Eating around the world without leaving Petaluma

Petaluma's dining scene is like the United Nations, nearly every culture is represented|

Petaluma enjoys an unusually large number of great restaurants. Considering its relatively small size, Petaluma boasts a world’s tour of cuisine options.

Many of our dining choices connect directly to our community, whether that means farm-to-table options or traditional fare that connects to our region’s founding families. For a better understanding of how cultures have contributed to Petaluma’s dining scene, I highly recommend reading “Fog Valley Crush” and “Fog Valley Winter,” both of which are excellent chronicles penned by local author Francis Rivetti.

Here are a few reader favorites along with dishes each restaurant is well known for.

Starting with American food, we have a quite a few options, with most restaurants also paying homage to various European or Latin roots. So where as you will find great comfort food items such as chicken pot pie, burgers, and steak on the menu at Rosen’s 256 North, you will also find non-regional dishes like prawn risotto, French onion soup, Ahi poke, and Cajun pasta. Complimenting “authentic” dishes by adding inspiration from various cultures, as well as ingredients from local farms, pastures and fields is a hallmark of “California Cuisine.”

Some restaurants even go so far as to grow their own meats and veggies. Wishbone is one such restaurant, which is why you should jump at any beef specials you see on the menu. They are rare, but always worth it. They also have a great burger and their pâté is excellent. Central Market and Twisted 2 farm much of what they offer, and it shows. Another American favorite is Wild Goat Bistro, which along with great American food also offers excellent thin-crust Neapolitan style pizza, which owner Nancy brought with her from the East Coast.

Every place seems to have its own specialty salads, with Lunchette pretty much covering the most bases. Other salad favorites include Sugo, Wild Goat, Seared, McNear’s, Stockhome and Café Zazzle.

Seared seems to win as many awards each year as they have menu items, and for good reason and is the place to for steak, with Rosen’s 256 North following closely behind. Beyond the Glory recently re-opened under new ownership and is already impressing people, who mention that their lobster bisque is excellent.

Just down the road is City Limits, which offers a great happy hour menu, as well as affordable dinners. Brewsters serves up a great American menu, even reaching into our fifty-first state, America’s hat, taking inspiration from Canada’s poutine to create their own smoked brisket topped version. Chili Joe’s brings flavors from as far away as Texas’s Frito pie to New Mexico’s Sante Fe Carne Adovada, to Los Angeles’ street chili topped dogs to their tribute to San Francisco’s Doggie Diner dogs.

There is no end to the debate on who makes the best pizza pie in Petaluma, but that one is clearly driven by personal preferences. It is hard to compare the deep dish Audrey Special at Old Chicago to the Perfect Pair at Wild Goat Bistro, even though both are favorites of mine. Add in great pies from the Brixx, the New Yorker, Hector’s, Rafy’s, and all the rest, and there are as many combinations as we have pizza lovers in this town.

Petalumans are big on breakfast joints, although we seem to concentrate our cravings on just a few favorites, periodically venturing out for something different. The lines at Hallie’s Diner, Sax’s Joint make it pretty obvious that when it comes to breakfast, we like traditional dishes. On the East Side, Two Niner Diner, Palms Grill, Flamez, Pub Republic and Bright Bear Bakery are traditional breakfast favorites.

Wishbone, Speakeasy, Della Fattoria, Aqus and the Tea Room also draw in customers with a mix of traditional and unique breakfast and brunch options. However, Pearl burst onto the scene last year with a delicious Mediterranean breakfast menu that has been wowing customers. Situated at the outer reaches of town, Pub Republic sometimes gets forgotten down Lakeville Hwy, but also has an excellent menu, including great brunches, burgers, salads and seafood.

For BBQ, Lombardi’s is the place to go, with other restaurants like Roy’s Chicago Doggery, and Brewsters offering regular BBQ menu items. Butcher Crown Roadhouse is another that sits at the edge of town, out Bodega Highway, and mixed both American and Latin flavors with a lively barbecued menu inspired with smoked and barbecued dishes from throughout Latin America.

Being on the West Coast, it is no surprise that Latin America is well represented in Petaluma. Mexican is clearly the favorite, with readers gushing over the chorizo burrito at Mi Pueblo El Centro, the chicken tacos at El Roy’s, the shrimp cocktail at Don Ponchos, anything carnitas at Chunky’s, and just about everything at What a Chicken. We also benefit from having Karina’s on Petaluma Blvd North, which offers both bakery and regular Mexican food items. For those looking for Latin ingredients, we have several great markets, including Lolita’s, Lola’s, and Ortega’s.

For a flavor of something other than Mexican, as mentioned above, Butcher Crown draws from menus all over Latin American. Petaluma Pie also offers some specials like the Argentinian/Uruguayan inspired beef and chicken empanadas. Brasil BBQ offers traditional Brazilian cuisine, including their all-you-can-eat meat specialty, called Rodizio.

One of the most well respected and diverse cuisines of Latin America comes from Peru, where they draw from Latin, African, and Asian influences and are considered by many as having the best cuisine of the Americas. Quinua Cocina Peruana does a great job, offering mouthwatering classics like Lomo Saltado, several types of ceviche, excellent octopus, and Lucuma ice cream.

Because Peru benefits from so many Asian food influences, it is natural to jump to the Far East in our world tour of Petaluma cuisine, with a stop off in Hawaii, where poke originates. Ana’s Seafood, the Shuckery, McNear’s, and Seared are known to have great poke options. Although I love sushi, thankfully our Japanese restaurants offer broader menus, with Sake 107, Gohan, and O Sushi leading the way, with Paradise Sushi being the only with an all-you-can-eat sushi option.

Although we have quite a few Chinese restaurants, Lily Kai seems to be a crowd favorite. That said, downtown’s veteran China Town, which has been at its Kentucky Street location for something like 30 years, appears to be catching people’s attention as of late. Adding a bit of regional flare, Fantasy offers Hong Kong BBQ and hot pot.

Other than our Chinese and Japanese, the rest of our Asian restaurants tend to mix boarders, which has a lot to do with the fact that their boarders have moved on a regular basis over their history. For Korean, Soban’s bibimbap gets high praise, while our six Thai places all turn out great dishes. A Thai River favorite is the pineapple fried rice, Pongo’s is the chicken skewers and spicy hot wings, Lemongrass is their drunken noodle, and up and comer Lunn Yar Moe is their larb, which is a meat salad and is considered the unofficial national dish of Laos. Simmer’s fried rice anything and steak dishes represent some excellent Vietnamese options, as does Pho Sonoma’s Banh Mi, pork BBQ, and pho.

Everest appears to be our only Indian restaurant right now, so thankfully their food is excellent, as are their prices, and because they are a bit hidden, down the mall from TAPS, they are usually able to seat you, even when the rest of downtown is booked.

As far as the Mediterranean, Pearl represents well, Stockhome stocks a couple of traditional items, but with a Swedish flare, and River Front Grill’s menu leans in that direction. The Real Doner have been serving up Turkish and Eastern Mediterranean delights for nearly a decade now, which speaks volumes about their fan base, given that they are a little outside the downtown food scene on F Street, right off the Boulevard. YaiYai’s the Grateful Greek out in Penngrove brings us full into the Mediterranean, and a quick trip to Simply Strudels gets us right into the middle of Europe in Austria.

With many of our founding families hailing from Italy and the Swiss-Italy border region, it is no wonder that in Petaluma, Italian food is just as beloved as American food. Almost like our pizza options, everyone has their favorite Italian place and I have had great meals at all. Favorite reader dishes include Sugo’s bruschetta trio, salmon, filet, pappardelle, and any of their rotating risotto specials, Cucina’s sausage rigatoni and veal con fungi, Café Giostra’s calamari and pork chop Milanese, and Alfredo’s marinated skirt steak, and Giacomo’s chicken saltimbocca.

Others include Risibisi and of course Volpi’s, where their cioppino is second to none. Cioppino is actually a San Francisco Italian-American classic, invented in the late 1800’s in North Beach. If a fisherman came home empty handed, he would walk his pot down the pier asking other fisherman to donate whatever they could. They would, of course, with the knowledge that they too sometimes came home with nothing.

A quick word on some of the Italian desserts that are available locally. First of all, Rosen’s Italian Lemon Mascarpone cake is by far my favorite cake in town, and although Jan is known for her world class cheesecake, I never leave Rosen’s 256 North before downing a piece of that cake. Other excellent and authentic Italian treats come by way of Simply Delicious, which offers Italian cheesecake, cookies, and biscotti that rivals anything you will find in Italy.

This has everything to do with the fact that owner/chef Antonio is a recent transplant from the Naples region of Italy. He even talked Pilar of Mariposa Ice Creamery into making spumoni recently. I am not normally a fan of spumoni, but am always willing to give anything from Mariposa a try. Spumoni is layered ice cream of different colors and flavors. Typically, it is three flavors with fruits and/or nuts between each layer.

Mariposa’s consisted of chocolate, vanilla with candied orange zest, and pistachio, is excellent, and may be my new favorite flavor, although that award seems to go to which ever Mariposa ice cream is in front of me at the moment. (Neapolitan ice cream is a variation of spumoni, layering chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry as those were popular ice cream flavors at the time of its introduction.)

For French food, it is hard to beat Crocodile, but Water Street Bistro certainly contributes to Petaluma’s representation of that cuisine. Representing the north end of Europe, Stockholm has done an exemplary job of introducing Petaluma to the vast and varied cuisine available to Swedes, much of which draws on immigrant roots, which explains why German, Turkish, and other Mediterranean dishes show up on the menu. But rest assured, they do have Swedish meatballs and they are delicious.

With such a huge portion of our initial population tracing roots to Portugal, it we have a conspicuous absent of that cuisine. After visiting that country, I can attest to the greatness of their food so it sad we do not have more options. However, local Portuguese societies do offer various special dinners out at Holy Ghost Hall, including three Portuguese crab fees, and the upcoming Matanca do Porco dinner, put on by the Senhor Santo Cristo society.

Where we may not have a cuisine year-round, you will usually find a food festival or special event covering those options. Some great examples are the various Oktoberfests, especially TAPS’ special menu in September and the Oktoberfest at Hermann Sons Hall each year. Another is the Austrian food served at the New Year’s Eve Viennese Ball, also held at Hermann Sons Hall. Another is the Sagra, which is a traditional Italian festival, usually revolving around a particular local and seasonal food item, and put on in the past by Guido Frosini of True Grass Farms.

Food pairing events, like the fall classic pairing dinners held at the Petaluma Museum are always a great way to sample alternate cuisines. Always expertly couple with cuisine designed by Amber Balshaw and Preferred Sonoma Caterers, past pairings have included Mezcal, Tequila, and Bourbon dinners.

Food trucks are a great way of offering a particular cuisine that may not be able to support an entire brick and mortar restaurant. I would be remiss if I failed to mention our favorite, which is the Bodega - CA truck, although they offer mostly California Cuisine. However, Chef Matthew Elias does special dinner pop-ups at places like Heidrun Meadery’s March 3 crab feast and Stemple Creek Ranch’s March 30th ranch dinner.

The most likely place to find unique food truck cuisine is at the Block – Petaluma, which posts their food truck calendar online. Such trucks include the Fig Rig (French), Waffle Truck (Belgian), Tips Tri-Tip Trolly (Southern-inspired), The Fabulous Frickle Brothers (fried tomatoes and freckled Cubano), Caribbean Spice (Haitian and Caribbean), Cousins Maine Lobster (New England), and the Lazy Pig, which sits most days at the Outlet Mall, offering Cubanos, burgers, and tacos.

Of course, if you find a chef whose food you particularly enjoy, like two of our favorites - Chef Julia at Twisted 2 and Chef Joe at Seared, I recommend trying any specials they may come up with especially if those regional dishes are not normally represent on their menu. TAPS’s Chef Abe is an expert at this. Once we discovered just how much we liked this flavor combos and creativity, we try as many of his weekly specials menus that we can. Although the authentic German beer pairings certainly do not hurt,

Chef Abe’s Oktoberfest menu is one of the best we have had and his Robert Burns tribute menu (Scottish) was the only of its kind last year. And as mentioned above, anything by Chef Matthew Elias is going to be fresh, creative, and scrumptious.

Petaluma has a hidden diversity that places it far above similarly sized cities when it comes to varying dining options. The abundance of locally sourced fresh meat, fruits, and veggies, coupled with creative and conscientious purveyors certainly plays its part.

Petalumans also travel extensively, so have an appreciation for other cultures, and the foods that come with that. And it certainly does not hurt that we have an abundance of great local beer, wine, cider and distilled spirits to fill out our tables and bring any of our cuisines to a higher level. Finally, whatever we may not have here, is likely available within the county, or just across the Golden Gate Bridge.

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.