Fine-dining chef Geoff Davis is redefining Black American food

If you’ve had the incredibly delicious patty melt at True Laurel, you owe some gratitude to chef Geoff Davis.

Davis has been cooking in the Bay Area for over a decade, from famed fine-dining spot Cyrus in Healdsburg to the Lazy Bear team’s cocktail bar True Laurel to, most recently, Flour + Water pasta-centric spin-off Penny Roma. And now, Davis is ready to strike out on his own. He’s hoping to redefine and rethink California cuisine through his modern soul food pop-up Burdell, which he hopes to turn into a restaurant in Oakland later this year.

“When you think of California cuisine and restaurants, you always hear of the Chez Panisses, the Zunis, the Spagos — I love those restaurants. But they are always so European,” he said. “Why are we not at least doing American food?”

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Modesto, Davis wants to specifically do Black American food, using ingredients sourced both locally and from all over the U.S. He wants to make the food he grew up eating, but with finesse and an ingredient-driven ethos he learned while cooking in some of the region’s best restaurants. Think smothered pork chops but with a morel mushroom gravy. Buttery biscuits, but spiked with a bit of sourdough. Cornmeal waffles, but served with duck liver mousse.

The Burdell pop-up will start June 12 with a series of Sunday suppers at Sequoia Diner, at 3719 MacArthur Blvd. in the Laurel District. Davis will sell tickets for each pop-up and serve a weekly prix-fixe menu. Plans for more pop-ups at Tribune in downtown Oakland are also in the works.

Not too long ago, Davis actually planned to open a wine bar, a reflection of his time working in Wine Country as well as his business mindset during the pandemic. We sat down with Davis to learn about his aspirations for Burdell — and what Black food means to him. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How has COVID shaped your ambitions? Talk about the shift in concept from wine bar to Burdell. A: I was working on raising money for a wine bar as a nimble concept during the very dark part of the pandemic, being able to offer retail goods, groceries, etc. So many places embraced that concept during the past couple of years. But it never got me super amped. I had a lot of time to mull it over. The original plan for me has always been a full-on restaurant. I thought, as we got into a better place with the Delta variant, why let the last two years alter what it is that I want to do? What about the last 30-plus? Burdell is the culmination of my cooking career and my family history.

Geoff Davis’ pedigree includes S.F. restaurants True Laurel and Penny Roma. His Burdell pop-up will start June 12.

Q: Tell us more about who Burdell is — your grandmother, right? What is her full name? What’s her story? And, of course, tell us about the food she made for you.

A: Yes. That’s my maternal grandmother, Burdell Demby or Bertha. She was born in New Jersey and met my grandfather, Warren, in the 1940s. She worked in parts at General Motors for over 30 years. As a kid, I remember specifically having her lemon meringue pie. She had Parkinson’s disease so as she grew older she cooked and just moved around a bit less. But my grandfather was an avid cook and lover of seasonal produce. He worked on a farm as a young man and was thrilled about tomatoes and corn as they came into season.

Q: Do you remember any of the things your grandfather made? A: Of course. Baked pork chops with applesauce. Crispy scrapple — a more or less terrine crusted in cornmeal, then deep fried. But there was a lot of Italian influence just being in New Jersey, the Garden State.

My paternal grandmother, Costella, was an excellent cook, too, that really shaped my love of food. This isn’t just about one person, but about honoring all family.

Q: Tell us more about Burdell the restaurant.

A: Burdell is a modern soul food restaurant serving nostalgic, California cuisine. Not really Southern food. I want to focus on the food of Black migration to cities. Oakland being one of those cities, it’s a natural fit. I want to honor that history and to show off the range of the cuisine. Black food is about vegetables and farming.

Q: How so?

A: I think the connotation of Black food, the general consensus in the American public eye, is kinda greasy convenience food. Like going to KFC and getting a bucket of chicken, or something just deep fried. Because of a lot of reasons — projects, redlining, all these things — we’ve lost our connection to farming.

Black people brought a lot of farming technique to the Americas — rice farming techniques — that wouldn’t have existed in the U.S. without that knowledge. There’s been a little bit of a loss of knowledge connecting produce and farming, especially as Black people have moved from the South into cities over the last century. I’d like to reconnect some of that, farming and produce, to the connotation of Black food.

I want to honor historic Black family dishes and traditions tied to technique and obsessive sourcing. I was always curious why “California food” defaults to being vaguely European. I want to try and change that.

Q: Where are you in the process of the restaurant? What are your goals and ambitions? Are you looking for Michelin stars?

A: I am looking for spaces in Oakland and just starting that process, and doing pop-ups in between. Burdell is a place that honors American food, especially Black American soul food with

great, local ingredients with no compromises. Most of all, I want it to create a welcoming environment for a diverse staff, farmers and ranchers, and guests. As a young cook, I didn’t see a lot of people that looked like me in ambitious restaurants. I want to create a great place to learn and work that doesn’t settle.

As far as ambitions, I’d like to just cook from the heart and hold a really high standard. If that’s deemed worthy of recognition, I’ll welcome it.

Q: What do you envision the menu to look like? And on the drink front?

A: I’d love to cook things like spiced boiled peanuts with peanut miso as a snack; pork neck smothered with morels and spring onion (a play on stewed neck bones); collard greens with ham hock and berbere spice; and lemon meringue pie, of course.

I want to be able to serve wines from around the world. The food is so fun to pair with so many things. Fried chicken and Chablis. Oysters and Chenin Blanc. Champagne with everything. The wine offering will be natural leaning but always will have classic wines focusing on farming, just like the food. I also want to serve some fun cocktails: pickle martini, a plum and shiso julep. Q: Anything else we should know? A: As I dig deeper, I’m finding the food and history is so deep and complex, even more so than I thought. And the dishes and ideas are coming so easily. I am so excited to share and learn more with guests and build something really important, I hope.

“Burdell is the culmination of my cooking career and my family history.”

Courtesy Kingmon Young