Calabash to fill missing food niche
Nigel Jones knows the soft, yellowish flesh of the African fruit ackee is almost as rare a sight on a Bay Area restaurant menu as saltfish, a Caribbean staple usually made from cured cod.
The same can be said for fesenjan, a deeply flavorful Iranian stew, or nasi lemak, a fragrant Malaysian rice dish.
The Bay Area restaurant scene might be hailed as one of the country’s most vibrant, but there’s a problem with the widely accepted sentiment, according to Jones — it dismisses the region’s notable lack of Afro-Caribbean, Malaysian and Persian food businesses. “There’s just no representation, really, for these places,” said Jones, who is the chefowner of Caribbean spots Kaya in San Francisco and Kingston 11 in Oakland. “So, the question is how do we
start to fix this?”
After two years of contemplation, Jones has an answer: Calabash, a restaurant and marketplace in Oakland. The name is a reference to the gourd commonly found in Africa and the Caribbean. Depending on when it’s harvested, the calabash can be used for various functions.
“It can be food as a fruit, or it can be dried out and used as a bowl to carry water. Some Jamaicans have used it as a pipe. In the Middle East it can be used to make a setar,” Jones said. “Calabash goes across a lot of different cultures and nationalities. It represents more than just a fruit or vegetable. That’s why we picked that name.”
The project will open as part of a housing development on the 2300 block of Valdez, essentially right behind Oakland’s popular AlaMar Kitchen. The business at this point is little more than blueprints and renderings, which depict a 3,000-squarefoot dining area and a nearly 900-square-foot mezzanine, but Jones and his team are hoping to open it by September.
Joining Jones in the Oakland venture is Malaysian chef Azalina Eusope, the chef-owner of Azalina’s in San Francisco. Calabash is just the latest project for Eusope, who grew up in Penang, an island in northwest Malaysia. She operates a permanent counter in the Market Street food hall and is heading to Noe Valley with a new restaurant at 1320 Castro St., the former home of Contigo.
Rounding out the group of Calabash talent is Iranian chef Hanif Sadr who runs Komaaj, a pop-up restaurant and catering company in Berkeley. Sadr’s food focuses on the flavors of northern Iran — think tea, rice and citrus from the Caspian Sea that are all turned into the flour for gluten-free breads.
“There’s no place like this in the entire country,” Jones said, speaking of the project.
Calabash, on the restaurant side, will have one menu, Jones said. All of the chefs will contribute dishes to it. Where they’ll branch apart will be in the marketplace.
“If you look at places like Whole Foods, the prepared foods component is really successful. It’s something that just works in the industry today because people want to be able to grab something and get home,” Jones said. “With this, we can give more of a platform to Afro-Caribbean food, to Malaysian food, to Persian food. Now people can pick these things up and take them home, become more familiar with them.”
Calabash will have a counter-service area and eventually, the business will incorporate take-out and delivery app-ordering services, Jones said. There will also be a full bar, the cocktails, beers and wines the trio of chefs plan to select together.
Jones said he sees Calabash as more than a restaurant and market. It’s a platform for chefs of color, a place where Afro-Caribbean, Malaysian and Iranian families will be able find homespun comfort food.
Calabash, he said, is about inclusion. And he believes it could change the Oakland restaurant industry.
“From here, these other chefs can open spin-offs and side projects,” Jones said. “This is only the beginning.”