Food: New Georgette chef to dish at film fest

Casey Thompson, the expected chef at Sonoma’s new Georgette restaurant planned for the space at the former General’s Daughter on West Spain Street, will be the only soon-to-be Sonoma chef cooking at the Sonoma International Film Festival’s Chefs & Shorts dinner on Thursday, March 26 at Ramekins Culinary School and Events Inn. Chefs will prepare delicacies featured in each of the short films.

Thompson will join Michael Howell of Nova Scotia, founder and director of Devour, the sponsor of the event, who has cooked at James Beard House, a true honor for chefs; Douglas Keane, currently chef at Healdsburg Bar & Grill, former owner of James Beard Award-winning Cyrus restaurant and a winner of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters; Seadon Shouse, chef and partner at Coast Kitchen at Timber Cove Restaurant; and Hironobu Tsujiguchi, youngest winner of Japan’s national patisserie competition who has also won the Salon du Chocolat award in Paris every year since 2013. $300 general, $275 Cinema pass, $250 Soiree pass. 6 p.m.

A gourmet mushroom lunch will be served at Ramekins on Friday, March 27 at noon to accompany the film “Fantastic Fungi” presented by the American Mushroom Institute and the Mushroom Council. Ramekins chefs will prepare the food. $50 general, $30 with Soiree pass.

To supply Ramekins and Thompson’s Georgette restaurant of French Laundry quality, a new farmer has been hired to grow vegetables on what was Bob Cannard’s property and barn behind the General’s Daughter, so named because General Mariano Vallejo built the house for his daughter Natalia.

While Georgette had hoped to open this spring, delays due to construction within the building and permits have slowed things down. Thompson briefly had a restaurant in San Francisco’s Warwick Hotel called Aveline and has since been a food and wine pairing consultant in the Napa Valley where she lives.

Thompson currently carries the title of director of culinary development for Sonoma’s Best Hospitality Group, a Lefever-Mattson enterprise that includes the Sonoma’s Best tasting room and deli, named Sonoma’s Best by its previous owners, Gayle and Tom Jenkins.