A Few Good Restaurants Berkeley Oakland East Bay California Author’s Note: This article “A Few Good Restaurants Berkeley Oakland East Bay California” is a stand-alone article on my website. Further parallel articles are often chapters in my two main travel guidebooks/ebooks on California. They are Northern California History Travel Adventures: 35 Suggested Trips and Northern California Travel: The Best Options. All my travel guidebooks/ebooks on California can be seen on my Amazon Author Page. By Lee Foster It is helpful to pause from time to time and assess a few good restaurants in our own neighborhoods. To clarify, I now shy away from the word Best. What does Best Restaurants Berkeley Oakland mean, anyway? Let us celebrate A Few Good Restaurants Berkeley, Oakland, East Bay California. Some of these establishments illustrate national trends. Certainly, all exhibit the richness of life in modern California. A moment of culinary reflection allows us to appreciate the joy of restaurants. Therefore, let us salute both the creativity and the brutal repetitive hard work required to succeed in the modern restaurant scene. Every year a new and pleasing restaurant may appear in our experience. For me, the new-to-me discovery of 2019 was Belotti in the Rockridge area of Oakland. See below. Culinary Cultural Diversity in Restaurants Berkeley Oakland East Bay California The restaurant/food scene in Northern California remains vital and alive, with newcomers and visionaries creating their food/art dreams. Moreover, quality and purity of ingredients seem to improve. In short, the situation pleases consumers. The Bay Area of California is also a triumphant example of culinary America’s benefit from our immigrant heritage. We are all immigrants, except for our Native Americans. Consequently, the palate of America is immensely enriched by the food traditions from each immigrant group. I remember how my son, Bart, went to an Oakland middle school with students from 23 countries, mainly newcomers from Asia. Certainly, every immigrant flavor has added to the flavor profile. A Salute to Restaurant Chefs and Servers As we dine out, it is worth pausing to mention and commend the considerable skills required to actually run a successful restaurant. The chef and servers need to create and serve us a beautiful art object, our food. Moreover, they need to do this day in and day out, year in and year out. In short, they replicate the art object one at a time. However, flavor profile nuances and ingredient variations keep the offering slightly variable. All professions require tedious repetition to achieve the limelight for a momentary recognition. Meanwhile, restaurant folks need to achieve excellence with food creations every day. To sum up, that is not an easy task. The Concept of Best in Restaurants Berkeley Oakland East Bay The concept of “Best” is bound to be controversial, so I have decided to abandon it. Some will limit Best just to those restaurants aiming at Michelin stars and charging $150 for a dinner. However, I see “Best” in a broader sense. For Indian food, my best choice is Ajanta on Solano in Berkeley. When desiring best casual and popular restaurant, it’s hard to beat the Cheeseboard Pizza, with their music at lunch and dinner. For a gala Sunday brunch with a view, Eve’s on the Oakland waterfront would be my recommendation. If seeking a hearty omelet breakfast, I’d go to Homemade in central Berkeley. In short, Best can mean Best in several ways. An Obituary for Four Restaurants Talking about restaurants also involves an obituary task. Two restaurants that opened in recent years, and appeared in earlier versions of this post, are now closed. They are the Oakland eateries known as Urbano Latino and Izzy’s. Gone in recent times in Berkeley also is Spenger’s, after 128 years. Spenger’s was one of the great seafood restaurants in the West. See my memorial note on Spenger’s here. Gone also is Brennan’s, a cafeteria-style place where I could take my grandson, Charlie. He’s a train fan. He could watch the trains whiz by as we ate. It is not easy for some traditional restaurants to keep up with the changing times and how the dining audience makes its choices. These restaurants, which I have eaten at and recommend, are listed, alphabetically, by territory. Firstly, there is Berkeley. Secondly, there is Oakland. Lee Foster’s Short List of Restaurants My restaurant list will grow. Your comments are welcome. Currently, in the alphabetical order below, you will find: — Berkeley Restaurants Ajanta Cheeseboard Pizza Chez Panisse Gather Homemade Cafe Nico Oakland Restaurants Belotti Benchmark Oakland Copper Spoon Eve’s Waterfront Mockingbird — Berkeley Restaurants Ajanta Arguably, one of the most knowledgeable restaurants regarding Indian cuisine in the East Bay is Ajanta, on Solano Avenue in Berkeley. The proprietor sends out a monthly newsletter (sign up for it) to “patrons,” informing about a new dish or two that he is swapping in or out on the ever-changing menu. In conclusion, if the mysteries of curries and turmeric are something you want to leave to an expert, this is the place. Ajanta is at 1888 Solano Ave., Berkeley; 510-526-4373; http://www.ajantarestaurant.com/. Try for appetizers the Tandoori Scallops and the Chicken Samosa. For the main dishes, consider the Lamb Rib Chops and the Green Fish Curry. Cheese Board Pizza Perhaps the most popular restaurant in current Berkeley is The Cheese Board Pizza, an adjunct to fabled The Cheese Board Collective. Most importantly, the career cheese specialists here are the owners. Consequently, they know how to guide you to the world’s best cheeses. These owners/proprietors will spend an infinite amount of time educating your palate with tastes before you purchase. In the same vein, Cheese Board Pizza has a definite perspective, serving a vegetarian-only product with some taste variations every day. Review the website for the one-and-only pizza of the day. Eat your pizza in the “parklet” along the street. The parket is a delightful innovation in urban design. Enjoy the live music. The Cheese Board Pizza is at 1512 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley; 510-549-3183, http://cheeseboardcollective.coop/pizza/. Try the daily pizza and salad. Preview them on the website, along with the music of the day. A typical recent menu read as follows. “The pizza has green and red cabbage, yellow onion, mozzarella cheese, and walnut. It is garnished with Dunbarton blue cheese, garlic olive oil and Italian parsley. In addition, the salad has roasted organic red beet (Tomatero Farm), toasted pistachio, organic salad mix, and goat cheese dressing. Gluten-free and vegan pizza options are available, along with wine and beer.” Chez Panisse Restaurant and Café Alice Waters’s legendary restaurant, right in my neighborhood, pioneered from the 1970s a return to simple tastes with straightforward organic food. She championed the ideal of fresh ingredients locally sourced. Alice went on to support a schoolyard food garden environment in our neighborhood at Martin Luther King Middle School. With her ally, Gavin Newsom, now California governor, this concept of fresh and wholesome food in schools may expand. The upstairs café is accessible and affordable, while downstairs dinners are a bigger commitment. Chez Panisse is at 1517 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley; 510-548-5049 for café, 510-548-5525 for downstairs dinner; http://www.chezpanisse.com/. The menu changes daily in the café and for the downstairs dinner. On a typical recent café menu, good choices for starters were Roasted Cauliflower and beet salad with gribiche sauce and Baked Andante Dairy Goat Cheese with garden lettuces. Main courses included Butternut Squash Caramelle Pasta with sage and wild mushrooms or Grilled Devil’s Gulch Ranch Rabbit with celery root purée, spinach, and mustard sauce. Gather Gather may be the most media-celebrated restaurant in Berkeley. Michelin, the New York Times, and Amex food critics praise the place. Gather is a fine-dining experience favored by both omnivores and vegetarians. That is to say, current Executive Chef Michael Huynh and former Executive Chef Adam Pechal check(ed) off all the boxes. They create(d) food locally sourced, farm to table, sustainable seafood, and humanely raised meats. Executive Chef Michael Huynh propels this revered establishment forward with new energy. Starting here in 2012, he worked every aspect of the restaurant as an apprentice to learn the total craft. Now he emphasizes a “200 mile rule” to support locally sourced and sustainable ingredients. Gather is also in the David Brower Center, a few blocks east from downtown on Allston Way at Oxford Street. The David Brower building is a distinctive architectural statement honoring a great man in the California environmental movement. Ground floor at the corner on the building is Gather restaurant, 2200 Oxford St., corner of Allston Way; 510-809-0400; https://www.gatherrestaurant.com/. What to try? For starters, sample the Crispy Brussel Sprouts, with smoked squash, chevre, pomegranate, pepitas, and maple. Another temptation is the Thai Butternut Squash Soup, with Thai basil and chili oil. Among main dishes, possibilities are Pierogi Stroganoff, flavored with shimeji mushroom, spinach, cultured cream, and sherry. For fish, a good choice is the Mt. Lassen Trout, enhanced with parsnip puree, sunchoke, broccoli de ciccio, blood orange, and sauce vert. Former Executive Chef Adam Pechal at Gather Restaurant Berkeley California Homemade Café For a down-home breakfast or lunch, one place to try in central Berkeley is Homemade Café, open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and for occasional pop-up celebration dinners. Homemade Café is a sweet story about previous owners Norm Berzon and Janet Hintze, who trekked across country to open their dream, a local diner in sunny California.