Sonoma County restaurants have long been at the forefront in connecting diners with fresh, farm-raised ingredients.
In recent years, the trend has expanded beyond the four-star pioneers and their shiny environs to take in everything from comfort food roadhouses to neighborhood dinner spots.
Now, at what is typically a slow time of the year for the industry, the county is looking to spotlight its role in the "Go Local" movement, putting a new spin on its annual Restaurant Week, which marks its fifth year beginning Monday.
A shift toward local ingredients can be seen in the organic Dry Creek spring greens used in Tomi Thai's Yum Yai, the simple baby carrots from MIX Gardens served at Santa Rosa's the Spinster Sisters or the Stemple Creek Ranch skirt steak at Forestville's Backyard.
Restaurant owners, chefs and farmers say the ubiquity of such ingredients proves that eating high-quality, locally grown food is no longer a pricey ideal for rarified foodies, but more of an accepted way of doing things.
"This is an evolution that is definitely going mainstream," said Giovanni Cerrone, partner and general manager of the Spinster Sisters. Restaurant Week "gives all of us an opportunity to show off and celebrate everything that goes into creating what we do - from the farmers to the table," Cerrone said.
Cerrone was among several restaurateurs interviewed who said they have seen a noticeable uptick in reservations for this week, when restaurants offer three-course fixed-price menus at three tiers of discounted rates - $19, $29 or $39. This year, the program also includes two-course lunch menus, priced at $10, $15 and $20.
Event officials said 132 restaurants are participating this year, up from 124 from 2013, when the program added an estimated $2.2 million to the county economy.
"It's a week restaurants look forward to," said Michael Hirschberg, who handles finances for about 25 Sonoma County restaurants.
He said his clients' restaurants did well in 2013, continuing a positive trend since the recent economic downturn. "We've definitely seen a comeback."
While many restaurant owners said they may not actually see a rise in profit overall for the week, they said any losses are offset by the influx of new diners, an estimated 75 percent of whom are locals, according to the Sonoma County Economic Development Board, which launched Restaurant Week in 2010
"We have seen an advantage for restaurants, but we're also starting to see that the reach is much wider," said Ben Stone, executive director of the development board. "If you peel away the top layer, there's a whole world behind what restaurants do. So it's not only a boost for them, but for local farmers and a whole cottage industry that people don't necessarily know exists."
Those local farmers and growers agree. They said that in recent years they have seen their numbers growing, and they are supplying more restaurants than ever. Events like Restaurant Week, they said, only help highlight their contribution to the local economy.
"It's not quite mainstream, but we have seen a tremendous growth," said Yael Bernier, who started retail farming in 1990 and now operates Bernier Farms in Geyserville and Alexander Valley with her son, Zureal. "We were serving one restaurant back then. Now one-half to three-quarters of our business is for restaurants.
"It's so interesting what's going on in Sonoma County - all of Sonoma County. We are certainly pacesetting for the rest of the country."
Bernier echoed the views of chefs and growers, who said Sonoma County is seeing the ideas of people like Alice Waters, Paul Bertolli and Bradley Ogden - iconic chefs of the 1970s who championed the use of local ingredients in season - become more widely practiced.
"It's not just for high-end dining anymore," said Bryan Hohnstein of MIX Garden shop of Healdsburg. "We're seeing a real movement toward local, specialty places. We can grow things to their specific needs much more economically than many of the bigger places can."
The plethora of producers has made it easier for chefs to add high-quality local ingredients without breaking their budget.
"It's more and more what people expect," said Berry Salinas, who opened Red's Apple Roadhouse in Sebastopol in November. "We have always had a foodie environment here, but in some ways it has seemed exclusive. Now you're seeing it in unexpected places."
Those include even budget-conscious restaurants. Bernier said she has gotten orders for her vegetables from Mexican places and hamburger joints.
"If you can get a really tasty tomato at a local farm at a good price, it makes more sense then going to a bigger producer," she said. "We can and are doing it affordably."
The bottom line is a chief concern for many restaurants, especially those that specialize in ethnic fare on menus that aren't necessarily dictated by the season.
"We try to focus as much as possible on locally based, sustainable sources," said Diana Thomawong, general manager and wine buyer of Windsor's Tomi Thai Restaurant, which features family-style Thai food. "It's true there are more farms and more options than ever."
The trend has even been seen by chefs who have themselves been growing some of the ingredients they use.
Jeff Mall, chef-owner of Healdsburg's Zin Restaurant, said he's been scaling back his own farming in part because there are so many more producers available then when he opened his doors 15 years ago.
"Back then, there was one meat purveyor for the whole county, and he was in San Francisco," Mall said. "It was hard to get people to even drive out here. Now, Healdsburg is the first stop."
Mall and other chefs also said they often have small-scale, artisan farmers walk in off the street to offer specialized produce.
"Part of the fun of what we do is finding amazing people doing amazing things," said Salinas of Red Apple's Roadhouse. "There's just so much more happening and so many more choices that we can offer at prices that aren't astronomical. That's what we set out to do and, happily for everybody, it seems the (restaurant) environment is ripe for that now."
(You can reach Staff Writer Elizabeth M. Cosin at 521-5276 or elizabeth.cosin@pressdemocrat.com.)
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