Hangar 39
by Elizabeth Archer
Local aviation history meets fantastic food at Hangar 39 in South Ukiah, right next door to the airport that inspired its name. Owner and chef Fernando Plazola and his wife, Ashleigh, also own and operate the popular restaurant, Cultivo, downtown next to the courthouse. Hangar 39 is located at the site of the previous Crush Italian Steakhouse. The current building owner is a big fan of Cultivo and reached out to Fernando directly to offer him the restaurant business. Fernando runs on vision and drive, so he was on board right away. Ashleigh is the practical one and needed a little convincing. On top of their shared family responsibilities, she’s a full-time ICU nurse at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley and helps with Cultivo (and witnesses the many demands it makes on Fernando). But Fernando believed in the project and brought her around. According to Ashleigh, “Once we committed to it, we were both inspired to turn it into something that we love.”
The Plazola family moved to the area from Sonoma County in 2014, a return to roots for Ashleigh. Her family has lived here since the late 1800s and includes the founders of the town of Branscomb. Fernando has slowly been moving north his whole life. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, grew up in Los Angeles, and moved to the Bay Area, where he trained at the CCA in San Francisco, graduating in 2004. Of course, he was a cook long before he was a chef. “I was always cooking before [the CCA],” he says. “My mom was a really good cook and taught all nine of us kids how to feed ourselves.”
Fernando had been working as the executive chef at a restaurant in Guerneville, more than an hour’s drive from Ukiah. They purchased the downtown restaurant space (formerly the site of Saucy) in December 2017, and they officially opened Cultivo the summer of 2018, which allowed him to stop commuting and start feeding the community they love and call home.
The vision for Hangar 39 combines Ashleigh’s love of local history with Fernando’s commitment to excellent food. Ashleigh’s mother helped coordinate a book series in Laytonville called Through the Eyes of the Elders, which inspired Ashleigh’s own interest in Mendocino County‘s history. “I want the younger generations to know what it used to be like here,” she reflects. Her grandpa was a pilot and a logger who used to fly into all of Mendocino’s small airports, accessing the parcels he logged by plane. This sparked her interest in the history of the local flight community, and she’s been in touch with the county’s historical society seeking more information.
The aviation theme is front and center in the lobby at Hangar 39, where flight atlas manuals from an old encyclopedia found at the Willits airport are displayed. Ashleigh is always on the hunt for more historical photos and artifacts to use throughout the restaurant.
Why Hangar 39, you may ask? The Plazolas wanted a name that would highlight the airiness and loftiness of the building, especially the main dining room. A pilot friend suggested ‘hangar,’ which they combined with Ukiah’s location on the 39th north parallel, a circle of latitude known for its excellent wine grape growing conditions and shared with Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece.
The restaurant had its soft opening in late July, serving dinner Thursday to Saturday and open all-day Sunday. Once the menu is finalized and enough staff is hired and trained, a hard launch will follow.
Not long after the soft opening, my husband and I enjoyed a double date with some friends at Hangar 39. We were greeted promptly and enthusiastically, and the excitement of staff was infectious. Inside the restaurant, the ambience is largely the same as its predecessor—a smart choice by the Plazolas, as the 12,000 square foot restaurant was already well appointed and would have cost a fortune to redecorate. Though there is a patio for outdoor dining, we sat inside due to the cold evening. The high backs of our oversized booth gave us privacy and also made us feel a little safer about dining indoors.
The whole menu is Fernando’s creation, executed by skillful cooks, and although it is surely stressful being responsible for what comes out of two of Ukiah’s kitchens, it certainly works from the diner’s perspective. The Roasted Vegetable Wellington was by far the star of the night: a perfectly baked concoction of thinly sliced, layered vegetables surrounded by flaky phyllo dough—no soggy bottoms here! We would have eaten four times the amount of the sauce that came with it, a pistachio and cream fraiche pesto that added the perfect pop of flavor and acidity. We also enjoyed the Airline Chicken and the classic Caesar and Mendo Local Greens salads, both of which were fresh and tasty.
During a recent return trip, we started with the butternut squash gnocchi, big and pillowy and delicious, and the brie toast with caramelized onions and apple chutney—three generous, gorgeous pieces with just the right mix of comfort and complexity for anyone who loves fall flavors. We had to resist ordering the Wellington again in favor of further exploring the menu, and we settled on an experimental thin-crust pizza with bleu cheese and peaches (“very interesting,” we kept saying to each other) and a grass-fed beef filet with a perfect portion of potatoes au gratin. We neglected to notice the steak knife on our table, but the steak was so tender we had no problem cutting it with a butter knife.
For dessert we tried one of their mainstays, a flourless chocolate torte with sugared berries. It has a bit of a chili powder kick, and adding a scoop of ice cream provides a counterbalance to its intensity. We also tried a special panna cotta with pears. If you’ve never made panna cotta, you may not appreciate how hard it is to get a perfect set and a smooth texture. The light, luxurious panna cotta, paired perfectly with crunchy hazelnuts set atop salted caramel, was a sheer triumph.
Hangar 39 is an excellent choice for a special occasion, and even has a large room you can reserve for parties, but it doesn’t have to be consigned to birthdays and anniversaries. With two bars serving a long list of local wines and a wealth of beers on tap, plus crowd-pleasing and reasonably priced classics like pepperoni pizza and an Angus beef burger, this is also the perfect spot for a Thursday night drink or a Sunday afternoon football game on one of the many big screen TVs.
Finally, if you love cocktails, Hangar 39 should be on your radar. We tried several and highly recommend the “Final Approach,” a sweet and strong bourbon concoction with lemon and lime juice and rosemary syrup, as well as “The Crosswind”—lemon vodka, house-made lemonade, and a float of red wine, which, when mixed together, tastes like a bold update to a refreshing sangria.
With a crowd-pleasing menu and bountifully stocked bar, it’s not hard to imagine that Hangar 39 will earn itself some noteworthy mentions in Ukiah’s history books.
Hangar 39
1180 Airport Park Blvd, Ukiah, CA 95482
(707) 404-8822 | Hangar39.com
Thursday - Friday 4pm - 9pm
Saturday - Sunday 11am - 9pm
Elizabeth Archer lives in Ukiah with her beekeeper husband and nature-loving preschooler. She is an enthusiastic eater and home cook, and supports local food and farmers wherever possible.
