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San Francisco Chronicle​

Celebrity chef's Wine Country hotel opens soon with house-milled pastas, bread carts and a rooftop bar

Celebrity chef Charlie Palmer's highly anticipated, culinary-centric hotel in Wine Country has opened reservations for its September debut, featuring a rooftop bar and a restaurant with custom bread carts carrying goods from an acclaimed local bakery. A longtime Healdsburg resident, Palmer has played a pivotal role in that city's dramatic evolution from a sleepy agricultural region to a buzzy destination that rivals Napa Valley. He opened Dry Creek Kitchen in downtown Healdsburg nearly 25 years ago. Now he's set to unveil a much more ambitious project: Appellation Healdsburg, with a 204-seat restaurant serving large-format grilled meats and house-milled pastas, a rooftop cocktail lounge, two pools, culinary gardens and a spa. 'Healdsburg is becoming the culinary capital of Wine Country,' Palmer said. 'There's not much we don't have, but this is going to add to it.' Palmer, who has received multiple James Beard awards and whose restaurants have earned 20 Michelin stars in total, partnered with Four Seasons veteran Christopher Hunsberger to create the Appellation hotel company in 2022. Hunsberger told the Chronicle in 2022 that the 108-room Appellation (16977 Healdsburg Ave.) hoped to offer a more affordable luxury hotel option in Healdsburg. Rooms will start at $509, while at the Montage, rooms regularly cost more than $1,000 a night. Reservations open Monday for Appellation Healdsburg stays beginning in mid-September. Appellation recently announced the opening of its Lodi location at the revamped Wine & Roses Resort and has plans for hotels in Petaluma, Monterey County and Morgan Hill, plus Park City, Utah. The Petaluma hotel has been particularly controversial; many residents and local merchants oppose the project, fearing that the hotel will transform the rustic, underrated Wine Country town into another Healdsburg. Palmer penned an open letter in an attempt to appeal to residents, who were collecting signatures for a referendum on the ballot to stop it. The culinary theme is palpable at Appellation Healdsburg, starting from the moment guests arrive and check in at a massive butcher block instead of a desk. 'When you walk through the entrance, you're in the restaurant,' said Palmer. 'Registration is like you're walking into somebody's kitchen: There's a butcher block, a wet bar, a library of cookbooks.' Hotel guests will also be greeted with a bite and a sip of 'something we're working on that day,' he said, like a new cocktail or a wine being added to the list. At the restaurant, named Folia Bar & Kitchen, the menu is centered around what Palmer has coined 'live oak ember cooking.' Palmer said diners will be able to watch as an ornate open hearth cooks vegetables, meats and fish on an unconventional combination of oak wood, charcoal and 'flavor enhancements,' such as grapevine cuttings and an 'incredibly fragrant' pear wood. Much of the menu will feature large plates designed for sharing, including grilled Liberty duck served with seasonal fruit (likely late-harvest peaches at opening); ribeye steak for two; legs of lamb; and racks of Kurobuta pork, known for being especially tender and rich with an extra-sweet flavor. 'It's the next evolution of what I think a quintessential Wine Country restaurant should be,' Palmer said of Folia, which will mill its own flour using grain from Central Milling in Petaluma. This will be used for extruded pastas — utilizing what Palmer described as 'the Maserati of pasta extruders' — in addition to stuffed and sheet pastas. The menu isn't finalized, but Palmer said he recently experimented with adding Old Bay seasoning to dough, which 'creates a really interesting, complex flavor with seafood.' Appellation Healdsburg is sourcing seafood exclusively from Hog Island Oyster Co. Small touches will help Folia stand out from the region's many other restaurants. Instead of setting cutlery on the table, each diner will have a drawer stocked with 'every utensil you can imagine,' said Palmer. 'It embraces a casualness, but also, our servers can then really focus on hospitality.' Patrons at the bar will get their cutlery in a smaller version of a chef's knife roll. The restaurant also has a live carving station for charcuterie and bread service delivered via custom-designed carts. These will carry a daily selection of five to six breads; each table gets a basket and 'a big mound' of Straus cultured butter sprinkled with Hog Island sea salt. Palmer said he's partnered with Healdsburg darling Quail & Condor Bakery as the hotel's 'main supplier of large format breads,' and that the rest, like a duck fat Yorkshire pudding, will be made in house. While Dry Creek Kitchen is known for offering only Sonoma County wines, Palmer is taking a different approach with Folia. 'I want the list to really show the greatest local wines side-by-side with the greatest wines of the world,' he said, noting white Burgundy, Bordeaux and Italy as examples. Folia, which has a large outdoor terrace overlooking an olive grove, will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast will feature pastries and heartier items, like avocado toast and a signature bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. 'I'm going to eat there often, and that's what I'm going to eat for breakfast,' said Palmer of the sandwich. The restaurant will also offer private dinners at a long table set among the century-old trees. Palmer said he feels 'there's nothing else' in Wine Country like Andy's Beeline Rooftop, Appellation Healdsburg's rooftop bar, which seats 89. It's destined to be a hot spot during sunset, but he also envisions it as 'a nighttime hideaway' with its blue velvet finishes and sunset-colored hues. Andy's will serve snacks like oysters, ceviche and sashimi alongside original cocktails, some aptly infused with honey. Like Dry Creek Kitchen, Palmer said he expects the majority of patrons at Andy's and Folia to be local. 'It's really about the locals first. That's what (visitors) want to experience at a restaurant in Wine Country,' he said. 'Our goal is for them to walk away saying, 'Oh my God, I have to move to Healdsburg.'' Appellation Healdsburg and Folia Bar & Kitchen. Opening late September. 16977 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg.