Sonoma’s Allikai Eatery offers high-end flavors at budget prices

The first time I met Fiorella Butron in 2021 was at the gardens of Stone Edge Estate Vineyards and Winery in West Sonoma.

We strolled the 16 acres planted with a cornucopia of organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, wine grapes and olives.

At the time, she was planning menus for her job as chef de cuisine at the ultraluxury Edge restaurant in downtown Sonoma that has since shuttered.

We were talking beets and borscht, with a recipe from her Russian boyfriend, Greg, and Butron teased me that it was “sensational.”

That month, I saw her again at her new Allikai Eatery deli-cafe in western downtown Sonoma. She was preparing to leave for her Peruvian homeland, where she and Greg would be married.

As if on cue, Greg walked in, bearing a container of borscht.

It wasn’t on the menu at Allikai — he had happened to make a batch for the staff. I couldn’t believe my luck as I snagged a cup, then insisted that the soup be added permanently after the couple returned from their honeymoon.

It’s exceptional.

Rather than the thick concoction I’ve had elsewhere, this version brings a light, vibrantly vinegary broth stocked with skinny tangles of sweet julienne beets, flurries of robust fresh herbs, endless savory seasonings, a few small chunks of stew meat and a finishing dollop of sour cream. It’s sippable splendor.

If it seems odd that a chef of Butron’s caliber, which includes both high-end dining, as well as a sommelier certification and studies in Ayurvedic cooking, now runs a casual storefront deli, rest assured her sandwiches, rice bowls, soups and salads still channel her distinctive style where most everything is handcrafted, down to the meats you’ll see hanging in the cooler under the chalkboard menu.

That means a mortadella sando is stuffed with nearly silly amounts of housemade pistachio-studded heritage pork dressed up with pickled fennel, Little Gem lettuce and Dijon aioli on ciabatta ($15), while a butifarra sandwich is piled high with labor-intensive and divinely silky housemade pork jamon ($15).

It’s a thrilling taste of the culinary dedication you would have gotten at Edge, minus the frills, fanfare and $195 tasting menu tariff.

Edge “temporarily” closed nearly a year ago and is slated to reopen as Enclos this summer under chef Brian Limoge.

Really, I don’t know how Butron manages to send out that excellent charcuterie at these prices — guests can snack on three types of housemade meats, two kinds of cheeses, house pickles, house whole grain mustard, fruit and nuts for an eye-poppingly low $10 per person, or $30 for a board serving four.

“I was just ready to do something different,” Butron said. “To create something that would reach more community, let me work with more wineries and have a free schedule. This is just an easy lunch spot. I love the craft, but at the same time, I love the everyday food.”

Allikai, she explained, is a Quechua (Peruvian) word meaning "feeling good."

After years of work in high-pressure restaurants, private chef work and catering, this new enterprise is what she calls “a no-brainer,” though her idea of “easy, everyday meal” may differ from a normal human’s.

Indeed, as I spooned her chilcano soup to my lips, I wanted the experience to never end.

It’s like an internal massage, the bliss of hot, golden fumet broth fragrant with ocean notes, underscored by earthy cilantro and other tart leafy herbs, pungent ginger, a kick of chile oil, garlic, lemon and meaty shiitake mushrooms. It’s a stunning bargain at $3 for 12 ounces, or $4 for 16 ounces.

“Things synchronize,” Butron told me. “You buy the whole fish, right, so you want to make sure you utilize the whole thing. I use the loin for the ceviche (which she crafts in a toss of kanpachi, shrimp, orange, radish, sweet potato purée and spicy citrus-chile leche de tigre, $17), or a zesty salad of kanpachi kama, Manchego, radish, toasted nuts and fresh herbs, $11.25).

“Then you make fumet with the bones, head and tail.”

She noted that in Peru, it’s customary to eat ceviche and chilcano together as a cold and hot seafood combo.

While she no longer partners with Stone Edge Farm, the chef works with family-owned purveyors like Somoma’s Sunray Farm, Paul’s Produce and FEED Cooperative.

Vegetarians are pampered with a sandwich layering shiitakes, carrots, beets and fermented pepper aioli on ciabatta ($10), or my favorite, a rice bowl brimming with jasmine grains, cabbage, seasonal house fermented veggies like spring’s turnips and Swiss chard, miso sauce and thick, Veracruz-style salsa macha ($13.50).

I like to dress my bowl up with poached eggs ($1) and tofu ($1.50); meat lovers can add pork belly ($3.50), smoked chicken ($3.50), kanpachi kama ($3.25) or shrimp ($5.50).

Keep an eye on the specials, too.

One day, it was a traditional Peruvian causa, a delicious, delicate layer cake of chile-spiked mashed potatoes, boiled egg, avocado, leeks, aromatic huacatay herb and a swath of olive aioli ($9.50).

Another time, the chef wowed with boudin blanc sausage made with house pancetta, ground chicken and Mendocino Black trumpet mushrooms. The plump link was poached and roasted, and stuffed in a ciabatta roll with house whole grain mustard, lacto fermented yacon (sweet South American root vegetable), arugula and Dijon aioli ($15).

Butron keeps her small staff busy baking, as well.

Gluten-free oat flour turns into a fluffy banana cake drizzled in sunflower caramel and dotted with sunflower and sesame seeds ($4.75), while gluten-free almond flour becomes the base for a creamy-moist almond ricotta cake ($4.50).

And that’s about it for this tiny but mighty spot.

The very limited menu allows Butron to focus on a few specialty items. The small shop operates as a catering kitchen and has just started offering periodic “clandestine” pop-up dinners.

That’s where we’ll see some fancier fare, like a recent menu including Pacific tuna tartare with mandarin orange atop rice crackers and honey-glazed roasted squab with pistachio, beets and forbidden rice.

Hopefully, as her schedule settles, the chef will find time to roll out more of these gatherings.

In the meantime, Butron is clearly having a blast, planning some upcoming cooking classes, and, when she feels like it, fashioning the extra-artistic jewels she was known for at Edge.

If you ask nicely (and pay), you can get her acclaimed housemade bread and sea salt-finished cultured butter that takes five days to make.

Oh, that bread, I told her, would be just the thing to go with some beautiful borscht.