Glen Ellen Star

Chef Ari Weiswasser is a Food and Wine People's Best New Chef 2015 and a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: California. Before opening Glen Ellen Star with his wife Erinn Benziger-Weiswasser, he cooked at the French Laundry, Daniel, and Le Bec Fin — kitchens that represent three different schools of culinary rigour. Glen Ellen Star is what those influences look like when a talented chef comes home to wine country, builds a wood-burning oven, and starts cooking for his neighbours.

The room is small — around 40 seats — and centred entirely on that wood-burning oven, which drives both the philosophy and the menu. The fire produces roasted vegetables with a char and sweetness that could not be achieved any other way. The thin-crust pizzas are exercises in restraint: correct sauce, correct cheese, toppings that enhance rather than crowd. Housemade pasta — seasonal, inventive, never overwrought — appears as a matter of what the farmers brought that week. Whole-roasted branzino and brick chicken are the proteins of choice, and both carry the kind of concentrated flavour that wood fire uniquely delivers.

Biodynamic produce from nearby Glentucky Family Farm is the kitchen's starting point for most dishes, and the relationship between farm and restaurant is visible in the quality of the vegetables — they taste like themselves, which is the only thing good produce needs to do. The wine list is focused on Sonoma Valley producers, with a depth in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that reflects Benziger-Weiswasser's family winemaking background.

The drive from Sonoma Plaza — 15 minutes south along Arnold Drive through vineyards — is a prelude that arrives with its own reward. Glen Ellen is the kind of village that makes you wonder why you live anywhere else. Glen Ellen Star is the restaurant that village deserves.