Dyafa finds a home, Oasis bids farewell
Less than a year after opening the doors to her namesake bakery in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, Reem Assil will double her East Bay culinary footprint with Dyafa, a finedining concept in the former Haven space at Jack London Square.
The name derives from an Arabic phrase for hospitality which Assil says succinctly embodies the spirit of her new concept. At Dyafa, customers will get treated like family, she says.
Conceptually it’s a notable departure from her year-old bakery Reem’s California. The popular East Bay spot specializes in “street food” like man’oushe while Dyafa, Assil says, will use the lens of fine dining to take a deeper dive into the oft-misunderstood nuances of Arab cuisine and culture.
It’s still very early in the development process so the menu at Dyafa has yet to solidify, but early details are that its foundation will be shared plates. Assil says to expect cold dips, braised meats with yogurt sauce, and spiced fish. The bread at Dyafa will come from Reem’s and the dessert menu will “have dishes people have never seen.”
Dyafa will court the happy hour crowd at Jack London Square with wines from Palestine and Lebanon and beer from the rising number of microbreweries in Lebanon and on the West Bank.
If Reem’s California was the introduction to Assil’s culinary journey, Dyafa is the story’s first full chapter.
National attention has been heaped on the young chef since she took her namesake bakery from a pop-up to a vibrant new brick-and-mortar restaurant. The food was lauded for its authenticity and the chef for her unapologetic openness on everything from race relations to politics and cultural appropriation.
The positive culinary attention Assil garnered in 2017 culminated recently with her first James Beard Award nomination. She’s one of several Bay Area chefs in the running for 2018’s Best Chef West.
Assil also navigated controversy in 2017, much of it stemming from the mural inside Reem’s of Palestinian activist Rasmeah Odeh who in 1970 was convicted by the Israeli government for her connection to a deadly grocery story bombing in Jerusalem.
Assil said she received death threats because of the image. Yelp commenters hoped her business would burn down, she said. Bay Area residents boycotted her location.
“I wasn’t super naive about having her on the wall but I was naive to an extent. But this woman to me was an organizer. She was civically engaged and she was in it for the people. That’s why we put her on the wall,” Assil said.
Assil says Dyafa will have the same spirit, just in a more refined setting. Politics, race, the intricacies of Arab food and culture, social justice issues, it will all be on the table at Dyafa, she says.
“This is another education opportunity. With places like this, it’s important to have Arab chefs behind them,” Assil said. “I’m the window to the American public and I can translate things from my culture in a way that hasn’t been done before. It’s something for Arabs to feel proud of.” Dyafa: Opening TBD; 44 Webster St., Oakland
The Oasis Beer Garden of Menlo Park (241 El Camino Real), the Peninsula institution known as much for its burgers and beers as for the generations of names scrawled into most of its wood surfaces, will close next month after roughly six decades of business.
According to the restaurant’s Facebook page, the closure is a result of failed lease negotiations between the Tougas family, who operate the business, and the building’s landlord. Its final day of service will be March 7.
“After several months of effort, we were unable to negotiate a reasonable lease for our business, nor meet the requested terms of the building’s owner,” the Facebook post reads. “Therefore, we have made the very difficult decision to close our doors, and bid farewell to the endearing community of Menlo Park and Stanford University.”