4 Best Restaurants in Geyserville, Napa and Sonoma

Cookbook author and Iron Chef judge Domenica Catelli returned home to revive her family's American-Italian restaurant, a Geyserville fixture. Contemporary abstract paintings, reclaimed-wood furnishings, and muted gray and chocolate-brown walls signal the changing times, but you'll find good-lovin' echoes of traditional cuisine in the sturdy meat sauce that accompanies the signature lasagna paper-thin noodles and ricotta-and-herb-cheese filling.

A decade after his beloved, same-named Healdsburg restaurant closed, celebrity chef Douglas Keane of Top Chef Masters and other fame reopened a "2.0" version inside an 8,000-square-foot steel, glass, and concrete structure set in an Alexander Valley vineyard. Keane bills his prix-fixe culinary experience as a "dining journey," with guests (couples'-rate only; single diners charged double) changing rooms a few times for multiple internationally inspired courses based on hyper-seasonal mostly Northern California ingredients.

Two microbrewing brothers' longtime dream, this storefront gastropub along Geyserville's slim commercial row serves their ales and other area craft brews, plus a rotating lineup of kombuchas, ciders, stouts, seltzers, and sours. The beverages beguile, as do the flavors in animal- and plant-based dishes that might include farro salad, cheddar cauliflower muffulettas, lamb burgers, roasted-mushroom melts, pickled vegetables, and pork belly sliders (good with the potent house IPA).

A dining area with hardwood floors, a pressed-tin ceiling, and exposed-brick walls provides a fitting setting for the rustic cuisine at this Geyserville mainstay. Chef Dino Bugica studied with artisanal cooks in Italy before opening this restaurant specializing in wood-fired pizzas and house-cured meats, with a few salads and meaty main courses rounding out the menu.