Food coverage is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.
Chef Ari Weiswasser’s most formative food memory took place in Israel when he was 16, on a teen tour. Which city? He doesn’t remember. All he recalls is feeling hungry, and when he saw a street cart selling shawarma, he bought one without knowing what it was.
He took a bite of the spit-roasted meat, bronzed to perfection, layered with salads and tahini in a fluffy pita. It was nothing special, as travelers to the region know; the traditional Levantine street food is available nearly everywhere.
“My mind was blown,” he said. “I couldn’t believe what was going on. Everyone’s looking at me, asking what I’m eating, and all I could say was ‘I don’t know, but it’s amazing.’” A bunch of people in his tour group followed suit. “It was life-changing,” he said.
Today Weiswasser, 46, is the chef and owner of two Sonoma County restaurants, Glen Ellen Star in Glen Ellen and Stella in Kenwood. Neither serves shawarma, but his family regularly makes a falafel recipe by Alon Shaya, the Israeli American celebrity chef who was his high school classmate.
Weiswasser and his wife, Erinn Benziger of the Benziger Family Winery, opened Glen Ellen Star in 2012 and Stella last year. Both restaurants offer a mix of Italian and California farm-to-table cuisine. Around 15 percent of the produce comes from the Glentucky Family Farm, owned by his in-laws and located a few miles away.
Both restaurants use wood-fired ovens to make many of their dishes; at Glen Ellen Star, that includes a selection of pizzas. Stella is one of those wine country places that is classy but not overly fancy, with reliably delicious food and a large selection of fresh pastas. During a recent visit, highlights included fresh mozzarella with fava leaf pesto and pistachio crunch, and a classic cacio e pepe (Pecorino-Romano cheese and pepper) over house-made pasta.
Weiswasser and Benziger also own Park Avenue Catering, which frequently caters Jewish events. He said Park Avenue has been a go-to around Rosh Hashanah, when local synagogues and Jewish organizations order upwards of 5,000 traditional honeycakes.
Weiswasser grew up in a Conservative Jewish household in the Philadelphia suburbs, where he said his cooking interest began early. His mother taught herself to cook when he was a kid, and he joked that the two of them organized their lives around their next meal.
A dish of burrata with fava leaf pesto and pistachio crumble at Stella in Kenwood. (Alix Wall)
When he was about 12, he was inspired to take control of the kitchen after a lackluster Thanksgiving dinner cooked by his great-aunt Doris. “God rest her soul,” Weiswasser said. “She tried, but it wasn’t very good. I remember telling my mom, ‘I think I can do better.’”
Two days later, they hosted another Thanksgiving dinner for friends, with young Weiswasser in charge. His mom helped, but he cooked most of it. The menu was quite basic, he said, but the sense of accomplishment “was pretty incredible.”
In high school, Weiswasser worked nights and weekends at the Lebanese restaurant Aldar Bistro, learning to make traditional salads and dips.
He attended college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, planning to pursue finance. But nothing he learned excited him as much as food did. This realization was cemented for him one summer while interning at an investment firm and working weekends at the Lebanese restaurant in its catering operation. Analyzing spreadsheets just couldn’t compare to the excitement he felt in the kitchen. Upon graduating, he attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
From there he worked several years in New York fine dining kitchens, including Restaurant Daniel under chef Daniel Boulud. He moved to Sonoma County with his wife and soon began working at the French Laundry. In 2012, he struck out on his own.
Last year, Weiswasser was a James Beard Award semifinalist for the best chef in California.
Stella is at 9049 Sonoma Highway in Kenwood; Glen Ellen Star is at 13648 Arnold Drive in Glen Ellen.
SMALL BITES
There are two new restaurant openings, both in San Francisco, led by fine dining chefs we’ve reported on before. Loveski, a “Jew-ish” deli concept from Napa chef Christopher Kostow, opened its third location, but its first in the city, bringing its Asian-influenced Jewish deli and lauded bagels to Jackson Square. We featured the first Loveski in this column in 2022. It’s at 499 Jackson St., near Montgomery, and is open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Also, JouJou opened in the Design District recently, a second fine-dining concept from Lazy Bear chef David Barzelay, who was featured in this column in 2024. JouJou, a French restaurant focused on raw-bar seafood, is at 65 Division St.
Opening in Berkeley at the Lawrence Hall of Science is the ‘ammatka cafe, the latest project from chefs Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino. It highlights food from the Ohlone Tribe, which is native to the Northern California coast. The cafe was championed by Lawrence Hall of Science director Rena Dorph, who is very active in the East Bay Jewish community. “This is one of the most exciting and uplifting partnerships that I’ve had in my whole job,” Dorph told Berkeleyside writer Anna Mindess. The cafe features traditional Ohlone dishes like a smoked duck sandwich and a green salad with pine nuts, black walnuts and edible flowers. Dining at the cafe does not require museum admission. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at 1 Centennial Drive.
We also have one closing to report. Cheezy’s Artisan Pizza in San Francisco’s Saluhall (Ikea) food court recently closed due to low foot traffic and management issues. We first wrote about Cheezy’s owner David Jacobson when he was slinging pies at Oakland’s Acre restaurant in 2023. He plans to do catering and pop-ups while scouting a new location.
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Dining and Cooking