Michelin-starred Farmhouse Inn launches cozy cafe

Farmhouse Restaurant has long been one of my favorite Sonoma County dining experiences. But, I admit, I rarely go there.

That’s mainly because covering restaurants for a living means I don’t often return to many places. I’m busy checking out the new kids on the block.

Yet it’s also because a meal at this fine dining establishment at the Farmhouse Inn in Forestville requires a time and commitment from the wallet. The six-course prix fixe tasting menu is $150 per person (add another $130 for the must-do wine pairings). And dinner easily can span three hours.

So, imagine my happiness when Farmhouse owners and siblings Joe and Catherine Bartolomei recently opened a newly expanded casual restaurant on site, offering a la carte breakfast, lunch and dinner. Called Farmstand, it operates out of a cute, corrugated-metal-roof shack housing a mobile kitchen and a freestanding wood-burning oven.

Farmstand first opened in response to the pandemic two years ago, for curbside pick-up and limited delivery orders only. Back then, it offered a brief list of fare like pozole, garlic asparagus soup, a bacon cheeseburger and rabbit pot pie, all packed to go.

Surrounded by the Inn’s lovely gardens, we now can choose from a dozen seats on the patio next to the Farmhouse Inn resort’s swimming pool. Another dozen seats in the cozy yellow dining room are decorated with Bartolomei family treasures like antique paring knives and silver trays.

We eat fine food, but we also can be in and out in an hour. On my recent visits, the most expensive item was a supper of a generously cut grilled flat-iron steak dolloped with herbed butter and partnered with a silky squash-and-bean succotash showered in buttered popcorn ($38). Steak and popcorn? Why not?

It’s the best of both worlds, as new Executive Chef Trevor Anderson keeps the menu relaxed but riveting and sprinkled with plenty of delicious accents like the Inn’s own rosemary, lavender and edible flowers. Earlier in his career, Anderson was estate chef at the Farmhouse Inn. He then returned to his hometown of Sonoma to open Taub Family Outpost (he also has worked at Calistoga’s Solbar, St. Helena’s Cook and Healdsburg’s Campo Fina).

Anderson came back to Farmhouse Inn for an opportunity to expand the property’s culinary programs, including novelties like three-course Farmstand dinners followed by al fresco movie screenings on Wednesday nights ($65).

This could become my new favorite breakfast spot for its changing specialties like a fluffy strata made with eggs from the Inn’s flock of hens and stuffed with lamb merguez sausage, mozzarella, spicy Calabrian chiles and a jolt of fresh mint ($22). Another strata has salty ham, peach slabs, sweet onion, white cheddar and chives ($22). Note to self: add peaches to as many recipes as possible in season; the juicy fruit makes everything sing.

I’m a constant fan of chilaquiles, and here is a good, classic version, doused in salsa verde and topped in sunny-side-up eggs, pickled onion and cotija ($21). I add chicken apple sausage for extra oomph ($8). A savory breakfast bowl needs nothing extra, however, and delivers a very pleasing mix that reminds me of a modern Japanese breakfast, with quinoa, arugula, tart pickled mushrooms, avocado, poached eggs and puffed rice ($18).

Many of the lunch dishes are similar to dinner, minus the larger entrees and with the addition of a daily sandwich. Whenever you dine, focus on the vegetables, many of which are grown on site or on nearby organic farms. You’ve never had carrots as soul-satisfying as these. Skillet-roasted-tender and wrinkly, their sweetness is tempered by salsa verde made with the slightly bitter carrot tops and olive oil powder, under a cap of crispy quinoa and cotija ($15).

Chunks of summer’s perfect watermelon are even better tumbled with crumbled goat feta, plus mint and the surprising, sharp bite of dehydrated black olives ($15). I wouldn’t have thought to toss beets with berries, but the sweet-on-sweet partnership is fine, with a mix of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries dragged through a pond of earthy pistachio butter ($16).

For another delicious curveball, Anderson coats the bottom of a pottery bowl with powerfully tangy Greek yogurt, then tosses yellow wax beans, slices of tart plum and peppery radish wands in salsa seca, a Michoacán “dry” mix of minced smoky chiles, seeds and nuts ($12). I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this oddity works so wonderfully.

You’ll find a different take on bagna càuda here, as well. The sauce certainly doesn’t look enticing, arriving hot and foamy brown in a dark skillet. But the seriously garlicky oil stands up nicely to dunking a colorful array of shaved squash, radishes and carrots, set among flowers and microgreens ($14).

Diners would do well just coming for pizzas paired with glasses of wine from the eclectic list that includes a floral, citrusy 2014 Skouras Moscofilero from Peloponnese, Greece ($11); a tropical-toned 2019 Romanelli Le Tese Trebbiano orange wine from Montefalco, Italy ($14); and a 2019 Marine Layer Lyra Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast ($25).

The pizza crusts are thin but chewy, golden but blistered brown in spots and loaded in goodness like chewy lamb merguez nubbins, paper-thin-sliced squash, mozzarella, pecorino, green olives and torn mint ($25). Your server will offer Korean chile flakes and Korean chile sauce for enticing heat; be sure to give them a go.

Even more mouthwatering, the Funghi e Mais pie comes crowned in beautiful maitakes, corn and snow-white clouds of goat cheese on a black truffle-leek cream base ($24). The pizzas are medium in size, and I would not have been embarrassed to eat the entire pie.

Honestly, I could skip dinner entrees and be perfectly happy with all the great flavors in the starter dishes. The plates I’ve tasted are good — mussels in miso butter with cherry tomatoes ($18) or roast chicken plated with romano beans and preserved lemon ($32) — but mostly predictable. And while I loved the idea of jalapeños and fish sauce with the slow-roasted pork shoulder, I would have liked more of their pungent, fiery kick in the meat, which is served with sliced peaches, plums and Thai basil ($30).

Share a dessert, if you like. A single diner likely won’t finish a dense, super-rich chocolate-hazelnut-espresso torte flanked with raspberry cream, fresh berries and nuts ($12). A big dish of organic Straus Family Creamery soft serve infused with strawberries can easily handle several spoons ($12).

Like the main Farmhouse restaurant, Farmstand’s menu will change frequently, which gives yet another reason to visit the pretty Inn much more often, simply to enjoy.

Carey Sweet is a Sebastopol-based food and restaurant writer. Read her restaurant reviews every other week in Sonoma Life. Contact her at carey@careysweet.com.