A summer dinner under the sycamores with only the cutest chef in the kitchen! Katie Powers.
Katie got her formal education at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, but learning really began in the kitchen at Newport Beach’s Aubergine under Tim Goodell. Back in San Francisco, she continued at Acquerello and eventually at Woodward’s Garden. It’s there that she came to appreciate how local goods make for local meals, how raw products from the region don’t merely serve as ingredients — they inform recipes and techniques at the most fundamental level. She fell in love with the broad and diverse region we call Northern California and its yields. This brought her, in turn, to the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin. Here she serves as chef for all wedding and events there.
We have worked with Katie on multiple dinners, and love the fresh and thoughtful Cali foods she incorporates into all her dishes.
A seated dinner under the sycamores at Preston with a nuance of flavors from chef Nick Balla. A chance to taste flavors stemming from Japan and Eastern Europe here in Dry Creek Valley.
Nick spent time living in Hungary in high school, visiting markets after school and tasting the incredible homemade cooking of his friends and neighbors. Later, in culinary school at the CIA in Hyde Park he developed a love for Japanese cuisine, leading to his first executive chef jobs opening O Izakaya Lounge and Nombe restaurants in San Francisco.
He later explored his Central European roots as the chef of Bar Tartine in San Francisco where he developed a culinary program that focused on preservation and wrote a James Beard and IACP award winning cookbook on the subject. In 2018 he moved to Big Sur to open Coast Gallery and Cafe as the executive chef and project director.
He has most recently moved to Sebastopol (lucky us) and will…
An intimate multi course meal to feed our internal fires in low lit times paired with Preston wines.
Chef Katie Powers will be cooking a multi-coursed menu for these darker times to awaken our hearth. Dinner by candlelight in between the barrels tucked away for the winter. Paired with winemaker Grayson’s selections, this will be a very sweet and intimate dinner to tuck in and enjoy one another’s company amid this unique setting for sustenance of stomach and heart.
