When a Healdsburg Bakery Becomes a Parisian Bistro
Troubador’s Le Dîner
By day, Troubadour Bread & Bistro serves exceptional sandwiches on house-made bread to a steady stream of Healdsburg locals. But when the sun sets, something shifts. The lights dim, carefully curated music fills the intimate space, and the same tiny storefront transforms into Le Dîner—a prix fixe experience that feels more Left Bank than Wine Country.
This is the vision of Melissa Yanc and Sean McGaughey, the husband-and-wife team behind both Troubadour and Quail & Condor bakery. Sean brings 20 years of hospitality experience, including time as Executive Sous and Head Chef at SingleThread. Melissa is a Food Network Holiday Baking Championship winner who led pastry programs at acclaimed bakeries like Bien Cuit in New York and Gjusta in Los Angeles. Together, they bootstrapped Quail & Condor during COVID in 2020, then opened Troubadour in 2022 as the natural evolution of their craft.
What makes Le Dîner special isn't just the pedigree—it's the execution within an impossibly small space. With only a handful of tables, the restaurant feels less like a dining room and more like being invited into someone's very sophisticated home. Delicate china sets the stage. The music is unexpected and edgy—a departure from what you typically hear in Wine Country dining rooms.
The menu changes regularly, but standout dishes like beef tartare and duck confit reveal a kitchen that knows what it's doing. Each course builds on the foundation of bread—Melissa's domain—which appears throughout the meal in forms that remind you this is, fundamentally, a bakery that learned to cook at the highest level.
For those seeking an even more intimate experience, there's a Chef's Table tucked into what they call the "Private Study"—an 11-course journey for up to four guests that takes the evening into entirely different territory. It's the kind of offering that signals serious ambition without the formal stuffiness that can plague tasting menu culture.
Le Dîner represents something Healdsburg needed: a place that takes dining seriously without taking itself too seriously. It's French in spirit—the prix fixe format, the bistro ethos, the assumption that dinner should be an event—but decidedly Wine Country in its warmth and lack of pretense.
The beauty of Troubadour's dual identity is that it serves both the everyday and the special occasion. Grab a sandwich at lunch. Return for the full Le Dîner experience when you want to remember why you love living here, or visiting here, or dreaming about eventually making Wine Country home.
In a region saturated with excellent restaurants, Troubadour manages to feel both necessary and novel—a rare combination that suggests Melissa Yanc and Sean McGaughey understood exactly what Healdsburg was missing.