Celebrating the Best Moments of 2024

We started the year with a pretty heavy lift: moving our dining from Barndiva, where we had held court for the past 20 years (the last three with a Michelin Star), into the Studio space - aka Studio Barndiva - next door. Our hope was that a move away from a pricy prix fixe would enable us to return to what we love most about our particular brand of hospitality: a comfortable approach to inspired seasonality alongside community focused and expanded private eventing. The risks are formidable across the restaurant world right now, increasingly so if you are (small) family owned and operated, but we’ve had 20 years to learn that NOT exploring new ways to deliver what we are passionate about goes against our DNA. With a more accessible à la carte menu, with Chef David Morales at the helm, we were able to welcome back so many neighborhood friends in 2024 while offering our coveted barndiva space for indoor cocktails parties, cocktail classes, community forums.

We are greatly thankful to our local constituency for their support. We greatly appreciate as well all the recommendations we received from local businesses, our favorite hoteliers, and best of all, always, word of mouth.

Our hope for the coming year is to continue to up our game in our beautiful rooms and gardens, further enabling the talent we are blessed to have both BOH and FOH.

Wherever your journey takes you in 2025, we hope you find what you are looking for, with surprises along the way that delight and engage you. We hope you keep in touch.

For us - Jil, Geoffrey, Lukka- we hope to continue our journey in Healdsburg seeking satisfaction that has the bandwidth to explore, create, excel, with continual curiosity, building toward a definition of joy in all the things that matter most to us as we celebrate the art and craft of food and wine, the spirit and life style of wine country.

Here is our (very) short list of stand-out 2024 Moments - and a peek at the wonderful Humans that made them possible.

love.

Yes, it takes a village to design, plan, minutely schedule, then pull off a great, memorable wedding. Everyone involved has to bring it, starting with the couple who entrusts us to hear their vision and be forthright and creative about how to achieve it. Then, every single participant - whether working in our kitchens and on our event teams, or outsourced, sometimes at Barndiva for the first time has to embrace how precious time becomes: every moment of shifting light, circumstances, emotions, can affect the outcome. It all goes by in a flash - and while its pretty hard to take a bad picture here - we never forget we are just the frame, not the subject. We know families will pour over, and want to relive, every moment for years to come. So here’s to the talent we’ve seen behind the cameras this year, to the planners, the stylists, the floral designers, the musicians, the hard working rental agencies (a silent army you never see coming or going.)

Here’s to the couples who choose to share one of the most important days of their lives with us.

This is the first year Susan Bischoff has led our special event team with Jason, and she excelled. To the entire event team … Bravo.

Cocktail Class.

Scott Beattie’s legendary talents are matched by genuine love for sharing all he knows about the alchemy of plants, flowers, and both spirited and non-spirited elixirs. They were all on display this year as he was able to expand private cocktail classes into Barndiva through the year (previously they had been weather contingent). He also offered, for the first time, pick-up classes. We’ve now met fabulous groups of families, businesses, wedding adjacent, and hotel appreciations for staff with our Cocktail (equally N/A) Classes in 2024. Encore.

women who inspire.

Ok one of the fabulous creatures above is not officially a woman yet, and one lives Down Under where she’s inspiring generations of young minds through her prodigious output of artistically significant and culturally relevant children’s books - but what we’re celebrating here is human passion of a female variety that is not location dependent. They brought what we needed most this year: intelligence, curiosity, and bravery for embracing with agency the world as it is, and as it could be.

I would like to thank my partners in Conversations Worth Having - Dawnelise Rosen, Amber McInnis, Susan Preston and Zem Joaquin of Near Future Network - who found time in their incredibly busy lives to help create a series around the future of sustainability that is achievable.

Our Wine Director Emily Carlson brought to bear her special passion for education and support of Women in Wine in 2024 - with Bâtonnage we hosted a Women in Wine symposium, with Alice Sutro of Sutrowine she helped launch ‘Snatch that wine list’ (aka tips for talking to somms) to empower women ordering wine in restaurants. And yes, the prevalence of women wine makers at The Pink Party and Fête Blanc - and on our wine lists in the restaurant - was not an accident. Emily is a woman with a mission we support.

Across all our public events we derived great joy and energy from seeing women in such numbers enjoying the company of other women’s accomplishments.

@sommelierforthepeople ; @sutrowines ; @susienotserp ; @franelessac ; @.am.ber.ini ; @deappletree ; @philo.flora.flowers; @batonnageforum; @alexsarovich

Conversations. Very Worth Having.

Our mission to explore and share ways we can all live more lightly on the ground brought to Healdsburg strategic innovators that were a joy to get to know this year. To celebrate their ideas and accomplishments (thus far) working to positively offset the profound affect climate change is having on all our lives.

We promise a return of CWH in early 2025. Stay tuned!

@gaeastar_ ; @swaythefuture ; @nearfuturesummit ; @cruzfoam; @biomimicryinstitute

@variant3d ; @apparelimpactinstitute ; @nearfuturenetwork ; @marcizaroff ; @Maya.eshom ; @orrickcareers; @farmpreneurs_ ; @earthseed_farm ; @ecofashion.corp ; @am.ber.ini; @littlesainthealdsburg ; @scottbeattiecocktails; @gaeastar_; @hotelhealdsburg ; @flyinggoatcoffee ; @swaythefuture

Fêtes, mon amour.

Maybe it was (finally? hopefully?) the end of Covid affecting our group social lives, maybe it’s ‘just’ these troubling times, but we witnessed a palpable desire to gather again as community in 2024. There was also a shift in the way we came back to acknowledging and celebrating the unique joys living and working in this magnificent wine shed. We loved that folks gathered for our three big wine Fêtes mad happy to be here (see previous blog for the third, winter’s ‘Sparkle Party’). Hug, Laugh, Sip, Munch, Talk, Repete. Even some dancing with abandon.

To all the wineries who participated - we love you guys. For many our wine parties are a yearly tradition, but they are also an introduction to some of our hardest working and most talented winemakers. For all the fun we have at them, we take planning very seriously. Led by Emily Carlson with support from Cathryn, Charles, Scott and our entire event team The Pink Party, Fête Blanc, and the Sparkle Party were sell-out events that celebrated achievement across the Sonoma and Mendocino counties in singular, almost all regeneratively farmed vineyards.

slo flowers. incandescent joy.

We were an apple, fig, chestnut, and pear orchard farm with a prodigious floral program long before we were Barndiva. It’s not something we’re likely to forget because it’s the reason we got into restaurants and events in the first place. From the early years when I drove our dry farmed apples down to Los Angeles, where I had been part of forming the first Food Co-Op board in Santa Monica, through the years we lived abroad and sold our fruits and nuts to restaurants like Chez Panisse and Wolfgang Puck in San Francisco, we have grappled with how hard it is to survive as a small organic farming enterprise.

This year our floral program was run by Misha Vega, a marvel of a woman and a brilliant partner for the challenges we continually face dry farming on a remote ridge. Misha has been instrumental in creating many of our breathtaking floral displays as well as many of our weekly arrangements. Coming in the Studio door and having your breath taken away by the colors, forms, scents of our mountaintop farm is our way of saying hello, thank you for coming.

This year we continued to tout the abundance of local seasonal floral farmers. The reasons to do so are compelling: Commercial flowers are chemical dependent; shipping them is harmful to the environment, to humans, while it’s no contest which are more beautiful in every way.

@dragonflyfloral ; @frontporchfarmers ; @longertable ; @singlethreadfarm ; @filigreenfarm; @gild.the.lily_ ; @philo.flora.flowers (Mischa’s new website for her floral wedding consulting)

and last but never least….

IF you follow us on @barndivahealdsburg, read the blog, or receive one of our infrequent Mail Chimp mail outs about an upcoming events you may have noticed that while Chad and I photographed the hell out of this confounding yet beautiful year, we backed off publishing images of the many beautiful plates of food coming out of our kitchen. Rest assured how we source and conspire to enrich our lives through what we eat when we dine out is still very much the heart of everything we do. But nothing can substitute the sensory experience of being here. We look forward to seeing you in person in 2025. Let us know when you come to dine that you read the blog or follow our adventures on @barndivahealdsburg. We look forward to your visit.

As Always Eat the View!

The joys to be found in a No Crap Christmas

Conversations Worth Having was thrilled when the founders of Healdsburg’s beloved Artisan Collective, Kim Dow and Karin Tredrea offered us the opportunity to team tag their December Makers Market traditionally held on Moore Lane. Throughout our CWH speakers series, and especially as a result of our mind-blowing collaboration with Zem Joaquin and Near Future Summit, we have learned a great deal around what it’s going to take to live more lightly on the ground through design. But it’s quite another thing to put that knowledge into practice, especially with a heavy lift like Christmas. Which is why the offer to participate in a market that supports local makers who already walking the walk means so much to us.

Quite simply, the focus of our Makers Market will be to support circular economies with cradle to cradle products made locally in ways that respect sourcing and equity. On Dec. 8 we will fill the Barn AND the Studio with beautiful, hand-crafted objects large and small… there will be edible delights, clothing, art, textiles, jewelry, ceramics - ingenious and useful things to fill your stockings or slip beneath the tree. There will be delicious things to top up your Holiday Larder, and for those loved ones you always struggle with finding a gift for we’ll have perfect Pay It Forward special opportunities that will keep on giving throughout the year.

We’re counting on you, and a great swathe of the Healdsburg and Sonoma community to show up and shop local. Catch a quick bite at our pop up Lunchonette, sip a cocktail, mocktail, share a glass of wine - spend some time with us on Dec. 8th. There will be plenty of time to head over to Moore Lane, or start there… we’re all in this together!

An incredible range of local talent will be with us on Sunday Dec. 8, many of whom have helped build our sustainable community in Healdsburg, along with a few rising talents who are just starting out.

MAKERS INCLUDE: Susan and Lou Preston of Preston Farms; Duskie Estes of Black Pig; Dawnelise Rosen with Pay It Forward FARMpreneurs along with her Daughter Serafina Rosen who will be selling the Campo Fino Sugo Sauce; Anne Loarie with her exquisite resin Jewlery; Maya Eshom with fashion designed and made in Healdsburg; Amber McInnis with the inaugural outing of Pillow Lips, ‘gorgeous scrap’ throw pillows; the Mendo Grass family; the Cequin Coffee family; Seth Minor, whose single wire faces have been sold at Barndiva for over 15 years; the Yoga On Center founders (another great pay it forward); Scott Beattie with special Cocktail Class gifts; Sipsong founder Tara Jasper, with her very special Sipsong Gin Tea; Candice Koseba, founder of the Sonoma Bee Company with a full range of must have candles and soaps for the Holidays; Longer Table Farm with a gloriously colored range of their farm grown pepper products and a few pepper wreaths (get here early before they disappear); The Farm Studio folks with 100% naturally dyed hemp and linen napkins using locally foraged plants and kitchen scraps (talk about cradle to cradle); Local Architect Alan Cohen with his delightful driftwood sculptures, and Barndiva’s Geoffrey Hales who will be heavily discounting coveted pieces from his Antique ‘before we knew’ Card Collection, which always have pride of place hanging in Studio Barndiva.

Apple Girl Designs Rosalie Pochan will be doing live portraits at the market! Snag a sitting then go shop and we will come find you when she’s ready for your portrait.

Jordy and Zuzu Morgan will be grilling up succulent plates of food in the garden, which they will serve with their own kimchi, while they last…

We will have a limited number of tables in the Studio to enjoy the food and libation with Scott Beattie behind the bar, and Barndiva Wine Director Emily Carlson pouring some surprises from the cellar BTG.

When we say Sunday’s Makers Market is going to be a family affair, we aren’t kidding.

As the penultimate experience of our Conversations Worth Having year, with a huge shout out to Near Future Summit Zem Joaquin, who has been a muse and teacher around what Cradle to Cradle can mean for our future , these are gifts you will be proud to give, and meaningful to receive. That’s was Christmas and Channukah should be all about!

Come and support a Cradle to Cradle Christmas and C2C Channukah.

Come support a truly sustainably Healdsburg community of talent. Come and say hi!

q

A quick word about Studio Barndiva Holiday Decorations this year:

Christmas and Channukah are celebrations of joy, or should be. We don’t know why it’s taken us so long to figure out that we have both the power and the responsibility to evolve our traditions so they change with us as we continue to define what gives life meaning in all its seasons and iterations. There is clearly no joy to be found in the mountains of crap destined to end up in the oceans or landfill from gifting, not to mention all those wonderful sparkling plastic derived decorations that have come to be emblematic of the season. So this year we’re going a different direction, embracing a cradle to cradle approach to Holiday decorations as well as our gifting. We don’t want to waste this #chancetochange.

No ground rules, but a friendly challange: haul out all the old heirloom decorations to your hearts content, up-cycle those glittery past Xmas plastic impulse buys, just but don’t rush out to buy anything new to decorate the tree or the house if you can help it. You might be surprised with what you come up with…

When we threw this challenge to our farm manager Misha Vega we had just finished planting garlic and were standing by the garden gate idly kicking fallen chestnuts around on the ground. We Love chestnuts, but hate the husks - every fall its a nightmare trying to avoid getting a sharp prick from the shells you have to break open in order to get to the nuts. “These are a cool shape,” Misha noted. And they were, come to think of it. The next thing we knew our AGM’s sweetheart Caitlin was spray painting them in hues of gold and silver, hanging them alongside Persimmon leaves that now shimmer and glow from the Antler Chanderlier in the Studio. Caitlin also made three enormous orgamami Stars- some people are so talented when you think to ask! Once we got going it was hard to stop. Misha and I wove dried flowers into fallen branch wreathes - there are now five twinkling in the Studio. A fig branch ‘chandelier’ is now host to a paper maché whale family, precious family ornaments we’ve collected over the years. This week we will harvest a perfect 12’ conifer that’s growing too close to the wood pile for the staff party - and except for recycled electric fairy lights find a way to decorate it with truly biodegradable materials. Best part is we will do it together.

What we’re learning as we go is that you can honor a concept like The Ellen McArthur Foundations #chancetochange at the same time you expand what best reflects how you want to feel around and, crucially, after the holidays. If you aren’t in the crafting mood, patronize a shop that supports fair trade decorations which more often than not are made from up-cycling materials. Get the kids you know involved - they are natural crafters and can always use a little spending money this time of year. There are so many beautiful way of changing up how we approach gifting and decorating for the Holiday Season. Ours is still a work in progress, but the biggest surprise is how much pleasure we’re getting coming up with random ideas that honor the natural landscape around us instead of contributing to its demise. Stay tuned, or better yet come in and raise a glass with us over the Holidays and see for yourself how this all turns out!

joy on the menu

It’s easy to complain how living online has reduced the number of meaningful interactions we have nowadays. Language has become weaponized at the same time the experience of Covid has made us reticent to express ourselves with ease in casual social settings. Shellshocked by technological ‘progress’ that has been busily re-wiring our brains along with our social systems, “across multiple platforms,'“ it’s hard to escape the sense that we are unwittingly dumbing down real life, losing the visceral connections we so need from one another. Even the concept, the experience of “real’ has become suspect. And don’t get me started about facts. We’re parched, especially from the lack of honest connection that once served as a conduit to genuine community.

Sunday was a group quenching. Almost like a fragrance, joy floated through both gardens as past and present co-workers, industry friends, artists, friends and family gathered to celebrate Barndiva’s 20 years in Healdsburg. Geoffrey, Lukka and I were truly delighted with the memories that everyone shared at the ways the Barndiva experience holds a fond place in their lives.

There was a wonderful randomness to the crowd that made delightful sense. Let’s face it, Barndiva has never known for being just one thing: we started life as a Euro-jazzy bistro, then a gallery, then morphed into a Michelin fine dining restaurant. This year we are back into the studio with the films and soundtracks we love where you can come and dine a la carte, in larger groups, or just slip in for a cocktail or the perfect glass of wine. While the heart of our business has always been our beloved wedding programs, and that hasn’t changed, barndiva has also always been a place for vital community forums, annual collaborative wine tasting events, fund raisers. All the many programs we have invested in over the years to stay engaged, afloat, and relevant have been a reflection of the same desire: to celebrate life as we share conversations worth having around food and drink, social issues. We tilt towards the philosophy that even in spaces where great food and drink and beautiful things surrounding you are deliverable, they are not what you remember years later. It’s the experience. We have created and filled our spaces to reflect what we ourselves would love to discover if we wandered in as a traveler, or frequented as a regular.

Restaurants are the most transactional of high stakes entities, from sourcing - be it from ranch, farm or sea - through the many hands in the kitchen, to that last interaction when someone places a glass or a plate on the space in front of you and invites you to ‘enjoy’. We hide that it’s bloody hard. We delude ourselves but know it will never gets easier. So many pieces need to be in play often at the same time. A sense of urgency is always present. So to see the incredible mix of past and present staff on July 14 was a special pleasure. The same for being able to hug and catch up with artists we have supported, favorite winemakers, spirit makers, farmers, earliest customers, wedding couples… and a good dose of family friends, all commingling, gorgeous drinks in hand, on a perfect summer day in gardens which have grown more beautiful around us over the past two decades.

It was the perfect anniversary gift we could have given ourselves at 20. The flowers were glorious, cocktails divine, (with Scott very much in his element), Legacy libations ‘Steamy Windows’ and ‘On the Beach with Fidel’ brilliantly re-interperted by Charles. All the wines we asked Emily to pour reflected the talents of winemakers who passed through the barn at some point before the start of their careers. David and the team grilled succulent pork carnitas with bowls of vibrant spicy condiments that he and Erik had conspired over, and there were delicious fluatas that alas, I missed, in all the hubbub. Everyone leaving could snag a bag of Lynn’s homemade oatmeal and raisin cookies and vegan fudge brownies.

Thank you to all who attended, and big love to those out of town or who live far away and could not be with us, but sent messages of congratulations suffused with delicious, funny, beautiful, ’I don’t give a shit how this sounds I just gotta say it‘ truly remarkable memories. We love ya.

Above, Chef David Morales and his beautiful family. Below, some of our incredible staff both past and present

Below: Our who’s who of Barndiva’s Healdsburg, then and now. We have been blessed with the friendship of many talented local artists, fine winemakers, artisan spirit makers, & farmers over the years, and seeing some of them on Sunday meant the world to us. A wellspring of emotion at the memories we all shared, of a Healdsburg much transformed. Nothing stays the same, nor should it. But the value of real, personal connections built over many years from the respect and profound enjoyment of the work we have all chosen flowed through the gardens in way we rarely see anymore. The nominal ticket price we asked was all donated to FARMpreneurs, a new non-profit focused on guiding and empowering climate-smart small farmers with education and resources to enable their success. Eat the View writ large.

Stay tuned as we move through the year with more celebrations that speak to our remarkable two decades in Healdsburg!

Jil, Lukka and Geoffrey

As it turns out, Photographer Chad Surmick who shot all these images on July 11, 2024 was at our opening on July 11, 2004, though it would be another decade before we really came to know one another, and quite a few more before I was finally able to hand over photographing all things Barndiva and hand it over to him. He moonlights from an all encompassing job at the Press Democrat and Sonoma Magazine, where he has brilliantly captured the full monte of life in Sonoma County for going on 34 years. Beloved by our staff, his ability to capture a moment without affecting the people living through it, with empathy and artistry, is remarkable. We are so grateful for his talent and his grace. Image above: Chad and dear family friend Mindy and her beautiful family, shot by Lukka Feldman.

Celebrating 20 years on July 14!!

On July 14 we will celebrate a Milestone it’s fair to say we never envisioned achieving - 20 years since the day we opened Barndiva. Over the past two decades we’ve been a local bluesy Bistro Bar, a fine dining Michelin Star Restaurant, hosted thousands of wedding related parties and significant community events, celebrated artists, and worked to strengthen the bonds between farmers and chefs (even helping create a web-site for them). We’ve worked through multiple fires and inventively and safely stayed open through the pandemic. We’ve had the joys of seeing many of our staff grow their families and cherished past employees go on to create wonderful businesses of their own.

It’s been an exhilarating, challenging, frustrating, marvelously engaging life… And on July 14, from 4-6, we're throwing a party to celebrate.

If you are able to come raise a glass with us we will fill it with new versions of the Barndiva cocktail classics, "On the Beach with Fidel" and "Steamy Windows," along with remarkable wines made by vintners who once upon a time polished a glass or two here at the start of their careers. The Chefs will be grilling and the soundtrack will be curated from a 20 year playlist of our favorites. And of course, floral arrangements galore from our farm and some of our slo flower friends.

We know this newsletter goes out to many who live far away, so if you cannot join us on the 14th, please know you have our gratitude. In some way, large or small, you have made this journey with us. Loyal customers, wedding families, farmers, vintners, artists, The City of Healdsburg, and most especially past and present employees - we simply wouldn’t be here without you.

It’s an elusive but significant connection we long to make over food and drink and when it works, that moment when everything comes together, it hits all the high notes of a diva moment . We have never stopped striving for that moment - but even when we miss, we’ve felt the love. Thank you.
 
Follow the link 🥳 to join us. The $10 ticket will go in support of a game changing new nonprofit that builds farm communities -- something that's always been close to our "Eat the View" hearts.
(100% will be donated to FARMpreneurs}  

We hope you can come! 

Of the thousands of images I’ve taken from the day we opened on July 14, 2004 of every aspect of this world we’ve created, at the end of the day what has meant the most to us as a family are the people we have worked alongside, through the good times and bad. This is a stressful industry, with hundreds of moving parts. It takes tremendous effort - physically and emotionally- to stay the course and be true to a vision, especially one as idiosyncratic as Barndiva’s. What has always pulled us over the swells when they got too high has been the dedications of relentless kitchen and front of house teams. When you see the joy of a food or drink moment that has truly landed, especially if that day is significant in a families life, you know why what you do matters.

This no means a complete rogues gallery, just some of the memorable moments we have shared on our way toward writing the barndiva story over the years.

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Coming July 5th ...
Cocktailing in the Gardens begins!

We are excited to be expanding our wine and cocktail menus
so they can be enjoyed in the gardens even if you aren't joining us for dinner

View the expanded cocktail and wine menu, here!

Studio Barndiva is open for dining Thursday - Monday from 5pm.
Walk-ins are welcome, reservations are encouraged.  

We book parties! 8+? Contact us here.

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Plastic? Think Again.

The community gathers for Conversations Worth Having #2 : Trash Talk, February 16th, in Studio Barndiva

Full Disclosure: we initially had great concerns making Trash the subject of our second Conversation Worth Having. But something happened after our first conversation, Gorgeous Garbage, that made the conversation about trash imperative. Of the many things we took away from our first community evening the realization that haunted us, as never before, was that even if we managed to divert more organic waste into making compost and soil, even if everyone we knew got better at recycling, even if these things began to miraculously happen all over the world, humanity would still go on filling the oceans with plastic, building higher and higher landfills of toxic waste. All the things we no longer have use for - our trash - endlessly circling and befouling the globe.

CWH is all about gathering community to have Serious Fun. We want to talk about important issues in a way which enables us to come away from these conversations making better choices, strengthening a commitment to live lighter on the ground. We don’t want to give up our creature comforts. We care about design. We want to live in a world with the ability to surround ourselves with useful, beautiful things. How do we make this compatible with individual actions, taken consistently, that signal true change in the way the social order works?

As life would have it, over 50 years ago I forged a beautiful, lasting friendship that among its many gifts brought a wondrous goddaughter into my life. And as luck would have it - for me and everyone who attended our February 16th Trash Talk - she has made it her life’s work to build just such a near future, or at least the possibility one might exist. we’re talking about businesses that take honoring a healthy ecology and a respect of the earth into every step of their supply chains. We’re talking about the products and the conduits that bring them into our short and precious lives.

Her name is Zem Joaquin. A founding member of Cradle to Cradle, for many years her company Eco Fabulous espoused the philosophy that we did not have to live lives of deprivation to be good global citizens. If we knew where to look, showed extreme care about how and where things were made, we could be as fabulous as we dared. She dared.

For the past five years she has grown an astonishing community of brilliant, innovative leaders- self identified disrupters to status quo supply chains- made of up scientists, inventors, doctors, designers, artists, and producers of all the things we use in our lives. It’s called The Near Future Summit and through it she has become a champion for businesses that “accelerate solutions to improve societal, individual and planetary health.” Dawnelise, Susan, Amber and I did our due diligence and research into how best to position Trash Talk - we toured Recology SF, met with the wonderful Deborah Munk, director of the artist in residence program. We listened to fascinating sustainable producers at a Women Founders Talk at the Ferry Building. We read and researched. Finally, after an edifying three day experience at 2023’s Near Future Summit, Zem guided our choice of speakers who graciously traveled to Healdsburg to talk to a sold out crowd in Studio Barndiva on Friday, February 16 for Conversations Worth Having, #2, Trash Talk.

It was delicious but serious fun, as you know if you attended. If you didn’t, we missed you. Here is a visual taste of this throughly stimulating evening.

Our Speakers: LEFT: Toby Corey, COO of Cruz Foam, a sustainable foam packaging company that sources fully bio degradable materials made from shrimp shells, mushrooms, and recycled paper as an alternative to styrofoam. Cruz Foam was a PentAwards Bronze winner and one of TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2023; CENTER: Gorgina Alcock, of GaeaStar, a ceramic zero waste alternative to single use plastic cups and vessels made of a clay, water, and salt sourced close to where it is 3’D printed (our CWH branded cups were produced in San Francisco from Sacramento clay); RIGHT: Beth Rattner, a director of the The Bio-Mimicry Institute, who walked us through the essential bridges we must start building between biology and design by advancing the adoption of nature inspired strategies. Highly recommended reading: Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine Benyus, who founded the Biomimicry Institute, and The Second Body, by Daisy Hildyard.

ABOVE: Julia Marsh who with her Husband Matt founded Sway, also joined our speaker forum. Sway is a start up whose goal is to harness the power of seaweed to create home compostable replacements for plastic. For their efforts they were the Winners of the Tom Ford Innovation Prize for 2023.

Sway embodies a central premise of circular economies around design that was a take away from the evening: design out waste, keep materials in use, regenerate natural systems. And this: as a consumer, make better choices.

We were proud to have several local businesses who share our concerns about sustainability contribute to this Conversation Worth Having. Formost among them was Little Saint Healdsburg Healdsburg, whose chef, Stu Stalker, provided exquisite bowls of Little Saint Farm Vegetables with spreads of Carrot Tahini w/ dried chili, Cultured Cashew w/ Tomato Chutney, and Green Lentil Hummus. Little Saint’s director of beverage and sustainability, Matt Seigel collaborated with Barndiva’s Scott Beattie on both the spirit and NA cocktails: A Caipirinha made with Novo Fogo Carbon Negative Organic Cachaça, and Rangpur Me Another, our NA cocktail made with Rangpur lime as a cordial, anise hyssop tea, coconut yogurt, and Ritual N/A rum.

For those enjoying wine in their GaeaStar cups, we were honored to serve Delta Wines for Change made by our friends at Brick and Mortar, Alexis and Matt Ioconis. In bringing the climate conversation to the dinner table, Delta addresses greener packaging, reduces their carbon footprint in every aspect of wine making and supply chain choices, and donates 10% of all sales to the Surfrider Foundation, Cool Effect, and groups fostering environmental education- like Conversations Worth Having.

We also wish to thank Hotel Healdsburg’s Circe Sher for hosting some of our speakers and providing a discount for those traveling for the event. Coming soon: GaeaStar cups in the Hotel Healdsburg Spa.

And for anyone who missed the event or just wanted to keep the conversation going the next day, Flying Goat Coffee on center street hosted a pop-up on Saturday Feb. 17th using GaeaStar cups, which they gave away with every coffee sold.

A dinner for our speakers and a limited number of ticketed guests was held after the event in barndiva, which Daniel Carlson and I filled with foraged arrangements from our forest in Philo. We were so pleased he was able to join us for this CWH.

The Conversations Worth Having team is Dawnelise Rosen, director of Farmpeneurs, Susan Preston, of Preston Family Farm; Jil Hales, all things Barndiva, and Amber Keneally who researched and created our medicine cabinet art installation.

It is our goal to keep Conversation Worth Having events small enough so the actual conversation we have after listening to our speakers is forthright and meaningful. To find out about future events, sign up for the Barndiva Blog, Eat the View, or follow us @barndivahealdsburg.

Conversations Worth Having #2: Trash Talk!

Hello again.

For those who joined us on November 2 in Studio Barndiva for our first ‘Conversation Worth Having,’ and to all who are reading about CWH for the first time, welcome!  Our goal for this homegrown series is to explore ways to live lighter on the ground, taking our cue from Johanna Macy that “whatever the limitations of our lives, we are free to choose which version of reality – or story about our world – we value and want to serve.”

Our first conversation centered around something we deal with every day - our messy, smelly, garbage. Our hope was that with a simple shift in perspective and purpose, we might come to see garbage transformed into the very fragrance of life: healthy soil in which to grow the food we eat. We loved the group the evening attracted and were energized seeing old friends and making new ones. We are humbled and cautiously optimistic that our first conversation continues to grow, engaging stakeholders across Sonoma County - including supportive elected representatives - who are seeking proactive answers to some of the questions and challenges raised at Gorgeous Garbage.

Ah, but talking about trash is not talking about garbage. Trash can’t be transformed into something life affirming. There is no happy ending here….or so it would seem. So…where to begin?

If we define trash as all the things we throw away, objects we once desired or deemed necessary in our lives that eventually cannot be recycled or re-purposed – there’s no refuting the fact that to some degree we all contribute to global landfills, oceans filled with junk. It’s a deeply depressing thought. Increasingly so when you consider that all those ‘things’ we accumulate over a lifetime may take hundreds of years to ‘disappear,’ and depending on what they were made of leave toxic trails in earth, sea, and sky.

From the outset, we have wanted our Conversations with this community to be empowering, not depressing. But beyond supporting organizations focused on cleaning up the toxic mess we leave in our wake, literally strewn across the globe, we found ourselves asking what changes we could make in our lives right now - alongside simply consuming less - which would provide the creature comforts we desire alongside taking health of the planet into account… making it a priority?

A field trip to tour the facilities of Recology in SF and a thought provoking session with the director of their Artists in Residency Program, the remarkable Deborah Munk, was an eye opener for the four of us. We all learned how we can do better separating our trash to make it easier to recycle things that can be repurposed. But invariably we had to confront the fact that recycling is but a drop in the polluted oceans of a world we keep filling up with single use plastic. We came away from that afternoon convinced we needed to find a better way to present a conversation about trash - one that considered how to change the way we live right now. That conversation needs to start with how we behave as consumers.

We are all inundated, every minute of every day, with invasive information technology re-writing the small print of our DNA on what to aspire to, how we should live. How do we circumvent this complicity of desire instigated by an entire system rigged to make us want to buy, buy, buy? Is it possible to use the power we have as consuming individuals and communities to shape what gets made in the world, before it is created? How do we change the way we ship and carry things from one place to another, through our doors and into our lives?

Perspectiva’s Johanthan Rowson explains this conundrum thusly:

 “Consumerism is unsustainable, unrewarding, and ultimately absurd. Yet it endures because it meets a range of emotional and social needs, and because it is conveniently operational — ‘it works’ or at least it seems to. It is certainly hard to imagine replacing it. And yet we have to sail our imagination in precisely that direction.“

If we could sail our imaginations in that direction, cease transgressing a range of red line ecological boundaries, where would we land?

the secret heart of time

This year we celebrate a milestone: 23 years since we broke ground to build a barn in the center of Healdsburg. The day we opened four years later, full to bursting with curious strangers from across Sonoma County, we threw our first party. It was called Taste of Place, a food-as-art exhibit with over 34 Sonoma and Mendocino County farmers, artisan batch purveyors, and mixed-media artists. We were trying to make a delicious point – one still so relevant - that unless restaurants found a way to support local growers and makers, we would lose the most vital part of why we love this food shed. This has been a continuing story for our family, as we have worked to keep a small heritage apple farm in Philo flourishing since 1984.

If you value your independence, remain curious, believe, to paraphrase Richard Powers, that “there is a politics that can be built out of awe and gratitude,” there is great reward working in hospitality as we do. We have been extremely lucky with the spread of our talents, especially the ability to master the art of the pivot and decisively embrace change. What has come to embody ‘The Barndiva Experience’ is a source of great pride for us. We feel fortunate to have contributed as we have to Healdsburg’s flourishing during a time of great transformation.

The capstone of our 20 years in hospitality was to have been awarded a Michelin star in 2021; an even deeper validation of our values to have kept it in 2022 and 2023 under the brilliant direction of Chef Erik Anderson and the dedication of a truly remarkable staff.

But we have always believed that the reason people go out to dine is not a fixed star, Michelin or otherwise. We all long to return to tastes that trigger happiness and memory; to be excited by new food experiences, step into a room filled with music and engaging conversation. On the simplest and most profound level the sound of other humans having vibrant food and drink experiences gives us agency to enjoy ourselves more fully in the world.

To stay true to what we love, and what our guests have come to expect from Barndiva, this winter we are excited to announce a shift in the allocation of our time and how our rooms and gardens are enjoyed. 

Beginning January 21st, we will be serving an a la carte menu in Studio Barndiva Thursday-Monday.

Seasonal menus of dishes we aways have a hankering for & a reason to explore… Reminiscent of our old Sunday Suppers, with their easy vibe, great soundtracks, silent cinema. By extending the same menus to Monday we hope to see friends in the Industry that we well know have scant options on their days off. 

Make Reservations

walk-ins welcome!

SET MENU REQUIRED FOR PARTIES OF 8+

View Large Party Menu

Large Parties can be Booked on OpenTable

Barndiva will now be available for Cocktails Parties, light canapé soirées that weather permitting can extend into the gardens.

We’ve been hearing from clients for years wanting to gather in Barndiva just to mingle, raise a class, and enjoy our infamous canapés. We’d love for you to experience the barn anew. Cocktail parties are booked in advance and are intended for groups from 25-100+.

For all Weddings, Rehearsal Dinners, and Wine or Cocktail Parties in the Barn, Contact Barndiva’s Event Director Susan Bischoff:

susan@barndiva.com

The Pink Party
led by Barndiva’s ‘Sommelier for the People,’ Emily Carlson, returns Sunday, April 21.
Tickets on sale Friday, January 12

Conversations Worth Having, a community focused series we launched with ‘Gorgeous Garbage’ in November with Dawnelise Rosen, Susan Preston, and Amber Keneally continues with CWH #2: Trash Talk, Friday, February 16th, from 4-6. Studio Barndiva. There will be limited seating for dinner in the Barn following the event.

Get Tickets Now!

Scott Beattie’s Cocktail Classes for groups of 6-26 will be held in Studio Barndiva until spring, when they again move into the Studio Barndiva gardens.

Scott and bar manager Charles Rodenkirch will hold court every Sunday and Monday, and both will work closely with Event Manager Susan Bishcoff to make every Cocktail Party in the Barn unique.

To book a class: scott.beattie@barndiva.com

For the past two decades we have worked to share the joys and challenges that come from running a small family-run restaurant and special event facility in this community. We hope you will continue to help us write an imaginative text for Barndiva as we turn a page and continue our story.

The late great poet John O’ Donohue liked to say “possibility is the secret heart of time.”  A Bientot!

The Best of 2023, Celebrated!

No skirting it, 2023 was a challenging year. It seemed like every time we looked up from from the gardens in Philo or out the windows to a seemingly flourishing Healdsburg, the news of the day brought us up short with yet another human or planetary catastrophe. A reminder, as if we needed one, of how truly fragile life is everywhere. How fortunate we are to live and work how and where we do.

This last post of the year celebrates some of the best moments of 2023 for us, giving props to the people and places who made our year appreciably better, the world we share glow a bit brighter.

Our New Years Resolution: To focus even more on joyful moments like the ones captured here. To build collaborative bridges where and how they are needed.

Thank you for dining with us, throwing a party, planning a wedding, gathering a group of friends for a dinner party, showing up at one of our annual wine events - we so appreciate you! We look forward to showing you how much in 2024!

Diptych: Spring & Winter. Photo: Chad Surmick

Photographing Barndiva in all its many beautiful facets is something I love doing, and rarely entrust with another photographer, which made collaborating with the intuitive and extremely talented Chad Surmick this year an unmitigated joy. Together we captured Barndiva’s life in food, cocktails, wine parties, and studio b dinner parties. The most enjoyable work was a series we conceived for our website landing page - four color-resplendent still-life images of the raw ingredients that informed Eric’s brilliant menus. Our hope was that they brought the food conversation about seasonality home for everyone who visited our website. They were also very much an homage to the farm, to Misha and Renee, who joined us this year in Philo, and to the many many other farmers and fisherman, foragers and gardeners who work with us in the creation of our food and cocktail menus: we are grateful to them all.

Chad and I also had the honor to photograph the men and women whose labors transformed those raw ingredients for a B&W portrait series celebrating our 2023 Michelin star.

Barndiva’s Beverage Director Scott Beattie, Bar Manager Charles Rodenkirch and their team rocked the cocktail program this year with creations that lifted our spirits and then some. These were inventive, intriguing, satisfying and absolutely gorgeous cocktails. The bar team also maintained a weekly floral and herbal ‘garden’ for the bar (shout out to Buck), most of it from our farm, that took guests breath away (and invariably cellphones out). Through Scott’s long and legendary career he has had an indefatigable interest in everything growing around him - always with an eye toward how it might end up in a cocktail.

Our cocktail classes were also a highlight of the year, and we embraced gorgeous NA cocktails like never before. A stellar year in drink, with exciting plans for next year.

To learn more about the classes, read the wonderful article written about them in Edible Marine Magazine. Scott can be reached directly scott.beattie@barndiva.com,

We re-launched Studio B events this year with a community series called “Conversations Worth Having” hosted with three of the most formidable women - Dawnelise Rosen, Amber Keneally and Susan Preston. CWH has been a lifeline for us, and we were deeply gratified for others as well, judging by the success of Conversation #1, Gorgeous Garbage. The idea for the series flows from a long held desire to share what we’re reading, listening to, and thinking as we try to live more lightly on the ground in our lives and various businesses. We hope to introduce some of the fascinating people we are meeting on this journey, explore issues that affect us here in Healdsburg, across Sonoma County, and beyond. (No surprise, they are interconnected.)

By opening these conversations to a community we love, gift -wrapped in art, incredible speakers and - this being Barndiva - kick-ass cocktails and wines, we hope to make manifest the changes we long to see in the world. Our only ground rules for the series is that they be fun, and that there is no place for judgment as we explore some pretty complex subjects. Do we believe change starts with small and well considered actions? Yes, we really do.

Next up: Trash Talk, just scheduled for February 16th. We’ve got some incredible speakers coming to town for a panel led by the eco fabulous Zem Joquin, founder of The Near Future Summit, which Dawnelise and I were thrilled to attend this year. To hear about CWH first, Follow us @barndiva.com, or sign up to receive barndiva.com/blog. We will not share your information with anyone.

Above: Conversations Worth Having, A paint and distressed paper canvas by Susan Preston; Photo: Chad Surmick

At the end of the day, everything we do comes down to fostering a genuine feeling of joy in people, and nothing we do comes even close to producing more of it than our weddings and wedding rehearsal dinners. The connections you feel from seeing generations of family and friends gather is electric. Weddings always generate the best moments of our year - they keep us alive in more than ways than one. For that we give thanks to all our wedding couples and their families, who chose Barndiva this year.

Looking forward to 2024, we are so pleased to welcome Susan Bischoff to lead our wedding team - she is already busy with tours and fielding inquiries from across the country. As we say adieu to 2023, a truly grateful thank you, with big love, to our wonderful Natalie Nelson, who after ten years at the helm of Barndiva Weddings has started an exciting new life with her growing family in Utah.

barndiva.com/events

Flowers have always been central to our lives, no surprise they are integral with our farm program, our weddings, and front and center in every dining experience we create. We are hopeful that the increasing world wide support we’re seeing for regenerative farming for food production will also inspire a similar approach when it comes to growing flowers. Because of our many weddings and private events we are able to recommend flower farms and floral designers who source this way - but it’s up to all of us to ask our favorite markets and flowers shops to support slow flower farming! The only critique we hear is “they don’t last as long,” and the most honest response is ‘ask yourself why.’

These are some of our favorites farmers and floral designers we follow near (to source) and far (for inspiration!) : @dragonflyfloral; @apple_farm_flowers; @longertablefarm; @singlethreadfarmstore; @frontporchfarm; @filigreenfarm; also: @daniel.james.co ( Daniel Carlson still directs the orchard & floral programs at our farm in Philo, now alongside the prodigiously talented Misha Vega); @nicamille; @cultivatingplace; @digdelve;@pithandvigor; @jimiblake_huntingbrookgardens; @clairetakacs

What does it take to be part of a ‘real’ restaurant food community? Michelin is clearly the most vaunted, then there’s James Beard and Slow Food, all of which seek to honor talent, innovation, hard work and tradition. But we are all businesses, from Michelin to the local diner. When we lose restaurants that nurtured talent and supported an ethical approach to food sourcing and labor, their absence is sorely felt. We will especially miss dining at Matt Orlando’s Amass in Copenhagen and The Ethicurean in Barley Wood. Both were truly inspirational in the dining experiences they presented.

We did dine in some remarkable restaurants this year, and want to give a special shout out to two that reminded us why we got into this business in the first place. Sessions Art Club in the Clerkenwell section of London (thank you Linda & Nick) is magical, from the moment you find the semi-secret door and they buzz you in, take a wonky elevator and arrive to a curiously elegant great room where history has it Charles Dickens once dined as a law clerk. The cocktails are unfussy, brilliantly balanced, perfectly served (very cold), the food a delight. The staff both nights we dined were absolutely brilliant - a gleam in the eye of jollity primed with the smooth joy of being part of something very special. We can’t wait to return.

The second memorable experience was at a ‘new’ french bistro on the quieter end of Main Street in Venice, Ca, an area I know well as I raised my first two children up the street in Ocean Park. Full Disclosure: one of those children is a co-owner of Cou Cou, Formerly Chez Tex. Jesse and Hayley Feldman started out with no experience in restaurants, though both are world class diners and share a passion for how design affects our ability to open ourselves to a shared experience. There is no gas on property, all food is cooked by wood fire, and the addition of a cocktail license has brought classy cocktails to their bright, locally sourced seasonal menus. Cou Cou perfectly captures the nostalgia and comfort of a French bistro - the kind where you want to order everything on the menu. Those menus will grow exponentially in the next few months when Hayley and Jesse open a second CouCou in WeHo.

Pay them a visit in the New Year, and order a “Bitches of the Seizeme, a Barndiva classic, on us. We know they make it correctly because, for all those Isabel Hales fans out there, she helped set up the Cou Cou bar when they first opened.

Stay healthy, sane, engaged with all the good things going on in the world.

Hope to see you in 2024!

CWH #1. For the love of soil

OK, Full disclosure:  garbage is not gorgeous. Even as we choose the name “gorgeous garbage” to launch our Conversation Worth Having series, we assumed it would be an uphill climb to find an audience. But here was our dilemma: how to entice the community to come talk about food waste… all that messy swill of stinky stuff we toss into the bin every day of our lives, unloved. How to make it lovable, and, yes, covetable?

Our hope was to encourage nothing less than a profound shift in perspective. To begin to see organic waste as a sensous entity, one we literally cannot live without. To break through to a realization that it can be transformed into

• Soil for food

• A way to reduce carbon emissions so we can stay on this planet a little longer

• A way to create a truly circular green economy - I mean how many opportunities do we have as individuals to contribute to that?

As it turned out we needn’t have worried. With this cast of speakers and the incredible audience who showed up we could not have asked for anything more to introduce CWH. Heartfelt thanks to Brock, Tucker, Eric, and Ariel for their wisdom and their humility – and for making their remarkable work lives accessible in delicious and meaningful ways we can all enjoy… We’re talking OAEC, Jackson Estate Culinary Gardens, Radio Coteau & County Line Vineyards, Healdsburg Local Government!

Above: The incredible group of farmers, educators, community leaders, diners, and the just plain curious who gathered for Conversations Worth Having #1, “Gorgeous Garbage,” held on Nov. 2 in Studio B.

The Indomitable Brock Dolman, Occidental Arts & Ecology 

Ariel Kelley, Mayor, City of Healdsburg

Tucker Taylor, Director, Jackson Estate Culinary Gardens

Eric Sussman, Radio Coteau/ County Line Vineyards, setting up the Find Your Inner Dog scent box game.

James Gore, Sonoma County Supervisor

Deb Fudge, Councilwoman, Windsor

Josh Whiton, Founder @makesoil.org

Daniel Sonnenberg, OAEC, with our “Look, Smell, Play” interactive soil exhibit

 To supervisor James Gore, Josh Whiton, founder @makesoil.org, Mimi Enright and Xinxi Tan from Zero Waste, the lovely Daniel Sonnenberg from OAEC … Thank you all for being so supportive of this conversation. We look forward to a viaduct of information around compost planning for Healdsburg (and Sonoma County) that is actionable. We will pass it all on!

Barndiva canapé starred Tucker’s produce- including his infamous crosnes, Japanese radish, ice lettuce

From the cellers we poured our own label 2015 Barndiva Syrah, graciously made by Eric Sussman

Scott Beattie’s Compost Cocktail, Tops n’ Tails: beet and carrot scrap shrub, lemon rind soda, cool pickled beet and carrot garnish, with carrot top green sprigs. Offered N/A or with Square One organic vodka

Most of all we wish to thank everyone who showed up to have this conversation with us. We were bowled away by your engagement and your on-point questions.

One of our mission statements is to make these great nights of discovery and information. Curiosity is our muse, urgency our engine.

When we decided to foist this series on our unsuspecting neighbors here in Healdsburg, we never dreamed we would re-discover community. We thought we were going in search of something we’d lost, when it was here all the time.

@barndivahealdsburg will announce future conversations as soon as dates are finalized. And no, we haven’t stopped talking about garbage! This is such a perfectly delicious problem for our community to solve that even as we move on to the next conversation we promise to stay connected to the many opportunities the evening presented.

 Eat the view!

Jil, Dawnelise, Susan, Amber

Gratitude Dining after the event with our speakers, in the Studio B garden
(yes Virginia, holiday parties can still be booked at the Orchard table, weather permitting, but they are cozier inside).

Credits for CWH #1: Gorgeous Garbage

Food is Medicine : aka the palpable presence of alternatives… our irreverent homage to Joseph Cornell by way of Dr Seuss.

Concept: Jil Hales; Artwork: Susan Preston; Soil: OAEC; Veg Starts: Barndiva Farm, Tucker Taylor; dehydrated Veg Scraps: Dawnelise Rosen, Chef Syd.
Vegetable Starts: Barndiva Farm, Tucker Taylor Jackson Culinary Gardens. 
Corks chosen by barndiva wine director Emily Carlson from bio dynamic vineyards. 
Execution: Geoff Hales, Chef Syd, and Daniel Sonnenberg (thank you Marcos for the silver shelf!)

Information Tower : our what we are reading, watching, who we are following ongoing resource compilation, compiled and designed by Amber Keneally. (see link above)

Look, Smell, Play! : Our interactive garbage to compost to soil installation, executed by Daniel Sonnenberg.

All Photography: Chad Surmick

For all those who played the ‘find your inner dog’ scent game, contact us if you guessed ‘compost’ was #3!

@barndivahealdsburg

Conversations Worth Having, in Studio B

“Central to our use of all systems thinking is the recognition that self-reflexive consciousness is a function of choice-making.  Whatever the limitations of our life, we are still free to choose which version of reality – or story about our world – we value and want to serve. We can choose to align with business as usual, the unraveling of living systems, or the creation of a life-sustaining society.”

Joanna Macy

Studio Barndiva has long been known as the memorable space where we host our extraordinary weddings and parties, but we have always stolen time from this, our ‘day job,’ to put forth events we feel of cultural interest to the community.  Through photography, paint, film, wire, sculpture, soil, ceramics, literature, wine, food, farming and yes, even the making of cheese, our evening soirees, dinner parties and exhibits all rest upon the belief Joanna Macy elucidates so eloquently in the quote above: the freedom to choose which version of reality - or story about our world - we value and want to serve.

The conceit of hosting a series called CONVERSATIONS WORTH HAVING now, as barndiva enters its 20th year, rests upon the assumption that our most indelible stories are drawn from human interactions we value, especially through conversations that excite, intrigue, and nourish us. In our role as cultural scouts, my CWH partner Dawnelise Rosen and I hope to bring to Studio B inspirational speakers committed to creating circular economies that engender true sustainability in how they approach the future, on both a local and planetary level. Because they are intricately inter-connected. Because conversations about those connections are, in this present moment, imperative.

Our goal beyond listening, and hearing your reactions to what is presented, is to ignite the combustible joy that comes from great ideas and invigorating one on one discourse.

To find out more about Conversation #1, take a scroll below. Future events will be posted here and @barndivahealdsburg.

Eat the View with us!

Jil, Geoffrey, Lukka

CONVERSATION #1 : Gorgeous Garbage

In Northern California, in Sonoma County, right here in Healdsburg, we are blessed to live within a food shed that provides the raw ingredients for some of the most exciting dining in the country. Not only do restaurants make sourcing a priority, but local markets and the proliferation of farmers markets allow us, whether dining in or out, to eat at the very tippy top of the food chain.

 But for far too long our attention- wherever we live - has been captivated by what’s on the plate with little or no attention paid to what happens after we push off from the table, happy and sated from a delicious food moment.

We all understand on some level that to grow nourishing food one needs good soil, along with water and sunlight; we get that there is a circular process taking place. But it is hard for most of us to look at a plate of food as we raise our forks and truly see, much less feel admiration for what we scrape into the trash when all the sourcing, cutting, cooking, plating, and dining is done.  We call it garbage, what the Oxford English dictionary defines as “wasted or spoiled food and other refuse… a thing that is considered worthless or meaningless.”

But is it?

In every scrap of organic waste we throw in the bin after our meals, in every ton of garbage trucks haul away in the early mornings is the potential, at almost at no cost, to grows the food we need to thrive. With no carbon footprint left behind. Compost is an essential component in regenerative farming, it sequesters carbon and converts it into energy. But while SB-1383 – the ‘’compost law” – is now in effect for all residences, restaurants, and food banks in California, that potential is only vaguely understood; in Healdburg alone, like too many cities and towns across California, SB-1383 lacks the essential support systems that could take organic waste and turn it into compost, into soil.

On Nov. 2,  for our first Conversation Worth Having, we have gathered some esteemed guests at the top of their game in permaculture, winemaking, farming and social action to talk through how we might best transform all our glorious garbage into compost and nutrient rich soil for the benefit of our community and – if we are successful – create a blueprint that might be of use to other towns.

Join us if you can, stay in touch if you can’t. With this cast of characters and the subject at hand, It promises to be an illuminating - and surprisingly delicious evening, with more to come!

Warmly,

Jil Hales, Co-Owner, Creative Director, Barndiva/Studio Barndiva/Barndiva Farm

Dawnelise Rosen, Former Co-Owner Scopa/Campo Fina; Co-Founder, CorazónHealdsburg; Director, Farmpreneurs

L to R: Brock Dolman, OAEC; Eric Sussman, Radio Coteau; Tucker Taylor, Jackson Family Farms; Ariel Kelley, Mayor, City of Healdsburg

Photo: Jil Hales for Daniel Carlson Photo: Chad Surmick for The Press Democrat

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Fete Blanc 2023

Barndiva wine director Emily Carlson with the wonderful Féte Blanc 2023 entourage, along with the dedicated ladies from Sonoma Family Meal who directed the raffle - six cases of all the wines poured, donated by every winery attending.

Each of Barndiva’s three collaborative wine events have a different personality. Pink Party always brings a ‘Summer is Here’ festive madness to it and trends younger, while Féte Rouge is the most community centric, with a focus on harvest and the upcoming holidays. Féte Blanc is a stand out because it hits all the notes winemakers look for in a wine tasting event. Sure, Féte Blanc guests love dressing up and socializing, you could feel it in the air on Sunday. But these are serious wine lovers. When they put their heads down and inhale, then taste something special, you can just tell the winery has made a lasting connection if not a future wine club friend. It was a great crowd that left very very happy, as you can tell from these images shot by the incomparable Chad Surmick.

We wish to thank Chef Mike Degan and his crew for the divine pizza’s, Barndiva Event Manager Natalie Nelson and her incredible staff, and our Chef Erik Anderson for the platters of deviled eggs with trout roe, charcoal grilled duck skewers, salmon tartar with egg yolk jam, and very special Barndiva farm fig tartlets- summery hors d’oeuvres from our currant event menus - along with our infamous goat balls with lavender honey.

For all who joined us, especially those who participated in the raffle benefiting Sonoma Family Meal, we thank you for sharing your Sunday with us in the gardens.

Collaborating with Slo-Flower farms we admire to create extravagant floral displays has become a hallmark of our bigger wine events. This year we were thrilled to welcome Rita Bates to organize and design the arrangements that filled both gardens for Féte Blanc. In addition to her ‘day’ job at the family farm - that would be The Philo Apple Farm - she is an incredibly intuitive and talented gardener floral designer. For Féte Blanc 2023 Rita ordered some blooms from our friends at Longer Table Farm and SinglethreadFarm, but the bulk of these late summer flowers were harvested at Barndiva Farm by Misha Vega, and from The Apple Farm’s extensive gardens. If you haven’t visited this extraordinary family farm in Philo, make hast to book one of their incredible Sally Dinners and be sure to stay over in one of their cottages, set amidst the apple orchards, right now heavy with fruit.

Bittersweet: the blackberry vines that graced the main Harvest Table arrangement were a long ago gift from the late, dearly missed Myrna and Earl Fincher, who owned and ingeniously farmed Early Bird Place for many years in Healdsburg. In the first decade of Barndiva’s life, Earle and Myrna suppled vegetables and gourds and we spent memorable time with Earle at their farm. The Berries have never been prodigious producers, but I never had the heart to cut them out. Seeing how much joy they gave folks on Sunday, knowing the history, I doubt I ever will.

Celebrating our 2023 Michelin Star

We have been passionate diners and drinkers pretty much all our lives, but until we opened Barndiva nineteen years ago we never had reason to peek behind the doors of a professional kitchen except to say hello and thank you from time to time. There was never an imperative to see the whole organism of a restaurant, from chef to dishwasher, as a living breathing entity, much less learn of the many farmers and purveyors who had provided the raw materials for a meal we had just enjoyed.

If you haven’t worked in this environment you can’t fully understand how many pieces need to fall into place - the skill sets needed, the timing you have to get just right, the talent at the top that must filter down to the patience on the floor, in order to survive the long days and longer nights this profession demands. From early in the morning, when a dizzying array of product begins to arrive, to late into the night when the last ones out have cleaned every conceivable surface and locked up, this life is relentless. As the seasonal menus flash by, there is daily education of the entire staff on new dishes, cocktails and wine, service to be corrected and perfected, rooms set and polished so every piece falls into place. Then showing up the next day and no matter how tired, hung over, or personally challenged, doing it all again to the same level.

What goes on behind the scenes of a restaurant should never be obvious, or stand in the way of a wonderful fine dining experience. The promised land is that moment of sensory magic for the diner: that is the ultimate goal. But as we hurtle into a more reductive, impersonal, technologically obsessed future, knowing what we know now we’ve come to see that celebrating the human touch present at every stage of this beautiful, exacting, transitory, thoroughly human profession is an indispensable way to continue to celebrate the best in ourselves. As a family we have always been clear that knowing where our food comes from is the defining question for all human beings on the planet - exponentially a greater issue when you own a restaurant. You are what you eat, to be sure. But how you come to appreciate and respect the human endeavor that brings that food to the plate may very well hold the key to what you become, as well.

We now have, under the direction of Chef Erik Anderson, Beverage Director Scott Beattie, Wine Director Emily Carlson, Events Manager Natalie Nelson, and Restaurant Manager Cathryn Hulsman, the strongest team we have ever had the fortune to work alongside. Being awarded a Michelin Star in 2021 after 17 years in service, again in 2022, and now in 2023 is a validation of the highly coordinated talents of our entire kitchen brigade and front of house teams. We hope these remarkable photographs by Chad Surmick, a humble homage to the great Irving Penn’s ‘The Small Trades’, conveys our appreciation for their efforts this past year, and serves as an affirmation of the respect we hold for them, and the dedication, skill, and true grit they bring to Barndiva every day.

The 'official' Pink Party Album

A familiar complaint we’ve all heard around town of late is about the dearth of genuine community in Healdsburg. It’s a grumbling refrain that holds particular meaning from anyone that remembers Healdsburg when the words quaint and small town charm could be said about it with a straight face. The usual culprits are a mind boggling collection of new businesses, hotels and restaurants that have opened over the past few years to capitalize on the town’s ‘success’ as a destination location, but the quickening pace of our lives, and the emotional distancing of technology certainly contribute to the disconnect at the heart of the discontent.

The way we see it, community isn’t stagnant, is should and must accommodate change. It’s a layered human construct that is constantly telegraphing across the web of seemingly random connections we make with the people whose paths we cross as we go about our lives, working, shopping, dining out, walking the dogs or, yes, coming out on a beautiful afternoon to taste wine.  Of course It can be locational, found in the church hall, a sporting event, working alongside neighbors at the local food pantry, but we are creating it all the time, with every interaction.  It starts with a desire to connect, is sustained by courtesy, respect, and common interests, and, if you are lucky enough to find them, shared goals.

If the only goal is to make money, if you don’t truly care about your product, respect or spend the time getting to know the people you live and work alongside, you cannot sustain genuine community. Especially in small towns like ours, relationships reverberate in subtle ways when you pay attention; good will resonates whether you’ve known someone for years, or just met them by chance. Community can happen in an afternoon – as it did on Pink Party Sunday. The thing that makes it real is the genuine presence you bring to it, no matter what role you play.

The winemakers who gathered in our gardens to pour their Rosé’s at this years Pink Party, who charmed and educated the guests who came to meet them and admire their craft, are a community with like minded goals, just as the slow flower farmers who grew the blooms we sourced to help create dazzling displays, and the food purveyors like Chef Mike Degan, The Healdsburg Bagel Company, Chef Anderson. Our wonderful staff here at Barndiva, the amazing Corazón crew lead by Ashley Mauritson, Alexis Ioconis who steered the wine ship for us for this years Pink on top of everything else she does, Amber Kneally who sewed our Pink Party Pirate flag at the last minute simply because we asked her to - these are the members of our community we depend upon who bring quality and meaning to our lives as we work through them. Dawnelise and Ari Rosen, last seen leading a joyous if bittersweet progression at the closing of campo fino with patrons who very much considered themselves a community - came to help raise funds and awareness for Corazón, the community organization they founded that focuses upon strengthening families at the very heart of hospitality in Healdsburg. Community is everywhere you choose to see it, and engage with it.

I want to give a special shout out to the many beautiful women in their pink dresses who danced together at the end of the day, as the rest of us looked on beneath the wisteria enjoying the same breeze and listening to the music. It felt so good just to be together and celebrate spring, and the abundance of Healdsburg.

The fabulous Pink Party Line Up for 2023:

@bloodrootwines, @almafriawines, @prestonfarmandwinery, @raftwines, @mauritsonwines, @idlewildwines, @jolielaidewines, @drinkseppi, @cruxwinery, @amistavineyards, @bricoleurvineyards, @brickandmortarwines, @stephane.vivier.wines, @reevewines, @daniel_sonoma, @handleycellars, @flowerswinery, @roedererestate, @grosventrewines, @breathlesswines, @dunstanwine, @tberkleywines, @marinelayerwines, @scharffenbergercellars, @hirschvineyards, @domainesott, @matanzascreekwinery, @liocowineco, @cruesswine, @leosteen_wines, @theharrisgalleryandwine, @ernestvineyards, @rootdownwines, @county_line_vineyards, @copainwines, @drinkkally, @altaorsowinery, @captûrewines, @untiwines.com, @guv_hales, @natalienelsonkirby

Special Friends who always bring it: Chef Francisco, Alexis Ioconis, Ari Rosen & Geoffrey Hales, Scott Beattie (in search of a cocktail no doubt), the irrepressible Susan Preston, Lukka Feldman in from London, Releigh and Asijah, Barndiva’s wine Director Emily Carlson, Eric Sussman, Dan Fitzgerald, Jil Hales & Chappy Cottrell, Dawnelise Rosen, and another belle of the ball in her pink frock, Birdy.

Our thanks to all the winemakers for donating to the raffle benefiting Corazón.

Healdsburg has an abundance of vital community organizations that welcome new energy - join one!

All photographs by the incredible Chad Surmick can be shared. TM us @barndivahealdsburg. And heads up: If you are one of many who missed attending when The Pink Party because it sold out so early, consider signing up to receive our newsletter, Eat the View, so you are first to know about future public events. we’ve got some doozies up our sleeves.

Tickets are now on sale for Fête Blanc, August 20.

@dragonfly_floral, @singlethreadfarm, @longertablefarm, @filigreenfarm, @frontporchfarm, @whodoestheflowers!

@airick72, @franciscoa_, @healdsburgbagel, @chefdegan

New Year New Opportunities for Studio B

Healdsburg is justly famous as a mecca of fine dining these days, and Barndiva is proud to have been a part of that evolution, just as we are truly honored to have been awarded a Michelin Star for a second year. But this community has always been about more than fine dining for us. It is also a motherlode of single owner shops and galleries, makers and creators, neighbors, and friends – all of us surrounded by magnificent, verdant countryside.

If the past few years have taught us anything about keeping this landscape truly healthy so we can all thrive, we need to gather more to talk and listen, the better to protect what we love about this singular community. And who knows, these conversations might eventually have a ripple effect.

So it is that one of our resolutions this New Year is to focus on extended use of Studio Barndiva to foster more ongoing community conversations. First up in the newly branded Studio B is an afternoon celebrating four remarkable women whose food journeys have a great deal to teach us.

Tanya Holland is a new friend of the barn, a restaurateur, magnetic TV & podcast host and cookbook author of bestsellers like “Brown Sugar Kitchen.” She has just released a fabulous new cookbook called “California Soul,” something she has in abundance and is gracious enough to share.

Jennifer Reichardt is the winemaker/owner of Raft Wines always a star at The Pink Party and Fête Blanc – and she also has a new cookbook, “The Whole Duck,” which draws its recipes from her family owned business Liberty Duck – a valued purveyor of Barndiva’s since the day we opened.  

We have admired Elizabeth Falkner since her Citizen Cake days, long before she went on to open four more acclaimed restaurants in San Francisco and New York and became an international presence as a TV personality and consultant. She now adds filmmaker to her impressive resume with the release “Sorry We’re Closed,” a timely film she directed about how the pandemic has adversely affected small restaurants throughout the country.

Healdsburg’s Duskie Estes hardly needs an introduction — the former owner of beloved restaurant Zazu and The Black Pig Meat Co with husband John Stewart, she is an iron chef, a brilliant speaker and mentor to many. Duskie has transformed Healdsburg’s non-profit Farm to Pantry in ways that are having a profound impact across the state on how to address food insecurity by strengthening our faltering food distribution systems.  

That these four women are successful business owners, Top Chefs, Iron Chefs, Food Network Stars, winemakers and authors isn’t beside the point – the take away for us is how they are all using their considerable personal successes to fuel conversations about definitive ways to support farms, restaurants, and organizations that care as much about people as the food they source, serve, and distribute.

In the final days of December, we hosted a sold-out dinner for the late Sally Schmitt’s Six California Kitchens with Sally’s family, friends of our Philo family for many many years. Winemaker Phil Baxter gave a toast that night I have thought about often since. It was after a cooking class with Sally in 1999 that his parents decided to uproot their lives and come live and work in the Anderson Valley. “That single experience, Phil explained, “that connection to the Schmitt family, is the pure reason why I am living in Anderson Valley and doing what I do today.”

We are all looking for pure connections, especially those that provide direction to our lives. We all know they are rare. But as we try and build our businesses around meaningful lives in these most difficult times, trying to feed necessary personal notions of success that will keep us going, it is essential we form more inclusive, expansive definitions of what it means to be part of a “family.”  Cooking and serving food and wine to the public we are ever mindful of farming practices and conscious sourcing; we try to honor connections to our purveyors and our work force. But you, our customers and clients, are the other side of that equation. Taken altogether, in good faith, in an environment where kindness matters, this is the family we have chosen.

We hope you are able to join us on January 22nd in Studio B, and meet these four remarkable women. We will be sipping Alma de Oakland cocktails and Raft wine, nibbling bites Chef Erik Anderson has prepared from California Soul. The authors will be talking about and signing their cookbooks, we’ll hear about and preview a bit of “Sorry We’re Closed,” and Duskie will inspire us about the vital mission of Farm to Pantry and what they have planned for the new year. If you are unable to be with us we encourage you to go out and purchase ‘California Soul’ and ‘The Whole Duck’ cookbooks at your local bookshop, seek out Elizabeth’s Film “Sorry We’re Closed,” and to find and support – with whatever resources you can manage – a non-profit food distribution network where you live.

FOOD NEWS: Chef Erik Anderson’s Winter Prix Fixe Menu

Maine Lobster from our January 4 menu

Photo: Chad Surmick

We are thrilled to present prix fixe menus this winter the better to showcase more of Erik’s prodigious talents. The menus will also enable us– including our chefs – to spend more time with our guests. The prix fixe will reflect exciting seasonal changes every week*, and can be enjoyed by vegetarians from start to sweet finish. Wine pairings are optional – a chance to dig through the cellar for gems and wines we love from lesser known vineyards. This week’s pairing from Barndiva’s (and soon to open Maison Healdsburg Wine Bar) Jade Hufford.

Starting this Janurary there will also be Bar Menus ~ come in for a Scott Beattie cocktail and share something unexpected.

We’d love to see you.

Dining at Barndiva this summer

We have never been as proud of the food we are sourcing and serving than in this moment. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Challenges across the hospitality industry are still being felt acutely, and building kitchen and front of house teams that have the desire to work with great skill and integrity has been a considerable challenge. All of which raises the bar on what to deliver when guests come in search of a great - make that gorgeous - food and drink experience. We get it.

Enter Erik Anderson, for whom every challenge is met with a nod and a wink. He and Thomas Noonan, the guiding force behind our hospitality, have built kitchen and Front of House teams that have both the skill set and the desire to be a part of something truly special. Erik's food has an elegant focus of flavors, subtly of texture, glorious color. We will savor the memory of the food we are cooking this summer for a long time to come.

Neidy Venegas continues to create deliriously delicious desserts, and she has expanded her heritage bread program for both dinner and brunch.

Here then is a snapshot of some of our favorite dishes on the dinner menu right now. Reservations are accepted one month out, but the bar, under the direction of Scott Beattie, is now serving dinner on a drop-in without reservation, first come first serve basis.

Barndiva serves dinner Wednesday - Sunday, with a later reservations policy of 9:30 on Friday and Saturday.

We are also pleased to present the new barndiva brunch menu, below.

We hope to see you for a meal, or a cocktail soon. Eat the view!

Dishes above: Nijimasu Crudo horseradish, buttermilk, smoked trout roe, english cucumber; Charcoal Roasted Squab medjool dates, coco nibs; Mount Lassen Trout saffron nage, Jimmy nardello pepper, grilled baby fenne; ; Grilled Spanish Octopus, pimenton caramel, pepper relish, salsa verde;

Our wonderful in house pasta program continues.. on the left: Brentwood Corn Snail Shell Pasta w/ sunflower yogurt, fresno peppers, perilla. on the right: Egg Yolk Dumplings w/ peas, onions, bacon, radish

Roasted Chicken green asparagus, morels, vin jaune, petit baguette

Red Currant Curd chocolate tahini crust, glazed Preston peaches, ras el hanout ice cream

Big News…

While Barndiva will no longer be serving lunch on Wednesday and Thursday, we have expanded our hours for Brunch with an exciting and completely new Menu.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Barndiva Brunch will be served from 11-2:30. This collaboration between Erik and Neidy have created a big C Comfort menu that is surprisingly fresh and nuanced. Never to be outdone, Scott has upped the ante on brunch cocktails and every week we will be offering a new short list of the best wines to drink on an afternoon. Reservations are required, but as with dinner the bar will be open for diners on a first come first serve basis. And of course, If there are cancellations in the gardens on any afternoon, we will try our best to accommodate your party.

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all rights reserved Barndiva llc. Photography: Chad Surmick

Return of The Pink Party (and other stories you need to hear)

We hope this Eat the View finds you well, your spirit intact and exciting plans for gathering with friends, extended family, and co-workers gaining momentum. It is so great to be out together again, maskless, re-connecting. While It’s been beautiful here in Sonoma and Mendocino - cold, sunny, green - we need more rain and the News of the World continues to be challenging (to say the least). Call it the new normal - but all we know for sure living in these wonderful, confounding, delicious, too often heartbreaking times is that life is so much better trying to make sense of things with other people who are passionate about food and wine and design and gardens. we hope like us you are intent on rooting out genuine storylines that are ongoing and real, if slightly fantastical. We have been largely silent of late on the blog front for a reason, taking stock and getting ready for a spring… of emergence. We’re ready now.

This Eat the View contains three events we want to tell you about that capture what we’re feeling and planning right now: the first is a deep dive dinner party Wednesday, March 9; the second is a scoop for Eat the View readers; the third a temptation around libations unlike anything we’ve done (or seen) before.

Read on. And thank you for your continued support!

DEEP DIVE DINNER PARTY Our wine director the inimitable Sally Kim, formerly of the Delfina Restaurant Group will be curating a seasonal series of unusual wine maker evenings in the elegant Studio Barndiva this spring kicking off 9th March with a Deep Dive into the best of Sonoma Coast’s wines, starting with the legendary Littorai vineyards. Biodynamic grape growers, farmers, winemakers and educators Ted & Heidi Lemon will be joining us, pairing their wines with a dynamic five course menu created by Barndiva’s Chef Erik Anderson. $350 per person, all inclusive.

CLICK HERE FOR THE MENU, WINE PAIRINGS, AND A SEAT AT THE TABLE.

THE SCOOP: Tickets have quietly gone on sale, online as of today, for the long awaited return of The Pink Party on the 3rd April, 11am – 2pm. Our 40+ winemaker Sunday extravaganza (you know if you’ve been there) is a glorious collaboration and celebration of over 35 local wineries, with winemakers in attendance serving their finest local Rosé’s accompanied by delectable, Barndiva canapé & hors d’oeuvres. Served beneath the flowering wisteria and mulberries of our gardens- with Nick Gueli this year doing the honors of our instagram floral wall- you won’t want to miss this launch of the season. Be advised dear Eat the View Readers, tickets will disappear.

CLICK HERE

THE TEMPTATION:. if you follow us @barndivahealdsburg you may know that come April 1st - no fool he- the legendary mixologist Scott Beattie will be joining us as our Beverage Director. Future Eat the Views will no doubt have to be sub-titled Drink the View in future as Scott, after a short honeymoon, puts the finishing touches on an exciting new cocktail service to be followed with a return to dining at the bar.

And we are pleased to offer the very first series of Scott Beattie Cocktail Classes at Barndiva. These will be lively, full sensatory experiences where Scott will teach you how to make classic and original cocktails using the finest spirits, elixirs and organic fruit material, much of it forged from the Barndiva Farm. Classes start at $150 per person and can be booked for 6 – 24 ‘students’ in a spectacular classroom otherwiseknowas The Studio Barndvia Gardens.

Learn how to make great seasonal cocktails from the man who wrote the book on it.

DIRECT BOOKING ONLY: 707 4310100.