Braise brings inventive plates to Willow Glen
The newest fine-dining destination in the San Jose neighborhood focuses on upscale comfort food
Since Braise opened in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose this fall, getting into its lime-green barnstyle door without a reservation has been difficult. The town’s excited, understandably. The last fine-dining restaurant to open here was Black Sheep Brasserie back in 2015.
And while Braise is smaller and slightly more casual, its vegetable-forward menu and small plates focus makes it a great alternative for Black Sheep fans as well as regulars at The Table, also on Lincoln Avenue.
Braise chef and partner Anthony Jimenez comes from The Table, and you’ll see elements of his upscale comfort food on the menu. Owner and fellow South Bay chef Josh Hanoka of Bray Butcher Block brings the meat savvy, with items like pastrami lamb tongue and a New York strip steak with smoked trout butter.
Braise’s menu is divided into bites ($7-$12), small plates ($12 each), mains ($20-$27) and communal ($18-$36) with a dozen cocktails ($11 each) and a focused, by-the-glass wine list ($10$16). For a balanced cocktail that pairs well with food, try the gin-based national, made with grapefruit, cinnamon, cacao, lemon and sparkling wine in a flute.
As with many modern restaurants, the small plates were the most exciting part of the menu. I strongly recommend starting with the cheddar beignets ($7). These warm, two-bite beauties are impossibly soft and gooey, with just the right amount of pungent aged white cheddar flavor balanced with sweet local honey.
I loved the inventive crispy chickpea, a flavorful, cumin-scented loaf of chickpea puree baked with masa, according to our server, and topped with caramelized onions, roasted cauliflower and blistered shishito peppers. The nutty braised sunchokes served with creamed tahini kale is so seductive in flavor and texture that it will make you forget about boring Brussels sprouts.
From the main dishes, we selected the chili sambal-flecked farro verde fried rice ($22), a super-spicy heap of toothsome farro with carrots, scallions and crispy fried onions. Next time I’ll ask them to go light on the chili sambal. It was almost too spicy for eating big forkfuls.
A great accompaniment to the farro — not to mention a relative bargain — is the Petaluma Farms confit chicken legs ($20). Four large chicken pieces are cured in citrus and salt and then cooked in duck fat for four hours at low heat. They’re dressed with shaved radishes plus dill, mint, basil and cilantro. My only disappointment was the one-note liquid pooled at the bottom of the dish. It tasted like fish sauce but I confirmed that it was fish sauce, lime and vinegar. Still, I could’ve done without it; the liquid seeped into the chicken and made for smelly leftovers. A better idea would have been serving this on the side as a dipping sauce.
Service at Braise was swift and friendly. And the space itself, formerly home to chef Joe Cirone’s eclectic Hay Market and then Over/Under, was inviting and on-trend: dark blue walls, white subway tiles and framed living wall “gardens” gave the restaurant and bar a warm and welcoming vibe. As a local and foodie, I’ll be knocking on that lime-green barn door again soon.