With its sprawling veranda, warming patio fire and sweeping vista of green Carneros vineyards, the entry to Farm — the newest restaurant to open as part of the upscale Carneros Inn — is as inviting grandma’s kitchen on a family holiday.

Once inside, hungry diners quickly discover casual elegance and comfy ambiance in a spacious dining room that allows ample views of nearby farms and, close at hand, food being prepared by an energetic culinary team in an adjacent open kitchen.

Farm is the culinary environment shaped by one of the Bay Area’s well known and respected chefs, Kimball Jones. He’s a chef who cuts an imposing figure — a big man standing well above six feet — and sports a disarming smile. An amiable, soft-spoken man, Jones seems just right for the space as he casually wanders in and out of the kitchen, checking on guests.

The dining space at Farm incorporates the agrarian feel one finds throughout the resort — high ceilings, lots of barn whitewash to lighten the mood, paned windows open to the kitchen, larger windows let in light from the outside. A massive fireplace is a dominant fixture.

The rustic feel follows through in royal blue banquettes, burnished brown wood and leather chairs. The expansive dining room is bathed in Carneros sunlight by day, warmly lit by giant mocha hanging lamps after sunset.

The wall closest to the spacious bar addresses Farm’s important wine program. An adjunct of the wine cellar, the space contains utilitarian wine fixtures, illuminated by a changing array of colors.

At the opposite end of the room — in a space that can be closed off for private dinner parties — is a wall of wine, bottles tucked into crannies designed to shield them from damaging outside influences.

The 72-seat restaurant is the newest addition to the rustic resort owned by the PlumpJack group, which also owns and operates a winery here (and is building another), several San Francisco restaurants and the Squaw Valley Resort at Lake Tahoe.

The attractive veranda with its oversize wicker chairs is the perfect spot to pop the cork on one of the valley’s excellent sparkling wines. Or give the Carneros cosmo a try, a tasty blend of Roth grape vodka, Bonny Doon muscat, plus white peach and cranberry juices with a dried cranberry garnish.

Once you’re seated for dinner, enjoy a small plate of garden fresh radishes, carrots and celery root drizzled with olive oil as you look over a menu of dishes incorporating ingredients from prestigious farms and purveyors, such as Pozzi lamb, Painted Hills beef, Grimaud Farms duck, Fulton Range chicken and Eden Farm Berkshire pork.

A recent meal began with strikingly presented, toothsome Redwood Hills goat cheese and potato terrine, studded with candied walnuts and set on frisee drizzled with Katz Meyer lemon oil vinaigrette. Starters at dinner range from Kumamoto oysters with celery/cilantro sorbet ($3 each) to Dungeness crab, avocado and ruby grapefruit salad ($13.50). A refreshing ahi tuna tartare is tossed with white and black sesame seeds and can be scooped up with Yukon gold potato chips. Heartily recommended is the roasted beet and arugula salad, a study in textures with its blood orange segments, creamy Point Reyes blue cheese crumbles and uncharacteristic toasted peanuts.

A pizza for two incorporates two cheeses — crescenza and pepato — some Tuscan salami, roasted fingerlings and Russian kale. This makes a nice lunch option, too, along with a bowl of the chef’s yummy soups. The other evening the spring carrot soup tasted as if the slender orange roots had just been pulled from the garden. An added bonus was the topping of chipotle crème fraîche with a sprinkling of fried fennel fronds.

The meal’s single disappointment was an overly salted Dungeness crab salad — grabbing for the water glass was the requisite reaction.

Among the eight main course options — ranging from $20 for housemade fettuccine with cipollini onions, portobello mushrooms, broccolini in lemon and garlic cream to $36 for Painted Hills strip loin with Yukon gold potato puree — are a couple of seafood options.

A marvelous marriage of land and sea, the mesquite grilled Pacific halibut is the handiwork of restaurant sous chef Xavier Camacho. He dresses the plate with a wealth of spring vegetables, including grilled asparagus and green garlic, plus bite-sized chunks of roasted red and purple potatoes. The sweet, moist halibut is centered on the grilled vegetables, then topped with a handful of fresh microgreens, which bring all the elements of the dish together. This may well be the best main course offering at the moment. However, equally tasty are the complementary flavors of the fennel pollen-accented Petrale sole with fennel chardonnay sauce and a pepper custard.

The Grimaud Farms Muscovy duck also provides ingredients that are well-integrated. Medium rare breast slices are juxtaposed with a very tender, juicy braised leg napped with a comforting dried cranberry sauce, yams whipped with orange and lemon zest, Meyer lemon oil and a bit of lemon juice (offsetting the natural sweetness of the potatoes) and a mound of slightly bitter Russian red kale.

Jones, Camacho and chef de cuisine Joseph Hatch are offering at present Pozzi Farm leg of lamb with Rancho Gordo cannellini runner beans, Eden Farm Berkshire pork chop with mascarpone whipped polenta, plus half a mesquite-grilled Fulton Range chicken with rosemary salsa verde and fingerling potatoes.

Save room for dessert (all $9.50) as pastry chef David Baker has a number of unusual treats up his sleeve. The dessert menu’s comfort option is the orange spice and vanilla brioche bread pudding, dressed with a yummy huckleberry compote — about as close as you’ll come to grandma’s fare in this bustling kitchen. Chocolate lovers have a couple of options at present — a pistachio accented chocolate pot de creme or spiced bitter chocolate fondant with a crunchy cocoa almond nougatine.

If you’re a fan of citrus, like this diner, then look no further than the satisfying Meyer lemon and hazelnut cake with candied lemon zest. Or you might hanker for a lovely parfait made from mascarpone and espresso coffee, gussied up with dark chocolate shavings. The evening’s tart brought together ricotta and pine nuts with a generous drizzle of caramel orange sauce.

From wine to service

Farm’s wine list features, as one might expect, a wealth of producers from Carneros. With relatively reasonable prices — some appear to be not much higher than retail — Farm has something for everyone. There are 21 wines by the glass ($7-$18) and an equal number of offerings in the half bottle.

A 2005 Acacia pinot noir proved an ideal pairing for both duck and halibut dishes the other evening. However, choices among the Carneros producers seem endless — Acacia, Adastra, Ancien, Artesa, Beringer, Bouchaine, Buena Vista, Carneros Creek, Ceja, Clos Du Val, Donum, Etude, Madonna, Mahoney, Patz & Hall, Robert Sinskey, Robledo, Saintsbury and ZD.

The same producers, along with a few more, can be found on the chardonnay side of the cellar, too. Or you could deviate from the usual suspects by choosing a floral albarino from Havens, a bracing pinot gris from Bouchaine, a refreshing pinot noir rosé from Etude or the blend of chardonnay, marsanne and viognier that’s the Ceja family’s Vino de Casa.

Sure, you could opt for one of the Old World offerings, or a wine from other AVAs of Napa County, or even the Golden State. But why bother when you can pop the cork on marvelous Carneros syrahs from the likes of Cuvaison, HdV, Nickel & Nickel and Buena Vista?

For the most part, service at Farm is friendly, informative and pleasing. What waiter Ryan Olivier didn’t know about wine, he more than compensated for in his description of the kitchen’s dishes. Well-versed on the region, he was eager to share information with diners who inquired about Carneros and Carneros Inn. The only surprise was that he did not offer to summon sommelier Naomi Steinkamp when questions about wine came up.

Other diners appeared to enjoy the same attention-to-detail service we enjoyed. The only mix-up came with newly employed food runners  who had trouble figuring out to which table they’d been dispatched.

Excellent, creative dishes paired with exceptional wines, served in a most comfortable and attractive bucolic setting, make Farm at Carneros Inn a welcome addition to wine country’s top-flight dining destinations. Those of us at dinner the other evening had a marvelous time, including San Francisco’s mayor.

Lunch is served 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily; dinner 5-10 p.m. daily. For reservations, call 299-4900.