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Business & Tech

Chalkboard Wipes the Slate Clean

Just when you thought losing a star-rated restaurant would do irreparable harm, along comes Chalkboard.

The contentious final year of Cyrus, Douglas Keane’s highly regarded restaurant at the Hotel Mars on North St., left a cloud of doubt in the atmosphere of Healdsburg’s dining scene. Why would the hotel’s owners deny the lease of a restaurant that had gained national, even international plaudits? Was there more to the story than meets the eye? And what could possibly replace Cyrus?

It doesn’t take much more than a step inside to put those questions to read: Chalkboard is an entirely different place, with a different menu, a different atmosphere, a completely different appearance and not lingering ties to the lost, if lamented, Cyrus.

Chalkboard, as its name implies, wipes the slate clean.

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The image of a chalkboard is a good one for executive chef Shane McAnelly’s kitchen. Much of the small-plates menu is sourced from local purveyors and farms, with many ingredients coming from the restaurant’s own dedicated 3-acre vegetable and herb garden at nearby Chalk Hill Estate, another property owned by Bill Foley and company. (The “chalk” in Chalk Hill makes for added resonance.)

So parts of the menu change daily, as with many fresh farm-to-table restaurants, and a chalkboard makes it easy to update the daily crudos and tartare, house-made pastas, salads, even roasted and grilled meats and seafood. Many restaurants have chalkboards for daily specials; at Chalkboard it’s become not just a convenience, but a metaphor, even a totem.

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Even before you see the menu, you see the changes. The entry is wider, more inviting from the artisan cocktail-influenced front bar. The back wall has been removed, so the room is larger, more open, brighter and friendly. New tables and chairs have an informal look, and the sunlight flooding the garden literally washes away any stuffiness.

As I arrived just after opening at 5 p.m. one day late last week – Wednesday was their first official day for business – I could watch the reaction of everyone who came in after me. It was the same as mine: an enthusiastic “Oh, this is nice!”

Don’t expect an anything-goes atmosphere, however. It’s still a classy place, just not pretentious. The food alone ranks it high on Healdsburg’s list of kitchens, as it should. McAnelly and general manager Sean Coleman came to Healdsburg in February from Walnut Creek’s Va de Vi Bistro & Wine Bar. It’s Walnut Creek’s loss. McAnelly was formerly executive sous chef at Zero Zero, and before that chef de cuisine at Garibaldis in Oakland. These are solid credentials to bring to town, and the small plates on the menu were of cosmopolitan quality.

The crudo of the day – charmingly described and delivered by Tatiana Bushey, a familiar face from Costeaux’s – was fresh halibut with sea salt and olive oil, topped by a glicee of the bar’s Bloody Mary mix, thin-sliced and pressed celery and coriander seeds.  It revealed the different layers of flavor expertly, the kick of the spices and aromatic of coriander giving the fresh fish wings.

So too did the pasta gnudi with maitake mushrooms and truffle butter, arugula and a hint of meyer lemon, a richly flavored dish that was almost fulfilling enough to dine on. The small-plate “concept” is a difficult one to master– as anyone who has dined at Willi’s Seafood and Raw Bar or Bravas Bar de Tapas knows, it’s all too easy to end up with more food, and a bigger bill, than you bargained for.

Another small plates restaurant that opened recently, also can be justifiably proud of its cuisine. But if I were to give the edge to either, it would be to Chalkboard, based on the wine list alone. Theirs is diverse and full of wines by the glass or by the half-glass (sensibly priced at half the full-glass price), and it’s encouraged to order a flight of similar wines to pursue through the meal. Or build your own flight: what goes with halibut is not necessarily what goes with duck breast (though a flight of pinot noir will serve you well.)

Before I left I walked through the dining room, and talked to a couple who came up from Walnut Creek to spend their weekend in Healdsburg, largely because they wanted to try out Chef McAnelly’s new restaurant. It’s always nice when a chef brings his own fan club.

They also said something interesting: that Va da Vi, the Walnut Creek landmark McAnelly has shepherded the last two years, had lost its star.

Maybe it’s coming to Healdsburg.

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