued, they are symbols of a proud family legacy. But one that was almost lost to so-called progress.

More than four years ago, a developer bought this $7.5 million property with its prime location on the square with the intention of leveling everything to build a luxury hotel and condos (priced at $4 million each). Dustin, who opened the popular Valette’s restaurant six years ago on the square, was approached to see if he was interested in building a restaurant on the first floor. Moments after he heard the details, though, he walked out of the meeting.

“I said that I couldn’t be a part of this,” he recounted as we chatted last week. “I couldn’t watch as they tore down something that got my family here.”

View from the mezzanine.
View from the mezzanine.
The mural that pays tribute to Dustin Valette's father, a long-time pilot for CalFire.
The mural that pays tribute to Dustin Valette’s father, a long-time pilot for CalFire.
The mural of Dustin Valette's great-grandfather, who operated a bakery on the site of what is now The Matheson.
The mural of Dustin Valette’s great-grandfather, who operated a bakery on the site of what is now The Matheson.

One of the partners, tech entrepreneur Craig Ramsay, followed Dustin out of the room to ask what the chef would build there instead.

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The Long-Awaited Single Thread Finally Opens

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Chef Kyle Connaughton in the kitchen of Single Thread, the restaurant-farm-inn he and his wife have dreamed for years of creating.

Chef Kyle Connaughton in the kitchen of Single Thread, the restaurant-farm-inn he and his wife have dreamed for years of creating.

 

Healdsburg’s Single Thread is an ambitious, high-end restaurant. It is an organic, sustainable farm. And it is a luxurious inn.

It is also the most hotly anticipated opening of the year.

Above all, it is a labor of love and dedication by husband-and-wife team Chef Kyle Connaughton and farmer Katina Connaughton.

After two long years of construction, it finally opened its doors to the public last Friday. I had a chance to check it all out at a media dinner held just a few days before that.

Connaughton’s impressive credentials include cooking at Heston Blumenthal’s the Fat Duck in the United Kingdom and Michel Bras’ Toya Japon in Hokkaido. Katina learned the tenets of sustainability while working on a strawberry farm in Japan.

It was under construction for two years.

It was under construction for two years.

Just a few steps off the square.

Just a few steps off the square.

Together, that ethos of serene Eastern hospitality and utmost respect for the land imbue the restaurant, which they built almost from the ground up. The former post office right off the square was supposed to be a tasting room with lodging for Seghesio Vineyards. But when the winery was sold to Crimson Wine Group, the property became available. And the Connaughtons pounced on it for their dream restaurant.

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A Visit to Healdsburg Shed

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You can find house-milled flour at the Healdsburg Shed -- and a whole lot more.

You can find house-milled flour at the Healdsburg Shed — and a whole lot more.

 

Imagine the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace — only miniaturized, condensed, moved to Wine Country, and all owned and operated under one umbrella by one couple.

That’s what Healdsburg Shed is like.

It’s also the winner of the 2014 James Beard Award for “Best Restaurant Design.” So, you know it’s a beautiful place to behold.

It’s also so much more than just a restaurant. The soaring, 10,000-square foot space is also a retail cookware store, a fresh produce stand, a gourmet foods purveyor, a mill (yes, they grind their own fresh flour there), a kombucha bar, and a community gathering space for concerts, movies, visiting chef dinners, and cooking demonstrations.

As owner Cindy Daniel describes her nearly three-year-old endeavor, “It’s all to celebrate good farming, good cooking, and good eating.”

The award-winning design.

The award-winning design.

Everything under one roof.

Everything under one roof.

Daniel, who has an air of Alice Waters about her, and her husband, Doug Lipton, an environmental scientist, left San Francisco 20 years ago to start a 15-acre farm in Healdsburg, about five miles from the Shed.

Daniel had a yoga studio and a retail store in San Francisco; Lipton once ran a food co-op in Boulder, CO in the 1970s. But this is their first restaurant.

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