Chef John Bentley set to call it a career.
Chef John Bentley is calling it a career. Diners share memories, lament the loss of another classic Peninsula restaurant
They’re coming for one last appetizer of tuna tartare. Another classic dish of sweetbreads. Or one more of those juicy pork chops.
Because after March 31, John Bentley won’t be cooking for them any longer.
The Peninsula chef who has been serving up four-star cuisine for decades — with, his customers
say, stellar service to match — is calling it a career and closing his namesake restaurant in Redwood City.
“It’s just time,” he says, then ticks off the reasons, as if anyone needs to defend a decision to retire from the grueling restaurant business. “My wife and I are soon to be 63. I’ve been doing this the better part of 40 years. We have a 2-year-old grandson.”
Then he adds simply, “I’ve had a very blessed and incredible
run,” and says his family deserves all the thanks for allowing him to pursue this dream.
The San Francisco native started his career at the city’s Lipizzaner, the Clift’s Four Seasons, Michael’s of Sunnyvale and then the Los Altos Bar & Grill. But he made a name for himself, so to speak, at two eponymous restaurants. He opened the first John Bentley’s in 1995 in Woodside’s historic firehouse, then bought
the former Fabbro’s, located in a former Prohibition speakeasy on El Camino Real in Redwood City, and moved John Bentley’s there.
Soon, the two-story building, with its wisteria-covered walkway, will make way for senior housing. News of the closing came as no surprise to Bentley’s staff, some of whom have been with him for years. He clued them in two years ago about the property’s sale and his future plans. Most opted to stay with him.
And he gave a few months’ advance warning to his clientele.
“This place is a landmark,” said Alan Kushnir of Woodside, enjoying a final meal here with his wife, Carole, and a final chat with Bentley, who circulates through the dining room
every evening. They’ve held milestone birthday dinners and other family events here for years. “It’s so sad, but we’re happy for John.”
The combination of cuisine and camaraderie is a big draw.
Sitting across the room were football great Jim Plunkett and his wife, Gerry, who have been frequent guests since Bentley’s early days. “It’s like family, a community here,” she says. “When we walk in here we know 70 percent of the people,” Jim adds before launching into his pork (ordered medium, he says, because it’s a bone-in chop).
And if you don’t run into someone you know, you’ll make friends quickly if you eat at the bar, according to Tony Spencer and wife Chris McDonnell of Atherton.
“This is the best seat in town,” he says. “You end up meeting the people on either side of you.”
Bentley’s is the latest in a long string of sentimental closings around here. Diners remarked about last year’s final days at Chantilly, an old-school dinner house also in Redwood City.
And longtime customers Douglas and Toni Allen bemoaned the loss of other El Camino Real classics, from The Lanai up north in San Mateo long ago to the recent closing of The Oasis just south in Menlo Park. And now this.
Over the years, Bentley received four-star reviews from the Mercury News. The first came from the late David L. Beck, a famously picky critic, who visited during the first restaurant’s honeymoon period and pronounced: “The man can flat-out cook.” Beck’s successor, Sheila Himmel, followed up some years later with her own four-star declaration.
Still on today’s menu is the dessert that Beck
and Himmel raved about back in the 1990s. Bentley started out as a pastry chef, so it’s not surprising that he’s been baking his ethereal apple tart ever since.
“The crust is big enough to cover an entire plate but practically light enough to float,” Beck wrote. “He fills it with wafer-thin slices of apple, not too sweet, and tops it with sun-dried cherry-vanilla ice cream. It’s
a remarkably assured performance.”
This week, diners tucked into that and an array of longtime favorites — former GM Jeffrey Frey says chef John sets the standard for sweetbreads; the Allens had the quail and the tuna tartare; and Gerry Plunkett always orders the sticky toffee pudding for dessert.
However varied the dishes, the talk at most every table centered on just one topic: Where will everyone go for a fine-dining experience when Bentley’s closes?
Matt and Jenny Viguerie say it’s not just the great food that’s kept them driving down the road here from Burlingame since they moved to Northern California four years ago. It’s the ambiance and the high level of service that Bentley and his staff have maintained.
“How do you knock it out of the park every time?” Matt says.
Carole Kushnir thought she had a solution: “We’re going to have to cook at home. We should ask John for some recipes.”
Husband Alan shook his head.
“It’s called intellectual property here in Silicon Valley. He’s not going to give that away.”