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Early Summer in Sonoma at SingleThread

Early Summer in Sonoma at SingleThread

The Story of Today: How SingleThread’s Daily Menu Is Shaping the Future of Food

15 Minute read

Redefining Sourcing

For Connaughton, sustainability isn’t synonymous with locality. “Locality is not the only conversation,” he says. “What matters more is responsibility.” That mindset guides his sourcing strategy, which balances hyper-local ingredients from the farm with direct imports from Japan—particularly seafood.

It might seem contradictory at first. How can a restaurant so rooted in its own soil justify flying in fish from halfway across the world? The answer lies in traceability. Connaughton has spent years developing direct relationships with Japanese fisheries, skipping distributors entirely and WhatsApping with brokers at the Toyosu Market. He knows the exact provenance of every item he brings in—sometimes down to the name of the fisher.

He’s also helping to shape the future of those fisheries. In partnership with Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Connaughton is testing new technologies in traceability, blockchain, and shipping. From tamper-evident boxes to deep-freeze methods that reduce the need for air transport, these practices aren’t just experimental—they’re intended to scale.

“The goal,” he explains, “isn’t to just do better at SingleThread. It’s to help move the needle globally—so that the sushi bar in Iowa has access to better practices and more responsible products.” It’s the culinary version of the Devil Wears Prada effect: what begins in haute cuisine trickles down to the mainstream, influencing how entire food systems operate.

At SingleThread, sourcing is treated as both an ethical question and a design challenge. Connaughton sees no contradiction between excellence and impact—only opportunity.

The ThroughLine Project

One of the most ambitious expressions of Connaughton’s philosophy is ThroughLine, a cinematic dining experience that fuses documentary storytelling with a 12-course omakase-inspired menu. Debuted in 2024 as a traveling residency and developed in collaboration with Emmy-nominated director Justin Taylor Smith, ThroughLine immerses diners in the food systems behind each dish—not just through taste, but through film.

Each segment begins with a short documentary, projected behind the chefs as they cook. Guests learn about sea urchin divers rebuilding kelp forests, or artisans crafting dishware by hand. Then, the corresponding dish is served—closing the loop between story and plate.

“The idea is to connect guests more deeply to the people and places behind the food,” says Connaughton. It’s a narrative-driven extension of SingleThread’s existing mission, designed to answer the unspoken questions a dish alone can’t: Who grew this? Who harvested it? What systems made it possible?

More than just a one-off, ThroughLine represents the early stages of a long-term vision—possibly a permanent concept—that blends immersive media and dining to foster transparency, sustainability, and curiosity. As the residency travels from Park City to the Hudson Valley to New York City and beyond, the goal remains the same: to reframe fine dining as a point of connection, not just consumption.

A Lab for the Future

SingleThread isn’t just a restaurant—it’s a prototype. A closed-loop experiment. A living case study in how farming, sourcing, mentorship, and storytelling might work in harmony to create a more responsible food system. Every walk through the farm, every menu change, every sourcing choice is a chance to refine the system, not just the dish.

Connaughton doesn’t pretend that SingleThread’s model can be replicated at scale. But the insights generated here—on traceability, on soil health, on guest education—are designed to ripple outward. If a three-Michelin-starred restaurant can pilot a blockchain seafood chain, maybe a small-town sushi bar can follow. If a tomato grown with pollinator-first farming is celebrated on the plate, maybe the farming model behind it can scale.

“We’re not saying, ‘Do what we do,’” Connaughton says. “We’re just trying to show what’s possible.”

In that way, SingleThread functions less like a temple and more like a lab—proving that fine dining can also be responsible dining, and that the story of today might just shape the food systems of tomorrow.

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