There aren’t many places in West County that offer a prix fixe menu — you typically have to travel to a luxury resort like the Stavrand or Dawn Ranch — but since May of this year, the tiny village hamlet of Occidental has its own entry into the upper echelons of fine dining.
“It’s unique for the area, but I feel like it’s necessary,” said Erica Kniess, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband Todd Kniess. While the couple remains dedicated to their acclaimed casual food business Acme Burger, they had been looking for a location for a fine dining restaurant that would honor Todd’s haute cuisine roots.
“Occidental, and West County in general, has long been one of our favorite spots,” Kniess said. “It’s really an exceptional area in terms of food and wine, and when the building went for sale we felt like this was our moment.”
Bohemian Bistro moved into the space formerly occupied by Hazel, where Chef Ray Martinez enjoys a particular aspect of the restaurant’s former incarnation: the wood-fired stove. While its red-brick mouth used to spit out pizzas by the hundreds in Hazel’s time, it has since transformed into a site of experimentation.
“I was attracted to this restaurant because of the oven,” Martinez said, explaining that the fire’s zones give him opportunities to cook with embers and coals in addition to an open flame. It’s the first executive chef position for Martinez, who came to the restaurant from Healdsburg’s Troubador, where he worked as a Chef de Partie. The San Luis Obispo County native — he hails from Laurel Bay, California — laid his cooking foundation at Ox and Anchor, working with the Thomas Keller-trained chef Ryan Fancher and also at the Harbor House Inn in Elk.
“Ray is an old soul,” Kniess said. “He blew us away with his very thoughtful, very patient technique, and his love of expressing food as an art, as a season, as more than just something that fills your belly.”
Alongside Martinez works Maitre d’ JD Driscoll, who previously worked at Stella and the Glen Ellen Star before taking the reins at the Bohemian Bistro, where he serves as a friendly and knowledgeable steward.
While the menu price may be out of reach for many Occidental locals — the prix-fixe menu is $88 per person, and the wine pairing is an additional $68 — the cost is reasonable in terms of the fine dining world, especially given the care and attention put into the food. Martinez, who mists and wipes down every plate with ethyl alcohol before serving, and the garnishes are tweezer-applied with precision: a borage flower here, a calendula petal there. Facing the open kitchen gives diners the opportunity to watch the licking flames and the chefs at work preparing the food.
The menu at the Bohemian Bistro changes weekly, which gives endless opportunities for creativity and the prompt to always work with whatever is freshest. “It comes down to speaking with farmers weekly,” Martinez said, noting there are around eight farmers with whom he works most closely. While it’s a lot of work to craft a new menu every week, it’s Martinez’s favorite part of the job — and what makes the restaurant so local-focused.
“The produce changes all the time, with the season and with the availability,” Kniess said. “So changing it [the menu] every week gives a hyper focus on what is happening right now.”
That close working relationship was evident on a recent Friday evening, when fisherman James Howe of HumbleTide Seafood ate the lingcod he provided alongside customers, and another farmer stopped by to drop off pineapple sage before dining. One of Martinez’s favorites is Sinclair Farms, where he procures his heirloom beans — the backbone of one of the tastiest parts of that particular prix fixe menu.
Sometimes the ingredients are even closer to home — the tomatoes served on the strawberry tomato tart that evening came from owner Todd Kniess’s backyard. The wine list is similarly hyper-local. “All our wines come from within 15 miles,” Driscoll said. The list includes makers like Radio Coteau, Occidental, Kistler and Scherrer.
Several months in, the team at Bohemian Bistro is still working out some of the wrinkles.
“Part of the opening is figuring out the identity,” Martinez said, noting that a 1950s jazz playlist finally felt like the right musical vibe after earlier experimenting with 1920s and classic rock playlists. The Gatsby-esque decor — think Art Deco wallpaper, jewel-toned velvet settees you never want to get up from — prompted a 1920s list. Another priority: filling up the seats. On two recent visits, the restaurant remained about half full. Yet Kniess characterized the response to the business so far as “exceptional.”
“We very much believe in slow, organic growth,” she said. “We’re not looking for your standard Instagram influencer.”
Bohemian Bistro is located at 3782 Bohemian Hwy, Occidental. Find out more at bohemianbistrorr.com or call for a reservation at 1-707-874-6888.
