Ah, the buoyant Bay Space restaurant trade. Meals prices could also be rising, and hiring continues to be difficult, however optimistic cooks and entrepreneurs are forging forward with plans for first-time ventures and expansions, which ought to make for a brisk summer time and autumn of openings.
Right here’s the inside track on 9 hotly anticipated openings from Walnut Creek and Oakland to Santa Clara and Palo Alto, plus updates on others we all know you’ve been eagerly awaiting.
Ethel’s Fancy, Palo Alto
Acclaimed chef Scott Nishiyama is getting again within the restaurant recreation, a decade after leaving the Michelin-starred Chez TJ in Mountain View. Though he has an all-high-end résumé that additionally contains the French Laundry and Daniel, he’s trying this time to ship what he calls a “a enjoyable and fewer formal eating expertise.”
His inspiration? His maternal grandmother and his mom. Nishiyama remembers their “comforting house cooking and heat sense of hospitality” from his childhood on Maui within the Hawaiian islands, and stated he hopes to re-create that sense in Palo Alto. He and GM Jon Sloane (Quince, Chez TJ) are planning a menu of small plates for family-style eating, utilizing seasonal components from farmers markets and native purveyors.
They usually’ll be doing so in an area that evokes heat recollections for Peninsula residents — the previous house of the beloved Prolific Oven.
Particulars: Opening in July at 550 Waverley St., Palo Alto. www.ethelsfancypa.com
Montesacro, Walnut Creek
The homeowners of 54 Mint Forno are remodeling the Walnut Creek Italian bakery right into a Roman consolation meals restaurant named for that metropolis’s working class neighborhood. Montesacro already has thriving areas in San Francisco and Brooklyn, the place the farm-to-table eatery makes a speciality of a number of culinary traditions of the area, most notably pinsa.
The traditional, pizza-like flatbread, comprised of soy, rice and heirloom wheat flour, will get wearing seasonal components from native farms and small producers in Italy. In San Francisco, the menu options 17 pinsas with toppers like smoked pancetta, grilled marinated artichokes and bottarga, a dried fish roe. Additionally they provide paninis and 12 antipasti, together with polpette al sugo, Puglian burrata with Cantabrian anchovy and a $30 prosciutto tasting.
Montesacro will serve wine, cocktails and housemade desserts, too. We’re fairly excited concerning the crostata del ghetto, a Roman “ghetto” tart made with sheep’s ricotta, chocolate and wild cherry.
Particulars: Opening this month at 1686 Locust St., Walnut Creek. https://montesacro.com
JAKS Genuine Indian & Fashionable Vibe, Santa Clara
With an intriguing restaurant title like that, you already know there’s certain to be an enchanting traditional-meets-modern menu. Certainly, JAKS — an upscale idea from grasp chef Prakash Singh, initially from Mumbai, and proprietor Michael Agnel, raised in Chennai — intends to take diners on a “time and area” culinary tour of India.
Search for elevated and reimagined classics, plus regional dishes from all corners of the nation, with an emphasis on the delicacies of Bengal, Maharashtra and Lucknow; fusion creations from Kerala and Chennai within the south; and spicy Indo-Chinese language specialties. They plan to replace the lunch menu (suppose bowls, kebabs) not simply seasonally however weekly.
For Singh and Agnel, one other emphasis will likely be offering diners with all kinds of gluten-free, dairy-free and vegetarian choices.
The restaurant’s PEG Gastropub will function enjoyable craft cocktails — edible bubbles! smoke! — together with microbrews on faucet and a curated checklist of wines from world wide.
Particulars: Opening in August at Santa Clara Sq. Market, 3333 Coronado Place, Santa Clara. www.jaksrestaurant.com
Poppy Bagels, Oakland
A key participant within the Bay Space bagel revolution, Poppy Bagels of Oakland is taking its wildly standard Grand Lake farmers market enterprise to a everlasting location within the Temescal District.
In line with proprietor and bagel baker Reesa Kashuk, the previous Doña Tomas area will likely be remodeled right into a bakery and store the place they make the dough and hand-shape, boil and bake the bagels on website in a big, revolving deck oven. Sure, recent bagels all day lengthy.
To pair with basic bagels like the whole lot, sesame, poppy, garlic and onion, Kashuk will provide her signature cream cheeses. The bottom comes from a dairy in Willows, which Kashuk turns into pleasant flavors like briny (pickles and capers), chivey, lemony lox and seasonal specials like roasted strawberry balsamic or beet and poppy seed. Don’t miss the bagel sandos, together with a first-time egg and cheese and a tuna salad for the lunchtime crowd.
Particulars: A fall opening is within the works at 5004 Telegraph Ave., Oakland; www.poppybagelsca.com
Meyhouse, Palo Alto
What, you say? There’s already a jam-packed Meyhouse in Sunnyvale.
Sure, however that 55-seat restaurant merely isn’t giant sufficient for the entire formidable meals and leisure plans within the works, so — after whetting the appetites of patrons on Murphy Avenue — Meyhouse is transferring into its long-planned new digs in Palo Alto.
On this 175-seat area (previously Dan Gordon’s barbecue and beer restaurant), govt chef and co-owner Omer Artun and enterprise companion Koray Altinsoy will provide an expanded and refined Turkish “meyhane” idea, with a big menu of mezes, grilled meats and recent fish from the ice bar. Sunnyvale favorites making the transfer to the Palo Alto menu will embrace Alenazik (fire-roasted eggplant and tomatoes topped with grilled tenderloin) and Adana (grilled, knife-chopped native grass-fed lamb). New dishes will embrace fire-roasted Chilean sea bass seasoned with a contemporary model of murri, an historic condiment with fig and ginger.
The homeowners are additionally remodeling the realm that used to accommodate the beer tanks right into a professionally designed, stay music venue with a full sound system, lighting and stage. Keep tuned for information of their first jazz and worldwide music concert events.
Particulars: Opening in July at 640 Emerson St., Palo Alto. www.meyhousefood.com
Elevating Cane’s, Oakland
Bay Space hen connoisseurs can lastly put Elevating Cane’s to the check with out happening a wild goose chase to Sacramento or SoCal. We’re getting our first outpost of the favored hen shack, which has greater than 530 areas worldwide.
This fast-food juggernaut is ready to make its Bay Space debut in Oakland — the primary of many deliberate for this regional growth.
The eating places are recognized for his or her marinated, all-white-meat, hand-battered hen fingers, the addictive Cane’s sauce, Texas toast, coleslaw, candy tea, lemonade — and the lengthy traces of shoppers. However the Cane’s of us say they’re ready for the onslaught at this location close to Interstate 880 and Hegenberger Street with a multiple-lane drive-thru, double kitchen and patio.
Particulars: Opening July 14 at 8430 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. www.raisingcanes.com
Boichik Bagels, Berkeley and Palo Alto
The story has been instructed innumerable occasions, and but it nonetheless provides us poppy-seed goosebumps.
Berkeley’s Boichik Bagels — and its self-taught bagel grasp Emily Winston — put California on the map for even-better-than New York-style bagels in 2017. However it is going to be Winston’s forthcoming West Berkeley location, an 18,000-square-foot manufacturing unit and first for the Bay Space, that can make the historical past books.
Building began June 2 on what Winston calls “the plant,” a destination-worthy manufacturing unit that may even perform as a restaurant, taking stress off Winston’s first brick-and-mortar, the 1,200-square-foot store on Faculty Avenue, which has been promoting out of these perfectly-crusted, chewy and flavorful bagels because it opened in 2019.
On the manufacturing unit, you’ll be capable to order from the entire lineup of bagels, together with Eggything (Egg-All the pieces) and Pumperthingel (Pumpernickel with All the pieces) in addition to bagel sandwiches stuffed with lox, Hatch chile or horseradish-cheddar-scallion cream cheeses. You’ll discover all of the salads — tuna, whitefish and natural, pasture-raised egg — plus espresso and baked items. The design will embrace a window into the manufacturing kitchen in addition to a big patio.
The manufacturing unit may even provide bagels to Boichik’s first brick-and-mortar exterior the East Bay. Winston introduced again in January that Boichik will likely be opening a bagel store on the City and Nation Purchasing Middle in Palo Alto. The Peninsula location will likely be small however serve the identical array of bagels and bagel sandwiches. It is going to be open each day into the late afternoon.
Particulars: A late fall opening is deliberate for the manufacturing unit at 1225 Sixth St, Berkeley. Search for the Palo Alto store opening in late summer time at 855 El Camino Actual, Palo Alto; https://boichikbagels.com
Canteen Subsequent Door, Menlo Park
After drawing a loyal following to Menlo Park’s Camper for his seasonal entrees and recent pasta, chef Greg Kuzia-Carmel (Quince, Cotogna, Per Se), will increase nearly a mile away with not one however two culinary ideas on the upcoming Springline venture.
For this eating/workplace/housing vacation spot arising alongside El Camino Actual, he’ll be opening Canteen, a wine bar with small bites, together with the Canteen: All Day Cafe, which is able to cater to work-space workers with grab-and-go wraps, salads, sandwiches and Sightglass Espresso.
Search for stunning choices from Kuzia-Carmel and his farm-to-table workforce, who don’t serve any dish and not using a seasonal fruit or vegetable accompaniment. We’re already placing in our request for the Heat Solid Iron Buttermilk Cornbread with Inexperienced Chili-Honey Butter.
Particulars: Opening later this yr on Oak Grove Method (Canteen) and El Camino Actual (Canteen: All Day Cafe). The Canteen web sites are below building; within the meantime, verify www.campermp.com to get a style of a Kuzia-Carmel menu.
Popoca, Oakland
Anthony Salguero first gained discover for his progressive Salvadoran delicacies via Popoca, a pop-up on the Basic Vehicles West Beer Backyard in Oakland, the place plumes of smoke from the wood-fired oven producing the chef’s signature pupusas would stand up into the Uptown Arts District. This was after years of expertise in positive eating kitchens, together with Oakland’s Bardo Lounge & Supper Membership and Saratoga’s Plumed Horse.
Salguero continues to be popping up — most not too long ago at Oakland’s Low Bar — however he’s been quietly engaged on opening his first brick-and-mortar, too. Whereas he’s not able to disclose many particulars, he can verify the situation within the Outdated Oakland constructing previously housing The Lede. He guarantees a robust bar program with creative small bites and those self same, attractive pupusas coming scorching off the fireside. They’re comprised of recent masa and stuffed with recent components like cultivated mushrooms, Fresno chiles, cauliflower and black beans.
Particulars: Count on a gap by yr’s finish at 906 Washington St., Oakland. www.popocaoakland.com
STILL COMING:
Cafe Ohlone, Berkeley: The world’s first restaurant devoted to the meals and culinary traditions of the Ohlone individuals, which was scheduled to make its debut within the courtyard of UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology this spring, will likely be opening in August.
Giorgio’s Italian Grill & Pizzeria, Morgan Hill: The South Bay’s venerable D’Ambrosio household will open their first new place in years on the ever-expanding downtown Morgan Hill restaurant row. Search for a fall opening.
Momosan Ramen & Sake, San Jose: If you happen to’re desperate to attempt the ramen and yakitori restaurant that “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto is bringing to San Jose’s Santana Row, then replace your calendar with this information: Sure, we’re instructed he’s nonetheless on his manner this yr. However his PR workforce says it’s too quickly to specify the opening date.
SanDai Nusantara Californian, Walnut Creek: Signage is up — yay — and staffing is within the works at chef Nora Haron’s Indonesian-meets-Cali delicacies restaurant, bar and low store previously generally known as SanDai Fashionable Indonesian and Kopi Bar. Opening is now slated for fall.
