Michelin honors 68 Bay Area restaurants with Bib Gourmands
On Tuesday, Michelin released its 2019 Bib Gourmand list — awards given to restaurants that offer “excellent food at reasonable prices” — and 68 Bay Area restaurants made the grade, including eight newcomers.
The awards are a precursor to Michelin’s star awards, which will be announced Thursday.
The first-time Bib Gourmand honorees in this region include four restaurants in Oakland — Dyafa, Nyum Bai, Soba Ichi and Teni East Kitchen — and one in San Jose, Luna Mexican Kitchen.
The other newcomers are based in Wine Country: Ciccio in Yountville, El Molino Central in Sonoma and Gran Electrica in Napa.
Ethnic cuisines figured prominently in this year’s additions, with Michelin noting that the 42 cuisines on the overall list “highlight the Bay Area’s diverse and varied dining scene.”
Also notable is the number of new female honorees: Reem Assil of Dyafa, Nite Yun of Nyum Bai, Jo Lerma-Lopez of Luna Mexican Kitchen and Tiyo Shibabaw of Teni East Kitchen. Highlights from the list:
• Dyafa is the new fine dining Middle Eastern restaurant from Reem Assil, the James Beard Award semifinalist and owner of Oakland’s popular Arabic bakery, Reem’s California. She opened the waterfront restaurant last spring in partnership with chef Daniel Patterson. The menu showcases braised meats, local seafood, grains and mezze with Assil’s signature freshly baked breads.
• San Jose entrepreneurs Jo Lerma-Lopez and John Lopez reinvigorated a vintage building on The Alameda that housed a Mexican mainstay for about 60 years and transformed it into Luna Mexican Kitchen. They offer a healthful, authentic menu that features tortillas pressed by hand daily from organic, non-GMO corn and artisanal ingredients from local vendors.
• Nyum Bai is chef Nite Yun’s bold, colorful take on Cambodian street food. With the help of La Cocina incubator, Yun turned her acclaimed noodle pop-up into a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Oakland’s Fruitvale transit village area.
• In 2017, chef Tiyo Shibabaw combined her background from years at the Burma Superstar restaurants with her Ethiopian roots and opened her own place, Teni East Kitchen, where she interprets those cuisines with California ingredients. The restaurant is in Oakland’s Uptown district.
• Handmade soba noodles are the star at Soba Ichi, a West Oakland restaurant opened by the team behind Ippuku in Berkeley. That venture also holds a Bib Gourmand award.
The Bib Gourmands, which were introduced in 1997, are awarded by Michelin inspectors who dine anonymously around the world.
The honorees are restaurants that offer diners two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less.
Many Bay Area restaurants retained their Bib Gourmands, including The Bywater (Los Gatos); Orchard City Kitchen (Campbell); China Village (Albany); Comal, Corso, Great China and Ippuku (all in Berkeley); Thai House (Danville); Vesta (Redwood City); Royal Feast and Wonderful (Millbrae); Millennium and Wood Tavern (of Oakland); and Pausa (San Mateo).
The remaining honorees are in San Francisco, Marin County or Wine Country.
Dropping off the list were a handful of restaurants, including two in Oakland that closed as their owners pursue new ventures. Chef-owner Tanya Holland of West Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen is opening new eateries in uptown Oakland and San Francisco. And the owners of Oakland’s Michel Bistro have closed that restaurant and reopened it as a supper club, Bardo.
There could be other reasons for lack of inclusion, a Michelin representative said: The restaurant may have lost the distinction, for example, or had a change in chef.