7 Best Restaurants in Napa and Sonoma, California

Seasonal pies including blood-orange custard with graham-cracker crust are the specialty of this white-walled, brightly lit pie palace with a few tables and barstool window seating. The bakers use heritage grains like buckwheat and farro in the crusts, filling them with local fruits and other ingredients, and, if desired, topping the ensemble with ice cream in flavors from Swiss chocolate and vanilla bean to Thai tea, salted caramel, and almond cardamom.

Delicate pastries and quiches, croques monsieur, and other bistro bites have made locals as passionate about this Highway 116 café as its executive and pastry chefs, who previously worked at establishments in Paris, San Francisco, and elsewhere, are about their cuisine and hospitality. Pastel-green walls, a wood-burning stove, and tables from reclaimed wood lend the small interior space a French-country feel; on sunny days the best seating is on the wooden deck outside.

Pink on the outside, with tutti-frutti walls on the inside and colorful chairs painted by a local artist, Sebastopol’s hands-down favorite for all-natural ice cream and sorbet often appears in feature stories listing the nation's best shops. Mimi's Mud (espresso ice cream, cookies, chocolate chips, and homemade fudge) and strawberry made from local fruit are among the popular ice creams, with lemon, raspberry, and mango among the top palate-cleansing sorbets.

Boston-style slush in flavors from root beer to raspberry that change with the season are the specialty of this shack in southern Healdsburg across from the beach. The owner's nostalgia for New England summers past extends to soft-serve ice cream in ever-changing flavors.

Thanks to multiple plugs by Oprah, each day's fresh batch of English muffins here sells out quickly, but the scones, croissants, breads, and other baked goods also inspire. Breakfast brings pastries and sandwiches with scrambled eggs, cheddar, and bacon between a buttermilk biscuit; the lunch menu expands to include soups, salads, pizzas, and more sandwiches—turkey-pesto focaccia, ciabatta chicken-Asiago panini, and vegan veggies among them.

An architecturally significant century-old bank now houses an artisanal ice cream parlor, a wine bodega, and a room with exhibits by the Russian River Historical Society. Along with the expected cups and cones of ice cream handmade from local organic dairy products, the former bank's main event, Nimble & Finn's, also sells pies, cakes, candy, shakes, floats, and coffee drinks.

The scent of waffle cones baking draws patrons into this family-run parlor serving artisanal ice cream made fresh daily. Butter brickle, peach custard, Oreos and cream, and salted caramel are among the alternating flavors that include sorbets and sometimes sherbets, and always vegan options.