Just before you’re escorted into the kitchen at Benu in San Francisco, you’ll spot a formidable column decorated with autographs from a who’s who in the culinary world: David Kinch, Michelin three-starred chef of now-shuttered Manresa in Los Gato; Chef Sang Yoon of Father’s Office and Helms Bakery, both in Los Angeles; Fuchsia Dunlop, James Beard Award-winning food writer and Chinese cuisine expert; the late-Charles Phan, founder of the Slanted Door restaurant in Napa and San Ramon; the late-Chuck Williams, founder of Williams Sonoma; and so many more.
Because since its opening in 2010, this fine-dining, tasting-menu restaurant has attracted everyone who’s anyone to its minimalist dining room for its elegant fare that blends East and West with incredible finesse.
It was the first San Francisco restaurant to receive three Michelin stars in 2014. It has maintained them ever since, too.
Opened by Chef Corey Lee, former chef de cuisine of Michelin three-starred The French Laundry in Yountville, Benu is also the first restaurant that Thomas Keller ever invested in that wasn’t his own.
The courtyard entrance.A view into the kitchen.Crocks of house-made soy sauce.
While I’ve dined several times at Lee’s casual Korean restaurant, San Ho Won in San Francisco, which has a Michelin star, it’s been many years since I’d last been to Benu. And since my cousins, who are huge fans of San Ho Won, had never been to Benu, I figured it was high time we all went together.
The dreamy and oh-so cheesy petit croque with black truffles at the new Bijou.
It’s been an eventful 2025 for Petaluma’s Table Culture Provisions. This spring, the fine-dining, tasting menu-only restaurant garnered a recommendation from the Michelin Guide. And last month, the team behind it opened a sister establishment, Bijou.
Just a half mile a way, Bijou is a casual French bistro with Sonoma sensibilities that’s three times the size of Table Culture Provisions.
The dining room.The chic bar.
Opened by Co-Chefs and Co-Owners Stephane Saint Louis and Steven Vargas, along with Saint Louis’ wife Marta, it offers a compact a la carte menu, which I had a chance to try last month.
I love a cocktail that has the taste and aroma of orange, and Uncle Val’s Zested Gin ($30) has both in spades.
Twist open the bottle and take a whiff to be floored by the fragrance of bright orange citrus with a hint of clove.
I had a chance to try a sample of this small-batch gin that’s made with bergamot, orange, coriander, barley malt, and, of course, juniper. But don’t worry; for those not too keen on the medicinal taste of juniper, this gin keeps it in balance.
Uncle Val’s is a brand by 3 Badge Beverage Corporation. It was founded by August Sebastiani. Yes, of that Sebastiani family.
In fact, the corporation is run out of an old fire station in Sonoma built in the 1880s by his great-grandfather Samuele Sebastiani, a mason and quarry miner, who went on to start making wine. It’s also where Samuele’s son (August’s grandfather) would go on to become a volunteer firefighter. The corporation is named for the three fire service badges that he earned.
Fourth-generation vintner August bought the old fire station in 2014 that had been vacant for nearly a decade. He established Uncle Val’s Gin to pay tribute to the herbal concoctions that his late-Uncle Zio Valerio (aka Uncle Val) distilled from cuttings from his Tuscan garden.
With its rounded orange taste, the gin is ideal in a Negroni. Or a gin & tonic. Or even just over ice with an orange twist.
Although Uncle Val’s gins are available at several Bay Area stores, you might have to hunt harder specifically for the Zested Gin, which is stocked in fewer places. However, it can be found at Village Market in Oakland and Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa. You can also enjoy at the bar at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco and Pearl Hour in Monterey.
Cheers: Each small-batch bottle of gin features a label with one of Uncle Val’s more notable sayings. Mine sported this one: “A closed mouth catches no flies.” Meaning think before you speak — or else pay the price later.
Half Shell Vodka
If you have a tendency toward fumble fingers, you don’t have to worry about mishaps when carrying a bottle of Half Shell Vodka.
Unbreakable and light as can be. That’s Half Shell Vodka.
That’s because this vodka is billed as the first one packaged in a completely recyclable paperboard bottle. Accidentally drop it, and there will be no damage.
In fact, when I received a sample to try, I almost didn’t believe it was inside the mailing box because it felt so incredibly light.
It sports a screw top and a liner in a bottle that’s made of 94 percent recycled paperboard for a much smaller carbon footprint.
The Santa Rosa Beach, FL company distills its vodka 18 times from U.S.-grown corn, then uses reclaimed oyster shells (from bars and restaurants) and activated coconut carbon (think charcoal made from coconut shells) to filter the spirit. But that doesn’t mean you’ll find any lingering shellfish or coconut taste in this vodka. The system is merely used to enhance smoothness and purity.
Indeed, this vodka has a clean taste with a fluid boozy warmth.
Find it for $24.99 at select Whole Foods in Northern and Southern California.
Cheers: Half Shell Vodka runs a “Sip for Sustainability” nonprofit partnership program that helps raise funds for sustainability and conservation efforts nationwide.
When Chef Bruno Chemel shuttered his Bistronomie by Baume in Palo Alto in August 2023 after less than a year, he thought about retiring.
Who could blame him? After all, before transforming that California Avenue space into a more casual establishment, he had spent the previous 13 years overseeing it in its original incarnation as the cutting-edge, fine-dining Baume restaurant known for its eye-popping molecular gastronomy.
It garnered him one Michelin star for three years before it was elevated to two stars, a distinction it held for a long nine years even in its later stage when it was only Chemel and his wife Christie running the entire restaurant alone.
If anyone deserved a rest after all of that, surely he did.
Chef Bruno Chemel.
Of course, that lasted all of a heartbeat. Only a month later, he was scouring locations for a new restaurant.
Last summer, he opened Le Parc Bistrobar in the Galleria Park Hotel with his wife by his side, designing the cocktails and running the dining room. This time, though, they do have the help of other employees.
2021 B. Wise Vineyards Lucky Well Vineyard Pinot Noir
When Brion Wise spotted the former Sonoma cattle ranch property in the 1990s with a dirt road, and no easements, buildings or infrastructure to speak of, he didn’t hightail it out of there; he had found his paradise.
An engineer who grew up on a farm in rural Washington, founded his B. Wise Vineyards there, planting the vineyards in 2002 and constructing a home for himself and his wife Ronda West Wise.
The winery specializes in single-vineyard wines, each made by a different veteran winemaker.
I had a chance to try a sample of its 2021 Lucky Well Vineyard Russian River Pinot Noir ($75). It’s made from grapes from the Lucky Well vineyard near Occidental that gets its share of breezes off the Pacific Ocean.
It’s an inky plum-garnet color with the fragrance of summer berries, and the taste of cherries and boysenberries with a hint of cinnamon, mint, and brambly earth.
