Top-notch chefs experiment with local ingredients
All eyes — and appetites — have been turning to Oakland over the past several years, as the East Bay’s largest city has evolved into a seriously delicious dining destination.
Combining top-notch chefs, oodles of local ingredients and wonderful culinary diversity, the area is a restaurant lover’s paradise. Sink your teeth into these creative offerings.
OLIVETO RESTAURANT & CAFÉ
Renowned over more than two decades for its whole-animal cooking and handmade pastas, this sophisticated dark wood and white tablecloth place still sets the bar for artisanal Italian cooking. Daily changing menus focus on from-scratch everything, including housemade salumi, cheeses and complex sauces.
Chef Jonah Rhodehamel coaxes brilliant flavors out of dishes such as chilled vellutata of asparagus and spinach decorated with pink peppercorn crema and micro herbs; spaghetti neri tumbled with white shrimp, tomato and Calabrian chile; or pan roasted swordfish paired with zucchini crema, English peas, morel mushrooms, pickled ramps and hazelnut pesto.
Seasonality is king here, showcasing hand-harvested local produce for specialties like summer’s charcoal grilled, crispy skin Paine Farms pigeon nested with grilled peach and pistachio panzanella, bianco di Maggio onion agrodolce and sugo.
At the downstairs café, the mood is more relaxed, though with the same premium ingredients and elevated rustic cooking. Think gorgeous pizzas crafted with Community Grains flour dough and topped in goodies like asparagus, cream, garlic, fontina and Parmesan.
EVERETT AND JONES BARBEQUE
There’s really an Everett and a Jones (and an Everett-Jones, thanks to marriage) behind this beloved barbecue that served its first slow smoked pork ribs in 1973. Even as the family has now expanded to four locations, they still make everything from scratch, including their delectable 100 percent course-ground beef hot link sausages.
Short but sumptuous — that’s the tidy menu of open-fire grilled chicken, oak wood fired “secret” seasoned pork and “goop” marinated oak wood fired brisket.
The famous Super-Que sauces are the finishing touch, starting sweet, fruity and smoky, then sparkling with a fiery bite ranging from mild to tongue searing hot.
Meals are full deals, too, coming with cake-like corn bread or wheat bread and delicious sides, such as mac ‘n’ cheese with a molten cheesy top, crisp coleslaw, soupy collard greens and candied yams that could make a fine dessert.
Fans also turn those tasty calories into dancing fuel, with the live soul, jazz and blues music at Q’s Lounge or Dotha’s Juke Joint, playing Fridays, Saturdays or for special events.
GUADALAJARA RESTAURANT & TEQUILA BAR
An informal, family setting greets guests who flock here for delicious authentic food and unique specialities such as Ma-
riscada (a Portuguese dish) that have made this Pelayo familyowned Mexican eatery such a success. Served in a heaping helping of shrimp, octopus, fish, crab legs, calamari, clams and abalone, it can be prepared as you like: a la diabla (in spicy chile sauce), grilled or sauteed in robust garlic sauce.
The entire menu is impressive, encompassing breakfast, lunch and dinner, in five packed pages tempting with authentic dishes like eggs scrambled with tender cactus and tomatoes, chicken mole and chile Colorado of juicy sirloin tips smothered in red chile and served with rice, a choice of pinto whole or refried beans and capped in melted Jack cheese and tortillas.
Most of the time, diners crave a nap after one of these flavor bomb feasts (paired with 100 percent agave Tequila margaritas, of course), but the lively mariachi music bounces off the colorful mural-tiled walls and keeps the party going. And the restaurant’s location near the Fruitvale BART station means you can leave the car at home.
The Guadalajara concept is a favorite all across Oakland, actually, spanning to other Pelayo family outposts, including El Agavero Restaurant & Bar, the El Novillo taco truck and the Tacos Guadalajara taco truck. KRONNERBURGER
The Impossible Burger is a thing of beauty, crafted of wheat, coconut oil, potatoes and something called heme, an iron-containing molecule in blood that makes the patty smell so good, sizzle so nicely, and yes, bleed. It may sound a bit odd and entirely un-vegan, but heme is also abundant in legumes, so Impossible’s recipe comes from soybean-based yeast.
Whatever. We’ll leave that art to the culinary scientists. All we know is that this actually tastes like glorious beef, with true meaty flavor and texture. Classically topped with lettuce, charred onion, vegan mayo and dill pickles on a pain de mie gluten-free bun, the quarter pounder can also be finished with cheddar or plopped on a vegan bun.
The patties are even locally sourced with Impossible Foods recently launching its new 67,000-square-foot production facility in Oakland.
Not that everything at this modern, concrete, metal, marble and wood trimmed shop goes for the healthy set, though. We dream of the Kennebec fries flooded in Cream Co. beef shank and cheek gravy under a flurry of white cheddar cheese curds or the pickle brined hot chicken atop good old white bread with dill pickles.
And that Impossible Burger, by the way — plus the Earth Burger veggie model — can be ceremoniously calori-fied with the addition of bone marrow, pimento cheese and/or bacon.