SingleThreadDinner downstairs, a bed upstairs

One cooks, one farms

Healdsburg, Sonoma County, California — Kaiseki-minded tasting menu, three Michelin stars.

Ten courses arrive one at a time, in the manner of kaiseki, each a bite or two. What goes on them is decided by what the fields give that morning, and a single allergy redraws the whole menu rather than one plate.

Kyle started as an apprentice in an old Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles, spent several years in Japan with Michel Bras, joined Heston Blumenthal in 2006 and ran the development kitchen at the Fat Duck. He cooks; Katina, his wife, farms.

Katina grew up in California and first worked a field in a village in Hokkaido. A kitchen garden on an English estate came next, then agriculture and horticulture in Sonoma. The 24 acres outside town are hers to run now.

The town and the valleys around it

Healdsburg sits in Sonoma County and covers under five square miles, walkable end to end. Its position is the useful part: three of Sonoma's main wine districts meet here, Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley and Russian River, which is why so many people use the town as a base for tasting rooms rather than as a stop on the way to somewhere else.

Outside town the day fills easily: cycling on the back roads along Dry Creek, boats on the Russian River, walking in the old redwood groves, sand along the Pacific shore. The inn keeps an electric Audi e-tron that guests can take out, so a day of vineyards and coast does not need a second car hired for it, and the day can start from the front door of the inn.