Keep Your Eyes on the Pies at Petaluma Pie

Angelo Sacerdote and Lina Hoshino met in the editing studio for a documentary exploring GMOs, corporate agriculture, and food trade policy. Hardly the kind of meet-cute you’d expect for a couple who’d later open a charming little Wine Country shop specializing in globally inspired sweet and savory pies. Yet the farm-to-table bakery café focuses on local and organic ingredients for seasonal delights like Japanese curry hand pie with Mary’s organic chicken, potatoes, carrots, caramelized onions, and peas or whole pear ginger cardamom pie.

“We didn’t know it then, but that experience planted the seed of wanting to make wholesome food,” Hoshino says. So it made perfect sense for the couple to open their eatery in their hometown of Petaluma and plant their own “pie garden” for perfect produce to help feed the kitchen.

“We have a lot of locals who appreciate locally sourced organic food, and we have a steady stream of visitors from all over the world who come to see this beautiful part of California,” says Hoshino. “Petaluma has the best of farming tradition and culinary innovation, with so many great food producers close by, whether it is meat, milk, cheese, butter, eggs, or produce.”

Still, why pie? Sacerdote recalls growing up in the tight quarters of a sixth-floor New York City apartment, growing tomatoes and basil in a window flower box. He used to think, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a restaurant where everything is contained in a pie?”

Petaluma Pie is located at 125 Petaluma Blvd. N. They are open daily from 9am-7pm; and on Friday and Saturday from 9am-9pm.