This Middle Eastern restaurant is a hidden gem in Wine Country

San Francisco Chronicle​

7 days ago

It's impossible to have drab food at Spread Kitchen. The dishes are vividly colorful with even brighter flavors.
Look no further than the Lebanese restaurant's stunning mezzes. The hot pink whipped feta with beets is sour and silky; the baba ganoush thick and smoky; and the green tahini spiced and zesty. Each spread functions like a Lego: stackable building blocks of flavor, fostering a spirit of experimentation.
The Sonoma restaurant, which quietly opened three years ago, is one of the best Middle Eastern restaurants in the Bay Area. I would also say it's the region's strongest Lebanese restaurant, but chef-owner Cristina Topham prefers to call it 'Lebanese-inspired.' Indeed, it's the restaurant's sense of individuality that shines over its strict adherence to tradition. Topham gleefully sidesteps those confines in favor of seasonal produce and unconventional flavor, inviting external spice profiles from Ethiopia and India.
Lebanese cooking overlaps with several Levantine and Middle Eastern cuisines, but it's distinguished by a prolific use of lemons, according to Topham. The restaurant goes through gallons a week. This sunshine animates mezzes, marinades, salads and more.
Spread's menu is modular. A lunch visit might include a wrap or grain bowl, while a full dinner shouldn't go without dips, loaded fries or grilled meats. Everything except the pita, sourced from a local Syrian baker, is made in-house.
Topham is not shy about her worship of lemons. You'll find drops in smooth toum, which serves as the garlicky marinade for chicken, beef and ground lamb. The fried Brussels sprouts and fried cauliflower are drizzled with lemon-laced tahini; the latter is further electrified with briny preserved lemon. The pickled citrus is a trademark of the chef, making appearances in fondant-thick labneh and Pepto Bismol-tinted beet feta — the best of the dips.
The dip platter ($14-$26) allows you to sample up to five alongside pita, pickles and fresh veggies, but you can save a few bucks on dips if you order side scoops ($4) instead. I recommend scooping spreads with thin za'atar-spiced pita chips ($6), which stand out more than the standard pita.
Grain bowls ($20-$24) are the comprehensive option, featuring savory hummus made with black garbanzos, puckery tabbouleh salad, aromatic saffron rice, and your choice of fried cauliflower, grilled meat — like lamb seasoned with Ethiopian berbere — or falafel. Those orbs have garnered a local following for being crunchy yet tender. Topham uses a mix of whole chickpeas and chickpea flour to create a looser texture, which, Topham says, helps prevent dryness as the flour soaks up the frying oil.
The falafel are a great accompaniment ($6) to loaded fries ($14), which are a step above the average, balancing salty decadence with acidity. Feta cheese, tahini-yogurt sauce and pickled onions combat the rich spice of the za'atar. The fries are where you can get maximalist with flavor. I encourage you to add nutty green tahini, seasoned with turmeric and fenugreek, and house-made hot sauce, a paste made of three Mexican peppers.
For something lighter, try the unconventional fattoush salad (small for $12, large $16), which reaches for beets and apples when tomatoes are out of season.
You'll want to eat in the large, charming outdoor patio, whose wooden perimeter is decorated with kitschy art made from salvaged gardening tools. It's as if the place was created to maximize the pacifying warmth of the Sonoma sun. There's indoor seating, too, but the area is mostly functional.
Despite Spread's casual nature, nothing is casual about Topham's command of flavor, which she honed over 27 years of cooking. She cut her teeth in kitchens in Paris, New York and Napa; she worked as a private chef and cooked on yachts, where she once crossed paths with Meryl Streep. ('She's really nice,' Topham said.)
In 2016, she launched Spread Kitchen as a catering company in Sonoma. The pandemic forced her to pivot to meal kits, and in 2021, she brought Spread to Wine Country farmers markets. A year later, she opened Spread, her first restaurant, right off Highway 12 in Sonoma.
Topham views food as a creative outlet. 'I like to play with my food,' she said. That sense of exuberance is what attracted me to Spread. It clears the bar for traditional mezzes but always leaves room for the chef's personality. Is Spread the most traditional? No, but that's the point.
Hours: 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m Wednesday-Sunday.
Accessibility: Steps by front entrance. Wheelchair ramp by back entrance. Outdoor area with wooden deck, which isn't wheelchair accessible.
Noise level: Mild.
Meal for two, without drinks: $45-$60
Drinks: Beer and wine. Try the orange blossom lemonade ($4).
Best practices: Experiment with the dips and sauces by seeing how many you can try in one bite.