It’s official: SingleThread is taking their show on the road, and they’re going international. They’re not setting up shop in just any locale either, because if you can make it in a country that has more Michelin stars than France, you know that you have serious street cred.
SingleThread founders Kyle and Katina Connaughton have never been interested in the obvious move. In building Healdsburg’s three-Michelin-starred farm-to-table landmark (one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants), they did so deliberately and on their own terms. So with their first international venture, the expectation is that it be original, even poetic, as in: keeping with the vibe at SingleThread.
SoNoMa by SingleThread opened this spring inside Capella Kyoto, the luxury brand’s inaugural Japanese property, and it may be the most thoughtfully conceived new restaurant on the planet. The name itself is a geographic riddle. It’s a portmanteau of Sonoma and NoMa, the northern Machiya district, but the concept runs deeper than wordplay. As co-owner Tony Greenberg puts it, “If SingleThread is a very Kyoto-inspired restaurant in California, then SoNoMa by SingleThread will be an equally California-inspired restaurant in Kyoto — a mirror experience of sorts.”
That mirror, it turns out, has been decades in the making.
Full Circle in the City of Seasons
Long before SingleThread put Sonoma County on the global fine-dining map, Kyle and Katina lived and worked in Japan, absorbing its culinary philosophy, its obsessive attention to seasonality, and its deeply held codes of hospitality. The restaurant they eventually built in Healdsburg was, from its very first menu, a dialogue with that Japanese sensibility. Courses are calibrated to the country’s traditional system of 72 micro-seasons, or sekki, unfolding in near-silence from an open kitchen. SoNoMa by SingleThread is now the reply to that conversation.
Capella Kyoto itself opened on March 22, 2026, set in the historic Miyagawa-cho kagai, one of Kyoto’s storied geisha districts, located steps from Kenninji Temple and the Kamo River, where kabuki was born. It is an address that carries the full weight of Japanese cultural heritage, and the Connaughtons have matched it accordingly. As the signature restaurant of the property, SoNoMa by SingleThread offers an intimate 12-seat counter and a 20-seat lounge bar designed in the style of an ochaya, the traditional Kyoto teahouse. The scale is radically small, and a statement about what the Connaughtons value most: depth over breadth and connection over volume.
A Menu Born of Two Landscapes
The culinary vision at SoNoMa is neither Japanese nor Californian but something genuinely new: a tasting menu that honors Kyoto’s terroir and traditions while remaining grounded in the Wine Country state of mind that defines SingleThread’s identity. Kyle has described it as expressing the sensibilities of Kyoto while staying connected to the ethos of Sonoma, basically a wine country philosophy transplanted to Japan.
Making that vision tangible falls to a kitchen led by an exceptionally fitting figure. Chef Keita Tominaga, son of the late Ken Tominaga, founder of the beloved Hana Japanese restaurant in Rohnert Park, CA, heads the kitchen. He spent more than a year embedded at SingleThread in Healdsburg and previously worked at the Michelin-starred Tenoshima in Tokyo. His résumé bridges the two worlds SoNoMa is designed to inhabit.
The ingredient sourcing is where Katina’s genius comes fully into focus. The woman who has spent years stewarding SingleThread’s 24-acre farm in Dry Creek Valley is now applying that same agricultural philosophy across the Pacific. She is collaborating with Kansai-region farmers to grow Northern California produce such as heirloom tomatoes, peppers, squash, and flowers, alongside native Kyoto vegetables. California olive oil, almonds, and cheese will also make the journey east. The result is a pantry that is inherently bicultural, rooted in both soils.
Beyond the Counter
SoNoMa is more than a single dining room. SingleThread Entremets, a dedicated patisserie program led by executive pastry chef Emma Horowitz and chef Miu Morita, formerly of Michelin three-star L’Effervescence in Tokyo, offers seasonal confections for onsite enjoyment or packaged takeaway. It is the kind of detail that signals how seriously the Connaughtons are treating this venture.
Expansion Without Dilution
The hospitality world has watched countless celebrated chefs stumble when they attempted to scale what made them special. The Connaughtons appear acutely aware of that risk. SoNoMa is not a template for rapid international rollout. It is a singular, site-specific expression, chosen because uniquely, Kyoto is the place that inspired SingleThread in the first place. The expansion is emotional as much as it is strategic.
As SingleThread approaches its tenth anniversary, this Kyoto chapter feels like the natural completion of a circle that began when a young American couple first fell in love with Japanese food culture and vowed to carry it home. Now, at last, they are carrying a piece of home back.
SoNoMa by SingleThread is located at Capella Kyoto, Miyagawa-cho District, Kyoto.
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FAQs
Q: Is SoNoMa by SingleThread worth a trip to Kyoto?
A: If you are looking for a reason to get to Japan, this is it. A 12-seat counter helmed by a chef who has trained on both sides of the Pacific, inside one of Kyoto’s most anticipated new luxury hotels, in a geisha district steps from a 13th-century Zen temple? The answer is yes.
Q: How does SoNoMa differ from SingleThread in Healdsburg?
A: It’s the same philosophy, expressed in a different language. Where SingleThread interprets Japan through a Sonoma lens, SoNoMa flips the script. It’s California viewed through the prism of Kyoto.
Q: How do I make a reservation?
A: SoNoMa by SingleThread is located inside Capella Kyoto, the brand’s debut Japanese property. Given the 12-seat counter, this is not a walk-in situation. Book well in advance here.
