Spread Kitchen Featured in Full-page Chronicle Story
Cristina Topham actually started her Sonoma culinary career by cooking at The General’s Daughter back in the days when Sarah and Darius Anderson still owned it and Ramekins. When Ken Mattson bought both buildings, he assembled the Ramekins leadership staff and fired them all, including Executive Chef Kyle Kuklewski. Loved and admired by many in our community, Kyle hung rainbow flags from both buildings. Cristina quit The General’s Daughter that day, in solidarity with the rest of the staff who had been fired and were immediately escorted out of Ramekins personally by Ken Mattson.
The first most of us heard of Cristina Topham and Spread Catering was when she rented and worked out of someone else’s cramped Napa Valley commercial kitchen when it was available. With a fabulously devoted crew, she took orders online, eventually made meal kits and drove the food and herself around Napa, then adding Sonoma, then adding Marin, and eventually to San Francisco –all by herself to get started.
As she kept looking for a commercial kitchen to create her colorful and healthful Lebanese-inspired food here in Sonoma, I kept tipping her off when I heard of chefs hoping to move their businesses to new headquarters, or just closing down all together.
Ephraim Balmes and Esteban Flores, partners in Sonoma Eats, wanted to move from Spread Kitchen’s current location to where they are now, across from what used to be the Big 3 diner/café. So I gave them each other’s phone numbers, off they went, and they are both enjoying their current locations.
Recently, César Hernandez, San Francisco Chronicle’s associate restaurant critic, wrote a full page of praise and gorgeous photos for both the colors and flavors of Spread’s Lebanese-inspired cuisine. Hernandez referred to Spread Kitchen as “one of the best Middle Eastern restaurants in the Bay Area.” Cristina Topham has come a long way, baby!
Even though she had previously cooked at big deal restaurants in New York and Europe, and on elegant yachts around the world, this is a special success and accomplishment after daring to set out on her own to establish a brick-and-mortar restaurant, which she opened here three years ago. Huge congratulations!
Mozaik opens for weekend lunch
As tourists – (excuse me, visitors) – return to Sonoma for the summer, after a long slowdown starting with the pandemic and a decline in wine sales, Miranda Ives, owner of Mozaik on the south side of Sonoma Plaza, has now added Saturday and Sunday lunch to her offerings. She is often ahead of the game, starting with a coffee cart and hotdogs at Friedman’s, then to El Paseo with Sausage Emporium, which she moved to her current location, now Mozaik.
Lunch specials include a soup, Thai green chicken curry, a grazing bowl with hummus, housemade falafel, olives, vegetables, and pita. Cavatelli pasta with vegetables, Kashmiri chicken tacos, “Argentine” prime steak sandwich with chimichurri sauce and dunking dip, a Umami burger with mushrooms, Brie and wasabi aioli with French fries, and sweet and spiced carrots. Plus a little gems salad and a Caesar salad named for one of its inventors, Chef Cardini. $14 to $26. 31 East Napa Street, Sonoma. (707) 934-9674.
Verano Café adds dishes
Verano Café serves breakfast from 8 a.m. through lunchtime to 2 p.m. and then dinner. For breakfast, they offer everything from chilaquiles to several versions of eggs Benedict, pancakes, waffles and crepes, to steak and eggs and all imaginable in between. At dinner, where flounder meunière is my fave, they have added duck confit, prawns polenta or spaghetti, and a burger, which, if it is like at lunchtime, includes cheese, caramelized onions, tomato, lettuce, aioli and French fries, and is very good. (Dinner prices: ($15 to $32). 18976 Hwy. 12, Sonoma. (707) 931-6837.
Stella
The younger sister of Glen Ellen Star has initiated lunch service Friday through Sunday at their totally redone restaurant in Kenwood, and continues to serve dinner nightly with free corkage on Mondays. Located at what used to be Café Citti, Stella is always fun inside and outside, although it can be slightly sweltering under the blue canopy over the patio.
Cindy and Mars Lasar and I stopped there for lunch on our way home from visiting my Kathleen Thompson Hill Kitchen Memories Collection at DeLoach winery in Santa Rosa. I saw several friends dining there as well, or should I say lunching? And Mike and Mary Benziger were there with Erinn and Ari Weiswasser and daughters, welcoming the Benzigers home from traveling.
Sitting inside, either at the “chef’s counter” or in the air conditioned dining room, it is easy to have fun watching the chefs flaming chicken and other meats. Their Yellowfin crudo is popular among the antipasti, along with excellent chopped or Caesar salads. Lots of mozzarella combos, a half-pound cheeseburger on a sesame potato bun, cheddar, and pecorino and garlic Rosemary fries, a wagyu bavette steak, meatball sandwich, half chicken with a morel sauce and fries, or shrimp toast.
Their pastas are always good with great choices and gluten free options, plus sweet buttered Brentwood corn, truffled fries, and other sides. Lunch: $12 to $34. Three percent charge if paying with other than cash. 9049 Hwy. 12, Kenwood. (707) 801-8043.
Poppy’s new family dinners
This week Sondra Bernstein, John Toulze and Executive Chef Jeremy Zimmerman start their new Poppy family dinners on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Both specials include an appetizer, main course, cheese, dessert and wine. The whole table must order that night’s offering.
Wednesday brings the southern France specialty of cassoulet with duck confit, sausage, and beans. Thursday offers one of my favorites, sensational flounder meunière with Yukon potato puree, spinach and lemon-caper brown butter. $65 per person includes wine. 5 to 8:30 or 9:00. All checks paid with other than cash incur a three percent charge.
And the full French menu is also offered at dinner. A must try! 13690 Arnold Dr., Glen Ellen. (707) 938-2130.
The Mill at Glen Ellen
With its beautiful setting on Sonoma Creek, The Mill is a popular peaceful destination for locals and visitors alike and is known for its gracious service. Two new additions to their lunch menu are a delightful salmon soup with coconut and spinach ($18) and a returning chopped iceberg and kale salad with soft boiled egg, bacon bits, cherry tomatoes, shaved baby carrots and chunky blue cheese dressing ($27).
The salmon soup is practically a meal in itself ($18), and guests might also order or share a salad to go with it. The chopped iceberg salad reappears every spring, and if it’s a little late I start asking when it will be back. If you are not a fan of raw kale, you can ask for them to leave that out of your salad. You might also try the new edamame bean hummus with fire-roasted Portobello mushroom with fresh house veggies and crunchy pizza chips. I had not tried this special before this writing.
On their dessert menu, additions include a chocolate and raspberry mousse, and tiramisu with caramel ice cream, both $15. Full bar. 14301 Arnold Dr. Glen Ellen. (707) 721-1818.
Stolen Check Update
Remember my story about my checks being stolen from the outside drop boxes at the Sonoma post office? It would appear from earlier news stories that the culprits have been caught, but now all but one of those blue boxes have been removed. It had gotten to the point that I was testing the system by dropping mail into all of the boxes to see if everything arrived at its intended destination. Still working on that.
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