Napa Valley Paddle (NVP) rents kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, and inflatable paddleboards by the hour, day, and weekend. There’s an impressive list of imported sakes as well as Japanese whiskeys, which mixologists whip into cocktails with flavors such as coffee and molasses. Pro tip: The bar menu is the underappreciated star of this show. And even if you’ve never liked beef tongue before, the yakitori version here stands out. Fried rice ingredients change nightly, so you’ll find some diners who like the version with clams and squid, and others who prefer the one with blood sausage and sole. Guests enjoy the shareable small plates, the miso ramen full of king trumpet mushrooms, the Paine Farm Squab served over a bed of corn, and the fried chicken katsu. But it’s worth reserving a table inside this beautifully minimalist restaurant, both for the ambience and for the food. Locals will tell you one of the best things on the menu at chef Curtis di Fede’s Japanese izakaya-style restaurant is the soft-serve ice cream, which changes every night and is available for roadies through a take-away window near the front door. The “A&D Experience” features an elaborate five-course meal. Tastings (some of which include food pairings) are held in the lounge, at the tasting bar, or on an expansive outdoor patio overlooking the vineyards. Other moves, such as bringing on Steve Matthiasson and Diana Snowden Seysses as consulting winemakers to recreate the authentic experience of Napa wine from the 1960s, were bold, too. To design the bottles’ labels, Khaledi hired Brian Roettinger, who famously designed the album cover for Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail. To oversee the design of the winery, he enlisted celebrated Los Angeles architect Barbara Bestor, who conceived of the building’s zigzag roofline, sunshine-yellow doors, and an eclectic interior of Saarinen chairs and North African rugs. In 2016, when he decided to make the leap back into the family business of wine, he knew he was going to do things differently. The younger Khaledi cut his teeth for the past decade in the music business, with a job at Capitol Records. Yet for Kashy Khaledi, the son of Darioush Khaledi (the man behind Darioush Winery), the new digs make perfect sense. With midcentury modern architecture and vinyl on the turntable, Ashes & Diamonds is not your typical Napa winery. Guests at the inn enjoy a fridge stocked with artisanal products from around Sonoma county, as well as a sumptuous breakfast. ![]() Upstairs from the restaurant, SingleThread runs a five-room inn accommodations are spacious and modern in all the right ways, with giant soaking tubs and fixtures that look like works of art. ![]() Kyle, who studied in Japan, also specializes in donabe, or clay pot cooking, and these soul-warming courses are especially memorable. Without question, the most impressive course is the first one-a spread of tiny bites served in small plates and stand-alone spoons that have been laid out on a moss-covered stump. Meals at SingleThread are served kaiseki-style. Case in point: Chef Kyle Connaughton and his wife, Katina, run their own farm, and they have developed a system by which they manage 72 distinct microseasons to harvest the ripest items at any given time. The 52-seat restaurant prides itself on creating food that is as much about ancient Japanese technique as it is about fresh ingredients. ![]() Farm-to-table dining meets Eastern philosophy and culture at this unparalleled Michelin-starred restaurant and inn in downtown Healdsburg.
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