A partner of shoestring fries doesn’t hurt. I was hoping to taste mustard in the half brick chicken, but it was juicy and perfectly cooked, enhanced by fennel fondant and herb garlic butter. Bucatini in cream sauce with Parmigiano cheese, clams, prawns, pea shoots and a decadent touch of truffle-infused caviar made me even happier, given its of-the-sea umami brightness, partnered with nicely al dente noodles. It’s less Italy-perfect risotto, more farm-to-table, earthy goodness. Vegetarians (and risotto lovers like me) will take to roasted butternut squash risotto contrasted with chimichurri, maitake steak mushrooms and pickled bok choy. Parker House rolls may have (over) trended the past decade, but these are yet more fluffy additions to the frey, lush with bone marrow fat butter, honey and nori salt. Local, farm ethos runs through the menu at TCP, certainly standard for Bay Area, leading farm-to-table since the 1960s. The County is a core part of that blessed NorCal goodness of pioneering cheesemakers, cooks, growers and farmers ensuring superb food across the region. Of course, most notably for wine, but all manner of produce and those famed Gravenstein apples, too. Sonoma County is a farming region, first and foremost. But as our sweetheart of a server confirmed, we could order one tasting menu and supplement as we also wanted to try regular menu dishes (as ever, for maximum research and understanding of a menu, I try as many dishes as possible). It can be hard to justify feasting (especially with drink) on a drive to and from SF unless we’re staying north, so husband Dan and I squeezed in a reservation on a cool March night on a recent jaunt north to try their reasonably priced $95 tasting menu. The team’s diverse backgrounds brought international influence to a menu with decidedly local roots. Like many, at first, TCP was a pop-up, launched temporarily in the Wishbone space in 2020, serving mostly takeout upscale comfort food. Stéphane partnered with Petaluma native Steven Vargas (who worked for/with Stéphane at Della Fattoria and The Shuckery locally) and wife Marta, who grew up in Gdańsk, Poland (read more about all three here). Chef Stéphane Saint Louis hails from Haiti and New York, having cooked and/or taught (his alma mater being none other than Paul Bocuse Institute in France) everywhere from Shanghai to France, Miami to Copenhagen. Making this Lilliputian restaurant more intriguing, the husband/wife chef owners are from Haiti, NYC and Poland, partnering with a Petaluma native. Blink and you’ll miss the Petaluma Boulevard storefront housing intimate, cozy, 10-table Table Culture Provisions (TCP) opened in the former Chili Joe’s towards the end of 2021. The cliche goes that good things come in small packages and this treat is downright tiny. Now I present to you (arguably) Petaluma’s top tasting menu. Like many a Sonoma County town, it’s a good place to eat, housing rarities like Swedish Turkish food (you heard right) at Stockhome, all the more precious given the closure of the same chef/owners beloved (and original) Plaj here in SF, which was our best Scandinavian restaurant. In recent years, Petaluma openings have been coming steadily (like Easy Rider, which I reviewed earlier this year), while the city’s craft brewery and distilling scenes are thriving, thanks to destination-worthy Griffo Distillery and breweries like HenHouse or pioneering Lagunitas. ![]() ![]() This is ideal given the rich blossoming of a town that has long had a movie-worthy historic main street, music venues and one of the county’s best bakeries, Della Fattoria, since 1995 ( RIP Kathleen Weber). But that drive can be 35–40 minutes or a lot more, depending on the infamous Petaluma traffic jam due to the forever buildout of a third freeway lane on each side of the 101 through the town.Īs that endless project finally looks to be on its final stretch, traffic is getting better. When was the last time you dined in Petaluma? This bustling Sonoma town with rich farming history on the border between Marin and Sonoma Counties is only roughly 32 miles from San Francisco. Table Culture Provisions‘ bucatini (Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Miller)
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