Brewery Gulch Inn takes pleasure in recommending the following restaurants for the best in North Coast cuisine. Our local chefs are a rare gathering of big-city talent set apart by a streak of independence. Drawn to the coast because of their pioneer spirit, they are as resourceful as the region. Each takes the bounty the area offers and in an alchemical transformation, mixing ingredients with personal style, serves up poetry on a plate. Visit often or stay for a week so you don't miss any of these equally fine yet unique restaurants devoted to the culinary arts. Our concierge will take care of all of your dining reservations.

MacCallum House Restaurant occupies the dining room, library, and sunporch of a stately Victorian in the heart of Mendocino village. Bellyup to the bar with the locals in the cozy café for Executive Chef Alan Kantor's Niman Ranch burgers, pizzettas, smoked organic chicken quesadillas, and hand rolled pastas, or dine elegantly on dishes like grilled chipotle spice-rubbed pork chops with off-the-cob creamed corn or pan seared Liberty Duck breast with wild blackberry-pinot noir sauce. Either way you dine divinely in front of riverstone fireplaces with Mendocino Bay or garden views. Fantastic ice creams and cheesecake soufflés. To explore Chef Kantor's remarkable purveyors who supply his kitchen with the very best products, click on their website link and visit the Purveyors' page.

Cafe Beaujolais has long been a village favorite with its distinctive cuisine and the cozy atmosphere of its 1893 Victorian farmhouse, surrounded by a beautiful garden filled with antique roses, edible flowers and unusual plants. A hallmark of their cooking is the use of organically grown produce, free range meat, poultry and eggs and locally-caught seafood. If you're around in the morning, wander the garde paths and enjoy the tantalizing fragrance of bread baking. It will lead you to the Brickery, where you can peek in while their baker prepares the day's products and pick up a special loaf for a picnic.

955 Ukiah Street Restaurant is located right next door to Cafe Beaujolais at the end of a softly lit path in the neighborhood of one of Mendocino's picturesque water towers. Chef-owners Jaimie and Peggy Griffith's menu is noted for its emphasis on fish and playful descriptions, like a "bowl of steaming mussels that will revive the flagging spirit, brighten the eye, and enrapture the informed palate, combined with white wine, garlic, bay, and thyme." The menu also offers fine pasta, duck, and meat dishes and a signature dessert called "Grandma's secret and Grandpa's favorite bread pudding with wild local huckleberry compote."

The Moosse Cafe chef David Farrell, a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute and a James Beard Foundation Recognized Chef, serves fabulous seasonal coast cooking, highlighting the bounty of local food and wine products available in Mendocino. Dinner selections such as homemade pate, summer squash carpaccio, north coast cioppino and roasted crispy chicken, in addition to homemade soup, fish and pasta specials, are made to please. Lunch selections include the best macaroni and cheese, flank steak sandwich, and Moosse's Caesar salad, in addition to daily specials that make the most of seasonal and organic ingredients. Delicious desserts are all homemade. A balanced and ever expanding wine list, including many wines by the glass, compliment the evolving menus. The restaurant is casual yet elegant, with attention to friendly and professional service. When the weather is right, outdoor seating is available with views of the ocean and the adjacent garden.

The Ravens Restaurant at Stanford Inn by the Sea across from Mendocino village prepares outstanding vegetarian cuisine, inspired by their California Certified Organic gardens, demonstrating that healthy, satisfying food, produced and cooked with a lighter touch on the environment, can be a wonderful experience. Selections include pizza, salads, soups, elegant vegetarian entrées and desserts. For those who would like a complete meal prepared without animal products, they offer a special vegan three-course meal, including soup or salad, a special weekly entrée and dessert.


Chefs-owners Tony and Lisa Geer's Ledford House Restaurant sits on a headlands bluff in Albion with a panoramic view of the ocean. It's a pleasure to stop in for an early drink at the bar and, perhaps, watch the sunset with a superb cassoulet from their bistro menu or enjoy dinner later with live jazz in the background. The restaurant reflects the provencal style of Southern France in the elegance of two dining rooms where the expansive windows allow the Pacific Ocean to become part of the decor. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming with a casual elegance. The food has a strong Mediterranean influence with subtle drawings on Asian and Latin flavors grounded by a California style.

Located in the loft-like mezzanine of the historic old Company Store in Fort Bragg, Chef-owner Nicholas Petti's Mendo Bistro offers seating in a spacious room that allows the diner to look out onto the town or over the interior balustrade to be entertained ringside by the goings-on below on the first floor - sometimes an art exhibit or musical concert. At the entrance, the open kitchen tantalizes with heady aromas that only hint at the depth of flavor found in the dishes. The mussels with pancetta and shallot butter are to die for - but don't - they are only an appetizer and the main courses are just as good. A unique aspect of the bistro is that diners can choose a main course along with its method of preparation and sauce. Recently opened, a wine bar offers its own menu where you can also get a glass of award-winning Mendocino County beer.

You'll find Chef-owner Kim Badenhop's Rendezvous Restaurant in a homey country inn in Fort Bragg and one of the finest dining experiences on the coast in a casual yet elegant firelit dining room with a French Country-influenced menu. Always available are pasta selections, steaks, fresh, local seafood, and game dishes. The menu changes about once a month, as the chef takes advantage of the seasonal availability of various foods. The summer brings wild King salmon, the fall wild boar and venison, the winter Dungeness crab, and the spring early fruits and vegetables.

The Albion River Inn Restaurant offers diners a 'room with a view' - three sides of the restaurant form a triptych panorama of the California coast. Chef Stephen Smith is at the helm, inventing a hearty, regional coastal cuisine from a fusion of international flavors. Spirits Manager Mark Bowery, formerly of Masa's in San Francisco, has brought awards of excellence to the restaurant with his wine list of over 500 world-wide selections and 300 spirit products, including single malt scotches, armagnacs, brandies and cognacs. Food and wine pairings get serious attention here. This makes it a great place to develop one's own artistic independence as a wine connoisseur, rather than taking a traditionalist approach to the marriage of 'vine and dine.'

Little River Inn's popular restaurant with its garden view dining room now offers Chef Marc Dym's (formerly of Stevenswood Restaurant) creative menus featuring the local bounty of land and sea. Ole's Whale Watch Bar with its panoramic ocean view is ideal for those who desire a lighter meal, to mingle with the locals, or to simply watch the sunset.

At Sharon's by the Sea in Fort Bragg, diners can look right out to the ocean from bustling Noyo Harbor with its docks and boatworks. Situated just below one of the town's main bridges, the restaurant is as snug and trim as a houseboat. On a clear day there is no better place than its patio to catch the feel of salt air and sunshine; at night and on foggy days, its interior offers a cozy country atmosphere. Owner/chef Sharon Sue Morgan's lunches are based on creative grilled sandwiches, the freshest fish and homemade soups. Fish tacos made with grilled or beer-battered filets of local rockfish are crowd pleasers, whether the traditional Mexican rendition or her "original style" served with Asian slaw. The chef adds southern Italian touches to the dishes with an emphasis on seafood, although there are landlubber foods as well-steaks, chicken and a vegetarian spinach torta. Open every day for views of the ever-changing seascape.