5/1/2023 0 Comments The big salad coo![]() ![]() “The ethos that Sondra set was that we live in a bountiful place. That balance has worked for them over the decades. That initial Glen Ellen restaurant is also where many of the dishes so closely identified with Toulze and Bernstein’s California-French cuisine were first served, from pastis-scented steamed mussels to cheese and charcuterie boards, fig salad and pan-seared duck breast.īernstein always has been the face of the restaurant, while Toulze managed the kitchen and operations with quiet diligence. “Everything we (bought for the restaurant) was second-, third- or fourth-hand.” It was a passion project with a bunch of friends,” she said. “Some of my fondest memories were in Glen Ellen. ![]() Funded by her brothers, the restaurant opened with just 17 employees. I wanted to experiment without guests dictating what we were,” said Bernstein of the earliest days of girl & the fig. “I wanted to do everything I wanted to do. They found a fixer-upper restaurant in Glen Ellen and put in the requisite elbow grease to get it open. When Bernstein was 37 and Toulze just 23, the former Viansa co-workers launched an audacious plan to open a Provencal-inspired eatery on a shoestring budget, doing most of the renovation and decor themselves. Recently at the restaurant, Toulze and Bernstein reminisced about the early days of their original Glen Ellen bistro (where the fig cafe is located now the girl & the fig restaurant relocated to downtown Sonoma in 2000) and the road to a quarter century of partnership through good times and challenges. It has survived multiple wildfires, recessions and a pandemic, not to mention the incredibly long odds of surpassing five years in business - the average lifespan of a restaurant. ![]() Now celebrating 25 years, the restaurant is in rarefied air. “One in five people would ask what it was,” she said last week, sitting inside the sunny Sonoma Plaza cafe that’s become a destination for tourists and celebrities and a point of pride for locals. The peppery green is the foundation of the signature salad at girl & the fig, the iconic Wine Country restaurant Sondra Bernstein and John Toulze opened 25 years ago this month.īack then, that arugula salad often needed an explanation, according to Bernstein. In 1997, arugula wasn’t exactly a household word. ![]()
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