You can’t exactly say Harbor House Inn is the hidden gem of the Mendocino Coast, at least not anymore. Star chef Matthew Kammerer, an alum of fine-dining hotspots like Saison, renovated and reopened this former historic lumber house in Elk in 2018, and it’s had a meteoric rise since.
The restaurant earned its first MICHELIN Star a year after it opened and has held on to two Stars every year since 2021. Harbor House also nabbed a Green Star for sustainability, a 2025 James Beard nomination for Outstanding Hospitality, and a Food & Wine Best New Chef award for Kammerer. But Kammerer has no plans to slow down any time soon—he recently doubled the size of the restaurant’s farm, among other projects. “Harbor House is constantly evolving,” he says. “There’s always something to improve.”
Visitors typically make the trek north from San Francisco—it’s about a three-hour drive from the city—for a chance to secure one of only 20 seats in the redwood dining room with sweeping views of the rugged coast. Visitors also angle for a chance to stay in one of 11 guestrooms or cottages at the property with equally stunning views. When you’re there for the tasting menu, you might be treated to Dungeness crab chawanmushi, sake-poached abalone, candy cap mushrooms, and so much more.
We recently caught up with Kammerer to talk about everything from seaweed Chardonnay to an abalone club sandwich he once served at the restaurant.
Get the inside scoop on Harbor House Inn, and then book your spot on OpenTable.
This interview has been lightly edited for length.
What do you think your X factor is?
Matthew Kammerer: Definitely our location. When guests come to dine at Harbor House, they’re provided with one of the most beautiful views in the country or world. They’ve already driven or walked by a lot of the food in their meal, so it creates more of a sensory experience. Rather than getting out of an Uber in the city and just focusing on the food, the location plays a lot more into the experience.
What’s the one dish you’ll never remove from the menu?
We always have an abalone dish on, but that will change almost weekly. Abalone’s been a really important ingredient in this area. It was the drive for tourism for a long time, but also when you push back to native tribes, it was a huge source for them. Currently, it’s sliced really, really thin while raw, and then we drop it into a dashi that’s seasoned with sake for about 10 seconds on low heat, and serve it with mustard greens and brassicas.
What’s the underdog of the menu?
Lichen is a dish we’ve been serving for a really long time. It’s called lace lichen; we serve it kind of like a dry glass noodle. People absolutely love it or it’s just not for them. It’s kind of mushroomy and earthy, and we’ll blanch it three times to get some of the astringency out, then season it and let it dry. We pull it apart so it’s kind of fluffy but has a little bit of chew, and it picks up seasoning really well. We season it with furikake.
What is the hidden gem among the drinks?
The hidden gem actually is this new thing that we started called the hybrid pairing. You still get eight beverages, but four are wine or sake, then four are non-alcoholic. We’ve seen a big push to NA drinkers, and we have plenty of guests that still want to taste the wine, but they’re unsure. So we made a hybrid pairing and that’s been going over really well.
We do something called the seaweed Chardonnay. It’s non-alcoholic Chardonnay juice, a little bit of verjus infused with kombu overnight so it gets umami flavor, and sea salt. Another one is the Harbor House pinot noir; non-alcoholic pinot noir juice with foraged mushrooms, grilled alder tree bark, kombu, and black pepper.
Who’s your longest regular?
We have a guest that’s been here 40 times. I think that’s the record currently. There are guests who come and dine with us two or three nights in a row, so we change six to eight dishes.
What’s the most memorable request you’ve received from a customer?
We had to cook four nights in a row for one table, which was memorable in good and bad ways. The customer was like, ‘Show me what you’ve got!’ On the last night, as a little bit of a joke, I made him a club sandwich. He was like, ‘This is amazing!’ And I was like, ‘I can’t with this guy.’ Now he’s going to be asking for abalone club sandwiches.
Who’s your longest serving staff member?
That’s Adrienne Smelko. She was my first hire. She’s been here since day one. Adrienne started in the restaurant as a captain, and about a year and a half ago, she switched over to the hotel and concierge, but she’s also our lead events member. She’s amazing with hospitality, so she excels at events, because she gets to curate the experience.
What’s the best seat in the house?
We always say there’s not a bad seat in the house. Tables one through four are right on the window, but the other tables are about six feet away. We only have nine tables.
When is the best time to find a reservation?
Two months out. My favorite time is probably September and October. Usually the fog has calmed down—July and August can be a little foggy—and then that’s our peak summer.
What’s been the biggest change at the restaurant since the opening?
When I took over, it had been closed for four years, and we opened this place with eight staff total. I was cleaning rooms. I was mowing lawns. It was totally insane. But after the first MICHELIN Star and the Food & Wine thing, you start getting new team members. So the dining room, hotel, and grounds look completely different than when we opened. The aesthetic of the building was very rustic California, and we’ve refined [it to] this upscale version of Harbor House.
What’s your favorite award you’ve won?
I’m not really too wrapped up in the awards, to be honest. The benefit of them is this restaurant is remote, it could be seen as a risk to pick up your life and move here. All of those awards keep giving us a little bit more credibility in the industry. What excites me about getting them is we’re able to recruit new team members and get new ideas. At the end of the day this is a team game.
Becky Duffett is a food writer living and eating in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Eater SF.
