Two NorCal Towns Make USA Today’s List of America’s ‘Best Small Town Food Scenes’

Northern California is full of amazing culinary experience. With the obvious world-renown NorCal food cities (Sacramento, San Francisco, Chico) typically stuck in people’s minds, some off-the-radar NorCal culinary scenes recently received some national coverage.

USA Today released its 10 Best Small Town Food Scenes in America and Winters and Yountville were highlighted, scoring the fourth and sixth spots on the list.

Here’s what the list had to say about Winters’ culinary scene:

Winters, California

“The small town of Winters, a hidden culinary gem in the already delicious California culinary landscape, is home to several travel-worthy restaurants, including Buckhorn Steakhouse, Putah Creek Cafe, Ficelle’s Tapas Bar, Preserve Public House and Turkovich Family Wines.“

And here’s the writeup that Yountville scored:

Yountville, California

Think Yountville, and three words come to mind: The French Laundry. The self-proclaimed “Culinary Capital of Napa Valley” has plenty of other worthy eating establishments; in fact, the tiny village has more Michelin stars per capita than any other place in North America. With options like Ad Hoc, Bouchon, Bottega and Bistro Jeanty, it’s hard to go wrong!

To choose the towns, a panel of experts partnered with USA Today 10Best editors to picked the initial 20 nominees, and the top 10 winners were determined by popular vote.

Here is the complete list:

1. Collingswood, N.J.
2. Abingdon, Va.
3. Orange Beach, Ala.
4. Winters, Calif.
5. Covington, La.
6. Yountville, Calif.
7. Whitefish, Mont.
8. Hudson, N.Y.
9. Naples, Fla.
10. Frankenmuth, Mich.

So great that NorCal is getting noticed for its amazing communities. Congrats to Winters and Yountville. Time to go get some food in these great small towns.