It’s 100 percent Sauvignon Blanc but made in a Bordeaux-style, meaning it’s not only rich tasting but full-bodied.
Fermented in new oak barrels, this isn’t your racy New Zealand-style Sauvignon Blanc with searing acidity. Instead, this is a wine that lushly fragrant with grapefruit and white flowers that tastes of lemon curd, milk bread,, and melon, and boasts a flinty quality. Highly regarded, it’s been described by others as a “Sauvignon Blanc that drinks like a Chardonnay.” Though, thankfully, without being achingly oaky.
Chicken thigh and chicken meatball skewers at N/Soto — some of the juiciest chicken I’ve had in a while.
Think of Michelin-starred N/Naka as the older sister in a little black dress and diamonds with a chic persona, while N/Soto is the younger, more carefree sister in t-shirt and jeans — albeit perfectly tailor-made ones.
Both celebrated Los Angeles restaurants are owned and operated by married chefs, Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama. This spring, they celebrated both the 15th anniversary of N/Naka, their high-end, Japanese-meets-Californian kaiseki, and the 4th anniversary of N/Soto, their izakaya.
While “naka” in Japanese means “inside” and is a play on Nakayama’s surname, “soto” means “outside” and references the pandemic when for a time restaurants were forced to shutter, closed off from the outside world.
In fact, N/Soto originated during the pandemic as a pop-up offering to-go bentos. It proved so successful that Nakayama and Iida-Nakayama decided to go all in on a second, more casual restaurant.
Dinner at N/Naka is a 3-hour+ affair that will set you back $395 per person — that is if you can snag one of the hard-to-get reservations. In contrast, while N/Soto does offer a weekday $95 tasting menu, its main menu is strictly a la carte, meaning you can spend as little or as much as your appetite desires.
I’ve had the pleasure of dining at N/Naka twice, including earlier this month, and it remains an exquisite experience. On this particular trip to Los Angeles, I was fortunate enough to be invited in as a guest of N/Soto to try it in comparison.
The entrance to the restaurant.
The front of the restaurant is blanketed in a wall of ivy, with its noren or Japanese fabric divider providing the clue to where the entrance is located.
Chicken for two — brined, smoked, and grilled over a wood fire — at Bosco.
Chef Ryan McIlwraith has a way with pasta.
After all, he’s the former director of culinary development at Michael Chiarello’s Bottega, the fine-dining Italian restaurant in Yountville and the former executive chef of Alora, the Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco. In fact, his “100-layer ‘nduja lasagna” at Alora composed of silky, thin layers of pasta, bechamel, bolognese, and Pecorino, seared to order for the crispiest edges, remains my favorite lasagna ever.
Last September, he became executive chef of Bosco, an expansive Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. Fortunately for all of us, he and Chef Kaili Hill, whom he also worked with at Alora, are applying their skills here to turn out more sublime pastas, plus a whole lot more.
Bosco is part of the Absinthe Restaurant Group, of which McIlwraith and Hill are veterans. In fact, McIlwraith was the opening chef for Bellota, the Spanish restaurant that was housed in this same space until closing in 2024.
The two traveled through Italy prior to Bosco’s opening to hone their ideas for this wood-fired restaurant that’s named for the Italian word for “forest.”
The open kitchen that greets you as you enter the restaurant.The bar.
Last week, I was invited in as a guest to sample the menu. The huge, 5,000-square-foot restaurant sits on the ground floor of an office building. In fact, the restaurant’s restrooms are actually located in the soaring atrium of the building.
Owing to its size, Bosco has a very open, airy, contemporary warehouse-like feel with soaring concrete columns. The open-kitchen with long waterfall counter is the first thing you see when you walk in, along with a large bar off to the side.
The beautiful tableau of canapes that open the meal at Vicinity.
Just opened in February, Vicinity in Los Gatos may not have a Michelin star just yet.
But there is surely one in its future after already earning a Michelin recommendation this year.
This ambitious fine-dining restaurant was opened by an equally ambitious couple: husband and wife, Mike and Denise Thornberry. He is a senior director at Apple. She was executive vice president of global sales for Beats by Dr. Dre.
Neither had ever worked at a restaurant before, let alone owned one until they debuted the 90-seat Tasting House bistro in Los Gatos in 2021, followed by its adjacent 10-seat champagne bar last year.
Vicinity is remarkable for a number of reasons, as I found when I was invited in as a guest last week.
It’s a restaurant within a restaurant, tucked inside Tasting House. You check in at the same host stand before being escorted to a back corner of the bistro, where dark drapes are parted to reveal a door to Vicinity’s intimate dining room.
How small? It’s all of four tables. And it typically serves a maximum of only 12 diners each evening.
Vicinity is all of four tables, and tucked inside the Tasting House restaurant.The seasonal complimentary aperitif made with yellow watermelon juice, limequat, and goat cheese.
Vicinity is led by Executive Chef Julian Silvera, who not only oversees this tasting menu-only restaurant, but also the bistro and champagne bar menus, as well as Friday and Saturday afternoon tea service. He somehow pulls all of this off with a kitchen team of only five. And yes, that includes himself.
The weeknight Blue Plate Special at Due West at the Olema House is a deal. This is Tuesday’s special of fried chicken.
Sometimes you long to jet off to faraway lands.
Other times, you crave a less taxing getaway that’s more easily reachable by car.
For times like that, look no further than the Olema House, a perfect spot to act as home base as you explore the beauty of nearby Point Reyes National Seashore.
That’s exactly what my husband and I did last week when I was invited to be a guest of the inn for two nights.
The boutique inn, located just off Highway 1 in the town of Olema, has a recommendation from the Michelin Guide. It is part of the Mosaic Hotel Collection, which operates half a dozen hotels, including North Block in Yountville and The Madrona in Healdsburg.
The Olema House entrance.The Olema House lobby.Sitting area in the lobby.
It was originally built 150 years ago as a hotel and saloon on the old stagecoach route. Today, it retains that rustic charm yet with all the modern accoutrements one would desire with a total of 24 rooms and cottages set on four acres beside a creek.
It boasts a market, where one can pick up snacks, breakfast baked goods, and coffee, as well as its own restaurant, Due West. A lot of hotel restaurants in semi-remote areas may fall back on being just good enough. But the food at Due West surprised by exceeding expectations. So much so, that we ate there both nights rather than venturing elsewhere on the second one.
