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!

Barndiva + Near Future

Barndiva Gardens, Sunday August 11, 2024

Ah the youth of it all: four gorgeous Ask Me What I’m Wearing models, above, rocking it in great thrifting outfits. We also saw original crocheted creations, lots of classic tees and pretty summer frocks, Stella McCartney, and head to toe prima alpaca from a cradle to cradle company a stone’s throw from where we all gathered on Sunday. When we asked everyone to ‘dress in your happy’ for our third Conversations Worth Having, The Future of Fashion, we had no idea what to expect. How delightful that style and comfort merged into an elegant insouciance -  If a chorus of 'I feel pretty" had spontaneously started up in the gardens, no one would have been surprised.

Clothing is performative on so many levels, but for anyone who remembers early childhood dress-up it can be a simple reflection of joy, and that's what most of us felt on Sunday. Clothes are our second skin, after all. The interest in this event would seem to indicate that many of us are curious how to continue to feel at home in that skin, without doing harm to the planet through our clothing choices.

Conversations Worth Having is the brain child of four friends who have deep ties to this community: Jil Hales, Dawnelise Rosen, Susan Preston and Amber McInnis. It is a labor of love for the four of us, and it is with love we would like to thank Near Future Summit’s brilliant Zem Joaquin for choosing and moderating our panel of game changing speakers. We’d also like to thank three artists who generously shared their talents and time: Maya Eshom, who brought her fascinating Textiles on Fire to the garden; Naomi Mcleod, who carved the large rubber stamp for our ‘Animal, Vegetable, Oil’ game, (without which our clothesline would have looked like a slightly psychotic garage sale), and Manok Cohen, who ‘dressed’ our mannequin in antique handkerchiefs (remember those?). And thank you to prima alpaca designer Sandra Jordan for bringing multiple samples from her showroom on Eastside Road to give away. Jennifer & Jeanne Marie - cheers for donating an entire case of your Rue de Réve Rose Apéritif for our cocktail.

And most of all, Thank You, gorgeously turned out community! So many beautiful mothers and daughters! Not all our ‘green room’ images made it into this blog but please contact us if you posed for Chad - we will send you photographs!

Barndiva weddings are the norm in the gardens this time of year; we have built our business around and love hosting celebrations of all kinds. But gatherings like Conversation Worth Having strengthen our mojo in a most crucial way because they build community. Future of Fashion has been quite a journey, so it was especially gratifying to see that all the time and research we spent wrapping our heads around how best to engage with that community played out so beautifully on Sunday. There is a nominal ticket price for CWH, but no one is ever turned away.

Above: Zem Joaquin with Marci Zaroff of EcoFashion Corp; Lewis Perkins of The Apparel Impact Institute; Garrett Gerson of Varient3D, and Liam Berryman of Nelumbo. 

Lewis Perkins, above right, is the president and CEO of the Apparel Impact Institute whose mission is to verify, fund and scale new fashion programs that can help decrease carbon emissions.

Marci Zaroff, above left, has been a leader in supporting regenerative farming practices in the production of clothing with a lazer focus on understanding the impacts of chemically grown cotton. Though less than 3% of the world’s agriculture is cotton, over 20% of the world’s harmful carcinogenic chemicals are used by the cotton industry producting them. Her numerous organic, toxic-free fabric and clothing companies produce beautiful, durable, zero waste fashion. Above, she is previewing a Tee Shirt she developed in creative partnership with Billie Ellish for Target. Next up for Marci is seeking funding to turn pineapple waste from Costa Rico into fabric.

Garrett Gerson, center, is founder of LOOP, a flat bed knitting softwear-driven production system that is hyper-local, zero-waste, and customizable, making it a financially viable option for new designer start-ups. Among his many projects with LOOP are 100% post waste trainers which I can attest - as I was wearing a pair - are beyond comfortable. Next up for Garrett is exploring how to use LOOP fabrics on furniture, with the hope of bringing zero waste furniture production currently off-shored back to the US.

Liam Berryman, above right, is Founder of Nelumbo, a locally based start up that relies on a platform technology that applies morphology, shape, and structure to surfaces. Nelumbo’s use of materials science - Metamaterials - uses only ‘clean ingredients’ to design ‘coatings’ for a variety of different materials - metals, textiles, fabrics. This micro nano texture surface acts as water or oil repellency, has anti microbial properties, and contains NO PFAS or ‘forever chemicals, which shed into the environment and onto anyone wearing clothing that has been sprayed with them.

The range of ideas and projects our panel shared were by turns mystifying, exciting, technologically complex. In thanking Marci, Lewis, Garrett and Liam on linkedin and IG for making the journey to Healdsburg, Zem wrote: “While there is still clearly never-ending work to be done in materials, textiles, and the manufacturing industries, the four bad asses from last night’s illuminating discussion give us hope.”

Continue the conversation by following them: @nearfuturesummit; @ecofashion.corp; @varient3D; @nelumbo.us; @apparelimpactinstitute. We also highly recommend @ellenmacarthurfoundation.

CWH is about engaging with information in ways that make them memorable and hopefully habit changing. We presented two interactive installations for Future of Fashion that focused on touch and smell for their impact. The Animal, Vegetable, Oil game was about testing one’s fabric knowledge through touch. We know from having emptied out the furtherest reaches of our closets for this ‘game’ that all our wardrobes hit the oil bleeper more often than we had thought possible. Which means if we can’t pass those items on someday they are destined to end up in landfill or incinerated, contributing to all our Co2 nightmares. This game was to address how obtuse labels can be, as well as misleading. Even if accurate, the fabric content label will say nothing about the labor used to make an item of clothing or the use of resources - think water - needed in its fabrication. And don’t get us started on synthetic color, or PFAS’s sprayed on to finish any item that needs to combat weather or water.

Our other interactive experience by local artist Maya Eshom was called “textiles on fire.” What a gift this woman is to this community! Maya is fabric obsessed - but the object of her interest is not making or wearing clothing but setting it on fire, one small piece of it at a time. In learning how different materials smell when they are incinerated, we were curious if it might affect the way we think about what we put on our bodies so close to our skin. We know….we don’t shop with our noses any more than we make clothing decisions based solely on touch but both installations brought physical sensation and memory into play. What do you base your clothing purchase decisions upon?

Above, left: On the bar with Buck a mannequin ‘Dressed’ by local artist Manok Cohen in handkerchiefs from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s found shortly after the death of a beloved aunt years ago, neatly folded into a small satin covered box ready to be lifted out one by one and carried with her into the world. Handkerchiefs have a long cultural history of use by men and women. Knights tied their lady’s handkerchief on their helmets before jousting or going into battle, ladies used them to assess romantic intent, for hundreds of years they served humankind mopping up sweat, staunching blood, absorbing tears. Whether elegantly embroidered or simply made they were a useful, reusable part of everyday life. Within one decade they were gone.

The mannequin and the feather and fedora hat display on the bar made the same nostalgic point: styles change, as they should, but our currant race to the bottom in producing clothing and fashion accessories cheaply, with no thought to how their production may affect the health of the planet, doesn’t reflect craft, durability, or personal style the way it once did.

Above, right : the Susan Preston painting ‘Woman as Verb,’ graced the wild grasses behind the panel.

Dawnelise Rosen, Jil Hales, Amber Mcinnis, and Susan Preston thanking the panel, contributing artists, and last but never least, the community who came our for CWH3.

All Images in this Eat the View, Chad Surmick

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.

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!

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.

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.

Food to Banish the Blues

While we’ve still got one foot firmly planted in winter as we await more rain, the other has taken a giant step into a spring where flowers are not the only things blooming with fantastical color and form. For a year now we’ve been driven to cook and devour big plates of comfort food to sustain us- the messier the better. Many of those dishes we’ve grown to love, but it’s all systems go in our kitchens now especially on the dinner menu where new dishes from Chefs Jordan Rosas and Neidy Venegas dance with incredible scent, layered flavors, and elegant plating that refuses to go back in the (To Go) box. As we come out of our caves again, the longing for beautiful food and a return to the simple luxury of time spent lingering over a meal is palpable. We’re excited.

Join us for Lunch and Dinner in the Gardens. Menus will change frequently…follow us @barndivahealdsburg!

Sonoma County Meat Company 6 oz Filet Mignon, potato mille-feuille, confit pearl onions filled with bone marrow & cauliflower purée, topped with crispy shallots, finished with tarragon and chive powder. Sauce perigourdine, aromatic with black truffles. Sweet peas from Freckle Farms.

Monkfish & Manila Clams with romanesco in a foamy clam ‘chowder’ made with monkfish fume, clam juice and emulsified butter. Below: Compressed cauliflower stems hold romanesco purée. Sourcing from Sun Catcher Farm, Freckle Farm, Feed Sonoma and Barndiva Farm.

Blood orange Mousse Cake with passion fruit gelee spheres, fresh citrus. The frozen mousse cake slices are sprayed with white chocolate in a vivid shade of jaunty yellow, the better to play off peeled segments of cara cara, kumquat, blood orange and grapefruit, which nestle on blood orange gel.

Mignardise of Hibiscus Campari Pâte de fruit and Coriander Guanaja Valrhona fudge- surprise delights after a meal - a small but sweet thank you for dining with us.

@saverestaurants #staytuned #stayhealthy @stayhealdsburg #healdsburgchamber #eattheview #barndiva #healdsburg #thisishealdsburg #sonomacounty #mendocinocounty #sommtablehealdsburg #sonomastrong #ediblemarinwc #lovehealdsburg @barndivahealdsburg @sonomamag @winecountry @slowfoodusa @chef.jordan.rosas, @spontaneidy, @wckitchen, @independantrestaurantcoalition, @BarndivaHealdsburg, @CityofHealdsburg, @HealdsburgChamber @tockhq @socomeatco @frecklefarmshealdsburg @suncatcherfarm @feedsonoma, @eater_sf