Cafe Beaujolais

The forest floor is still damp from the first rain. The giant ferns drip water onto the sleeves of my jacket, as I push the leaf to the side and look for the familiar rise in the brown dirt. I can smell the wet dirt scent of a mushroom before it is uncovered. I welcome the forest floor under my finger nails as I reveal the orange wave of a chanterelle mushroom. The redwood forests surrounding the village of Mendocino are filled with hidden secrets that soon become part of a gourmet dish found in many restaurants in the unique village. Chanterelle mushrooms grow in Mendocino like the abalone found in the Pacific ocean off the bluffs of the North Coast. Mushroom hunters flock to the small village every fall in hopes of becoming a successful fungi hunter. A bite of a chanterelle will offer a taste of the small unique village.

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At the top of everyone’s list of places to dine in Mendocino, Café Beaujolais put Mendo on the culinary map. Originally opened as a breakfast restaurant in 1977 by now-celeb chef Margaret Fox. She sold the restaurant in 2000, along with her recipes, which remain the backbone of the kitchen. Beaujolais’ monochromatic urban-chic dining room is a far cry from the Laura Ashley–Victorian style of the old days, but the place remains an institution. Incorporating organic produce and free-range meats, the Cal-American menu mixes regional domestic styles and ingredients. It’s totally worth a visit, if only once.

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