Dining Scene
On the Peninsula: They’re calling it Iberia, 3.0 and it’s a fitting title, given this restaurant’s moves. One of the Bay Area’s longest-running and best-known Spanish eateries, Iberia originally opened in Portola Valley in 1984 and moved 16 years later to Menlo Park. It was displaced from that longtime home last December by a planned redevelopment. Now you’ll find chef-owner Jose Luis Relinque’s signature paellas — he won a 2015 Paella Master Award for his paella de mariscos — and an expanded range of tapas in Belmont, near the Caltrain station. “If anything, this location has a lot more exposure,” Relinque told our Palo Alto Daily News colleagues. Lunch is served Monday-Saturday and dinner nightly; Relinque also expects to resume cooking classes at this location. 740 El Camino Real; reservations: 650-325-8981 or email myiberia@yahoo.com.
Creek brews: Four years after founding his highly regarded Calicraft Brewing Co., Blaine Landberg has thrown open the doors to his first taproom, located in Walnut
Creek’s growing Shadelands district. Besides the 2,000-square-foot taproom, there’s an outdoor beer garden and — talk about farm-to-stein — a sustainable hop field! Look for a dozen Calicraft beers on tap, including Buzzerkeley, a sparking ale that he first dreamed up when living in the dorms at Cal; Chez Panisse, a farmhouse ale; Cali Coast, a Kolsch; Double Dub, a double IPA; and Oak Town, a brown ale. Hours are evolving; check the website, www. calicraft.com, before heading over to 2700 Mitchell Drive.
Sight lines: It’s the perfect time of year for Open Table, the restaurant reservations folks, and their diners to come out with their list of the 100 Most Scenic Restaurants for 2016. Naturally, California, with its long coastline, dominated the list. Close-to-home options for dinner with a view are Salute e Vita Ristorante at Marina Bay in Richmond; La Costanera in Montara, on the Peninsula coast; Sutro’s at the Cliff House in San Francisco; Shadowbrook in Capitola; A Caprice in Tiburon; River’s End in Jenner; and Rustic at the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville. Find more of the great views on the Eat Drink Play blog, http://blogs.mercurynews.com/eat-drink-play/.
‘Top Chef’ menu: First “Top Chef” finalist Melissa King of San Francisco created a number of recipes for Whole Foods’ hot-food bars (we love her miso-roasted cauliflower) in the Bay Area. Now she’s the culinary force behind the taproom menu at the new Santa Clara store. You can order lemongrass meatballs, enoki bacon bites, chicken karaage, King’s Seoul Burger (kimchi, arugula and sesame-gochujang aioli) and her Tokyo Burger (shiitake mushrooms, greens, caramelized onions and yuzu miso aioli) until 10 nightly off Highway 101 at Bowers Avenue. BTW, look for Whole Foods’ next store to open in a couple of months in Walnut Creek.