15 Best Restaurants in St. Helena, Napa and Sonoma

A curved marble bar spotlit by contemporary art-glass pendants adds a touch of style to this downtown restaurant whose northern Italian cuisine pleases with understated sophistication. Mussels with house-made sausage in a spicy tomato broth, chopped salad with pancetta and pecorino, and the daily changing risotto are among the dishes regulars revere.

In a high-ceilinged former barn with plenty of outside seating, Farmstead revolves around an open kitchen whose chefs prepare meals with grass-fed beef and lamb, fruits and vegetables, and eggs, olive oil, wine, honey, and other ingredients from nearby Long Meadow Ranch. Entrées might include wood-grilled trout with fennel and bacon-mustard vinaigrette; caramelized beets with goat cheese and chimichurri; or a wood-grilled heritage pork chop with jalapeño grits.

Gung-ho Culinary Institute of America students in their final semester run this excellent if unheralded restaurant in a historic stone structure. A solid value, the three- or four-course prix-fixe meals—oft-changing, nicely plated dishes—emphasize local ingredients, some so local they're grown on-site or nearby.

For years this cavernous casual-chic restaurant with a contempo-barn interior and wraparound patio steps from neighboring vineyards was northern Napans' preferred stop for a top-shelf cocktail, dry-aged steak, and high-90s-scoring local Cabernet. You can still order a tomahawk or New York strip, but chef Philip Tessier, formerly of Yountville's The French Laundry and Bouchon Bistro and New York City's Le Bernardin, has introduced more refined cuisine, much of whose produce is grown nearby.

Inside the bright-white 1907 Georgian-style structure anchoring the otherwise contemporary Alila Napa Valley resort, Acacia House serves ambitious cuisine—sea urchin cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta), perhaps, or jamón ibérico schnitzel—that generally lives up to the elegant setting. At lunch, the chefs, who source ingredients from top purveyors (the quality duly reflected in the prices), also turn out comfort fare like avocado toast with trout and a burger with slow-cooked tomato and caramelized onion.

After Napa Valley fixture Tra Vigne lost its lease, many staffers regrouped a few miles north at the restaurant (the titular Kitchen) of the Brasswood complex, which also includes a bakery, shops, and a wine-tasting room. Along with dishes developed for the new location, the chefs incorporate Tra Vigne favorites such as mozzarella-stuffed arancini (rice balls) into the Mediterranean-leaning menu.

Although it ventures out for special events, this walk-up food truck serving Italian-inflected fast food has a steady gig outside the Clif Family Tasting Room. From 11:30 to 4 (until 6 on Wednesday), order salads, panini, or a falafel, mushroom, pork, or vegetarian bruschetta to go or to enjoy in the tasting room or on its back patio.

"Elevate Your Everyday" glows a neon side at Crisp, whose spanking-clean interior mirrors the pristine food—avocado toast, beet-cured salmon tartine, breakfast and lunch bowls, and inventive juices, soups, broths, and smoothies—this health-oriented café serves. The location next to Sunshine Market (easy parking out front) may lack glamour, but the place exudes wellness, and the menu acknowledges the requirements of vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores alike.

A Craftsman bungalow whose 1920s owner reportedly used the cellar for bootlegging during Prohibition houses this restaurant where the pairing of food and drink is as likely to involve a craft cocktail as a sommelier-selected wine. Main courses such as wood-grilled chicken or salmon, wet-aged black Angus rib eye, and the grass-fed G&G burger with Gruyère follow starters that might include corn croquettes, sticky pig ears, and harissa sausage with fry bread and baba ghanoush.

A 1950s-style outdoor hamburger stand goes upscale at this spot whose customers brave long lines to order breakfast sandwiches, juicy burgers, root-beer floats, and garlic fries. Choices not available a half century ago include ahi-tuna and Impossible burgers and kale and Vietnamese chicken salads.

Ernesto Martinez, this easy-going eatery's Mexico City–born chef and co-owner, often puts a Latin spin on farm-to-table American classics. Although he plays things straight with the Caesar salad, champagne-battered fish-and-chips, and baby back ribs, the organic fried chicken comes with cheddar-jalapeño corn bread, and the fried calamari owes its piquancy to the accompanying peppers, nopales cactus, chipotle aioli, and avocado-tomatillo dip.

Thanks to multiple plugs by Oprah, each day's fresh batch of English muffins here sells out quickly, but the scones, croissants, breads, and other baked goods also inspire. Breakfast brings pastries and sandwiches with scrambled eggs, cheddar, and bacon between a buttermilk biscuit; the lunch menu expands to include soups, salads, pizzas, and more sandwiches—turkey-pesto focaccia, ciabatta chicken-Asiago panini, and vegan veggies among them.

Christopher Kostow's reputation rests on his swoonworthy haute cuisine for the Meadowood resort, but he and his Charter Oak team adopt a more straightforward approach—fewer ingredients chosen for maximum effect—at this high-ceilinged, brown-brick downtown restaurant. With exceedingly fresh produce from Meadowood's nearby farm, this strategy might translate into dishes like red kuri squash with pickled peppers, almonds, and goat cheese; or pork collar with fermented pepper jam (or just go for the cheeseburger and thick hand-cut fries).

Joel Gott of nearby Gott's Roadside purchased a downtown gas station and kept the pumps humming, spiffing up the interior retro style and adding shaded outdoor seating. Start the day with quiche, a chipotle-bacon and egg biscuit, or avocado-and-egg or cinnamon-sugar toast, or drop by for lunch wraps, grain bowls, salads, focaccia, and sandwiches.

Crisp, thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizzas—among them the unusual Positano, with sautéed shrimp, crescenza cheese, and fried lemons—are the specialties of this family-friendly offshoot of the famous, now departed, Tra Vigne restaurant. Hand-pulled mozzarella and a few other Tra Vigne dishes are on the menu, along with the salads, pizzas, and pastas.