Omotenashi is a Japanese word that represents the country’s approach to hospitality in which a host goes above and beyond to anticipate a guest’s needs and treats that person not like a customer, but like a friend. Omotenashi is also the spirit that connects Sonoma County in California’s new SingleThread Farms, arguably the most anticipated restaurant to open this year.
Situated in picturesque Healdsburg, with a nearby five-acre farm that grows most of the Japanese produce you’ll consume for breakfast and dinner, SingleThread is the highly ambitious feat from chef and Fat Duck alum Kyle Connaughton and his farmer wife, Katina, who spent three and a half years living in Hokkaido, Japan. When the property debuted earlier this month, it immediately joined the ranks of esteemed destination restaurants across the country centered on farming their own ingredients, like Washington’s The Willows Inn on Lummi Island and Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee.
But what separates this NorCal stunner is its Toto toilet and binchotan charcoal toothbrushes. SingleThread draws its ideals from the ryokan, an ancient traditional Japanese inn offering food (usually an elaborate multicourse meal using local and seasonal ingredients) and lodging. Take the idea of a ryokan, minus the tatami floor mats and floor-level bedding, and give it a modern luxe California wine country spin—that’s SingleThread.
“It’s a restaurant with guest rooms,” says Connaughton with a laugh, considering how to describe his newly christened baby. You could call it a bed-and-breakfast, and that is—in essence—what SingleThread is. But how many bed-and-breakfast rooms come equipped with matcha, locally sourced seaweed snacks, and elusive beers like Pliny the Elder? Not to mention a slate of house-made chocolates in flavors like chicory cardamom, Meyer lemon, and pumpkinseed praline and sage?
“We wanted to take out everything that made you feel like you’re checking into a hotel or restaurant,” explains Connaughton, who, along with Katina—and popular restaurant design firm AvroKO—styled SingleThread to feel like an extension of their home. It’s a style defined by a Japanese minimalist–meets–California Craftsman aesthetic that feels luxurious but not opulent. Thoughtful touches throughout SingleThread’s five guest rooms ($700 to $1,000), from Aesop products to Zalto wineglasses to a cutting-edge new Ratio coffee-brewing device, explicitly demonstrate the team’s omotenashi ethos. No Nespresso machine to be found here.
SingleThread’s cornerstone, though, is its 55-seat restaurant and open kitchen, which celebrates Connaughton’s interpretation of kaiseki cuisine using ingredients mostly sourced from surrounding Sonoma County and his own farm—cultivated by Katina and her brother Vince Rothermund—a quick five-mile drive away.
Kaiseki is considered one of Japan’s highest forms of culinary art, in which elaborate, multicourse meals composed of many small dishes made with local and seasonal ingredients are centered on the idea of balance—balance in flavor, color, texture, and cooking technique. And such a spread is what greets SingleThread diners the moment they sit. “A taste of autumn in Sonoma,” explained a server during a recent meal, which commenced with an artfully arranged spread of moss and flowers, plus nine small cold dishes like SingleThread Farms kolrabi poached in a dashi-style broth, and soft tofu topped with local Fort Bragg uni. The very Japanese approach to seasonal cookery in which a chef coaxes out the purity of a single ingredient’s flavor is what connects the 11 courses of a SingleThread meal. Patrons choose from one of three such tasting menus (vegetarian, pescatarian, or one with a little bit of everything—all $225) for a journey that celebrates the fleeting nature of seasonality. Every day the SingleThread menu changes at least 20 percent, explains Connaughton.
Enthusiasm for honoring artisans, beyond the individual who raised your lamb or harvested your honey, is woven into SingleThread’s fabric. From the delicate Japanese coffee mugs made by Takashi Endo in Japan’s Kanagawa prefecture to the exquisite hand-molded Bloodroot Blades knives guests select before their two meat courses, craft goods abound—just as it is in Japan, where quality wares are a way of life.
True to the ryokan style, a SingleThread stay includes in-room breakfast leaning more toward California or Japan, depending on your sweet or savory preference. Considering what different guests may prefer, there’s matcha and espresso, fish and granola—as is the Japan-meets-California omotenashi style.