At Sonoma’s Enclos, Jiun Ho Orchestrates a Sensory Masterpiece
The celebrated designer joins forces with Michelin-decorated Chef Brian Limoges on an understated farm-to-table restaurant where every detail—from scented organza panels to vivid paintings of shima-aji fish—heightens the experience
A framed hand-cut paper work presides over one wall of the main dining room at Enclos, its lacy layers casting shadows resembling a still life of fish, produce, and herbs, as if plucked from a chef’s mise en place. The eye-catching work, by Bay Area artist Tahiti Pehrson, had once eluded designer Jiun Ho when he encountered it in one of his favorite San Francisco design shops. Nearly a decade later, serendipity intervened. His client had acquired it, and when she asked Ho to redesign her restaurant in Sonoma, the spellbinding piece became the project’s conceptual anchor. “I designed the entire room in a black texture of Shou Sugi Ban to highlight the Pehrson as a focal point,” says Ho, a prodigious Malaysian-born talent whose San Francisco firm conjures harmonious, material-rich interiors informed by his passionate globetrotting. “From there, I curated other pieces to complement it.”
That clarity of vision defines Enclos, a restaurant in the heart of Sonoma’s wine country that quietly opened less than a year ago but has already earned two Michelin stars and a Green Star. Every gesture inside is shaped by symbiosis between disciplines, a multi-sensory dining experience drawing equally from Northern California’s redwood-lined terrain, Japanese Wabi-Sabi principles, Nordic simplicity, and the bucolic allure of Italy’s soft, rolling hills. Its rooms unfold like a narrative—or perhaps a multi-course meal—with each surface, artwork, and dish revealing itself with careful ease.
Enclos is the latest endeavor by proprietor Leslie McQuown, who first planted roots in Sonoma more than two decades ago when she and her late husband, Mac, founded Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards and Winery, best known for its Bordeaux-style reds and sustainable farming practices. Their 16-acre estate supplies the restaurant with organically grown heirloom vegetables, olives, herbs, fruit, eggs, and honey, all cultivated using regenerative methods. The farm is powered by a solar microgrid and operates carbon-negative thanks to advanced composting and water conservation systems. Those principles ripple into Enclos, informing everything from how ingredients are sourced to how flavor is expressed. Their wines anchor the beverage program, providing a curated pairing experience that complements Chef Brian Limoges’s ingredient-driven cuisine and deepens the restaurant’s connection to the region.
Interiors, meanwhile, are anchored in natural materials to forge a sense of slow immersion. Walls of charred cedar nod to traditional Japanese craft and natural resilience. Live-edge teak tables, hand-finished with butterfly joints and square patchwork details, practically double as sculpture. Silk organza panels softly diffuse light and, when infused with herbs, lend a faint fragrance to the air. “Just like the meal, I want to take the guest on a discovery journey, open their five senses, and provide them with memorable, sensory experiences that they will remember and share,” Ho says. “By meticulously crafting every small detail, we communicate a story of intention and luxury that resonates on an emotional level.”
The progression of rooms reinforces this. The journey begins in the Victorian-style building’s oldest section, where a vaulted ceiling and blackened Shou Sugi Ban walls lend the main dining room a hushed, monastic elegance. It offers front-row seats to an open kitchen, framed to spotlight the rhythm and choreography of live-fire cooking. The final destination is a lush, plant-wrapped patio where guests can enjoy an à la carte tasting menu alfresco.
Limoges, the New Hampshire–born chef who sharpened his technique at the tight-knit kitchens of three-Michelin-star restaurants Quince and Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, approaches the tasting menu with discipline and poise. Each course highlights the integrity of its ingredients, filtered through Japanese technique and grounded in the bounty of Sonoma’s rich terrain. Among the clearest expressions of that intent is shima-aji, a fish native to Japanese waters and one of his favorite ingredients. “Most guests don’t know what the fish looks like,” Limoges admits, so they commissioned a dramatic oil painting by classically trained Chinese artist Yan Teng Xiong that depicts the fish’s iridescent body and vivid yellow stripe as if caught mid-swim. “Presenting it whole while serving it raw creates an opportunity for dialogue. Even without conversation, it can subconsciously foster a sense of familiarity.”
Limoges crafted many of the dishes—presented on custom plates and bowls by Lynn Mahon, a local ceramicist and close collaborator of Ho—to awaken memory through scent before flavor reaches the palate. “The progression of courses is designed to move fluidly between contrasts in texture—crisp and silken, warm and chilled—to invite touch into the dining experience,” he says. “Visually, we use restraint to highlight the natural beauty of the ingredients, so the plate becomes a quiet extension of Jiun’s space. Ultimately, both the room and the menu seek to heighten awareness, reminding guests that dining is not only about taste, but about the harmony of all five senses.”
The restaurant’s coherence arises from an uncommonly tight alignment between a chef and designer operating on the same detail-oriented wavelength. That approach has so far yielded high praise from Thomas Keller—a decorated chef and restaurateur at the forefront of farm-fresh Cali-French cuisine—as well as a Michelin panel that recognized the restaurant’s craft and sustainability in equal measure. But what matters most to Ho and Limoges was crafting an experience that deeply engages each guest from the moment they arrive. “The recognition isn’t an endpoint,” says Limoges, “but a reflection that the story we’re telling through our cuisine—of Sonoma’s abundance, resilience, and beauty—is resonating with our guests.”