Cox: Glen Ellen Star twinkles with pleasure

The catch phrase “farm-to-table” means food that’s unprocessed. And the term “locavore” means someone whose food is farmed locally. And when the farm is organic, you get the kind of raw materials that Chef Ari Weiswasser works with at his Sonoma Valley restaurant, Glen Ellen Star.

The national food media have taken notice of how he has put these choice ingredients together. For two years in a row, Food & Wine magazine nominated him for its “People’s Best New Chef - California” award. This year, he won.

The Star’s local purveyors include Oak Hill Farms, probably no more than a mile from the restaurant as the crow flies. Benziger Winery’s Biodynamic gardens flourish just up London Ranch Road from the restaurant. The Benziger produce is all in the family, as Weiswasser is married to Erinn Benziger-Weiswasser. Then there’s Paul’s Produce in Sonoma, an organic farm run by Paul Wirtz and Candi Edmondson. And Sonoma Organics, a business that markets organic produce from farms all over Sonoma County to restaurants around the country, also sells to Chef Weiswasser.

His style of cooking is meant to be broadly appealing to folks who like delightful surprises. For instance, he has the ubiquitous kale salad on the menu, but it includes pickled green strawberries. I’d never heard of pickled green strawberries before, let alone the “vadouvan-spiced walnuts” in the salad. Vadouvan, I’ve since learned, is an Indian curry powder pounded together with garlic and shallots, then dried and crushed.

So where are these ideas coming from? Weiswasser studied at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and worked at high-end Manhattan eateries like Restaurant Daniel, Picholine, and Corton, where he served as Chef de Cuisine. He also had a long stint at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in Yountville.

The menu, more fanciful than fancy, centers around the blazing wood-fired oven. The room is small and funky, crowded with tables, and more tables sit outside on a make-shift patio. Eight metal stools, fitted with soft cushions, snuggle up to a counter that faces the tiny kitchen.

The wine list is not extensive, but it is interesting. Of the 12 wines by the glass or carafe, just one is a Benziger (a sauvignon blanc on tap). The others will take you on a world tour: vinho verde from Portugal, pinot blanc from Alsace, and barbera d’Alba from Italy, among others.

As we worked through dinner, I kept thinking of Chef April Bloomfield of The Spotted Pig in New York, and how her deceptively simple dishes aren’t simple at all, but are studied and often intricate. Weiswasser shows some of this same approach. For example, his Spring Pea Soup ($10 ????) is not the sludgy stuff made from dried peas, but is the essence of sweet, fresh garden peas, garnished with a pea shoot and a ricotta gnudi, a kind of cheesy dumpling so simple to eat but deliriously time-consuming to make.

There’s nothing subtle about his Wood Oven Baby Carrots ($11.50 ???½), but that doesn’t mean they’re simple. Slender baby carrots are roasted in the oven and served with sheep’s milk feta and sesame brittle (like peanut brittle, only with sesame seeds) that’s sweet but also spicy from tianjin peppers, red chilies from China. Another wood-roasted vegetable is a half head of Cauliflower ($11.50 ???) slathered with tahini as a sauce, sprinkled with slivered almonds for crunch, and dusted with powdered sumac just because.

Yes, there are pizzas that issue forth from the wood oven. The Margherita ($14 ???) is a joy, with a thin crust and basil, tomato, and mozzarella toppings. It really is simple and oh, so good.

The Brick Chicken ($24 ???½) is a variation of Italian pressed chicken. This version isn’t weighted as heavily as they do it in Italy, but the skin is allowed to dry before the chicken is placed in the super-hot oven, turning the skin into brown, crispy deliciousness while sealing in the juices. Creamy, savory farro accompanies the chicken.

For dessert, choose among five kinds of house-made ice cream. We tried Strawberry-Buttermilk Sorbet ($7 ??) and it was an icy, smooth, creamy, sweet, tangy gift from the freezer.

To sum up: The fare at Glen Ellen Star is twinkling with pleasure these days.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review for the Sonoma Living section. He can be reached at jeffcox@sonic.net.