Chronicle restaurant critics Cesar Hernandez and MacKenzie Chung Fegan are out this week with a big, beautiful list that I am very excited about: Wine Country’s Top 25 Restaurants.
The guide spans Napa and Sonoma counties, valley and coast, sandwich spots and “once-in-a-lifetime fine dining restaurants,” as Fegan put it. For anyone who might mistakenly assume that all Wine Country dining is a monolith of upscale, French-inflected California cuisine, this list is proof that you can find memorable Chengdu-style dumplings in Forestville, zesty shakshuka in the Monte Rio redwoods and exceptional sandwiches from a truck in front of a Napa auto shop. And readers will be able to taste bites from many of these restaurants at an event we’re throwing in Napa on Nov. 9. Get your tickets here!
It’s a list that encompasses most of my own favorite Wine Country restaurants, though not all — so I hope my colleagues won’t mind me giving a shoutout to the carne asada tacos at La Luna Market, the fried chicken at Charlie’s, the cheddar cheese biscuits at Farmstead, the whole fish for two at the Shuckery and the wood-roasted vegetables at Glen Ellen Star…