Food & Wine honors Bay Area chefs as two of America’s best
Every year since 1988, the editors at Food & Wine have undergone a monthslong nationwide search for the most promising and dynamic culinary talents in America.
This year, two beloved Bay Area chefs — Oakland pitmaster Matt Horn of Horn Barbecue and San Francisco chef de cuisine Gaby Maeda of State Bird Provisions — have made the magazine’s 2021 list of 11 best up-and-coming chefs in the country.
The coveted title means these culinary trailblazers are doing some of the most dynamic cooking in the United States right now. This year, it also means that they are reinventing the restaurant experience with communityoriented leadership.
Horn first began gaining a following for his smoked meats during his pop-up days in West Oakland, where he opened Horn BBQ in 2020 to long lines, roadtripping fans and national rave reviews. During the pandemic, Horn served more than 10,000 meals to hospital and front-line workers. Now he has two more restaurants in the works, Matty’s Old Fashioned and Kowbird, set to open this year.
After a five-year stint at Gary Danko, Maeda, a Honolulu native, climbed the ladder at State Bird Provisions faster than most 24-year-olds. Now, at 30, she is running the kitchen — more focused on being a good manager, according to Food & Wine, than winning accolades, though she already has a James Beard nomination — and the Asian culinary influences from her childhood run deeply throughout the Michelin-starred restaurant’s menu.
The profiles of the class of 2021, including each chef’s favorite places to dine in their cities, can be found at foodandwine.com/ bestnewchefs.
Chef Baca takes over MLK Library restaurant at SJSU
Chef-cured smoked pastrami has come to the San Jose State University campus.
Downtown chef Rodney Baca and his culinary venture, The Shop by Chef Baca, have taken over the restaurant space outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, the main San Jose library serving both the public and the university.
On weekdays this semester, Baca and team will serve breakfast burritos, burgers, bacon mac and cheese, salads and his signature panini and sandwiches from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with later hours until 8:30 on Friday evenings when the corner of Fourth and San Fernando streets hosts the “Every Friday” event with live music.
Baca made his name with pastrami — the brining and smoking take five days — at San Jose Sharks games. The thickly sliced meat is topped with maple aioli coleslaw and served on a roll with pineapple molasses mustard, house-made pickles and caramelized onions.
Other sandwiches include coffeerubbed brisket with a New Mexico green chile barbecue sauce, a BLT panini, a meatball sandwich with San Marzano tomato sauce and Italian cold cuts. All sauces and dressings are made in-house.
The Shop by Chef Baca is a venture that blends the backgrounds of Baca, a New Mexico native who has been a chef in top-tier restaurants from Los Angeles to Europe, and his wife, Madelyn, a San Jose native who brings the home-cooking sensibility to the equation. For this location, they have partnered with Frank Nguyen, owner of downtown’s Academic Coffee, to supply the beans.
DETAILS >> 150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose; theshopbychefbaca.square. site
Authentic loco moco, shave ice at San Bruno ‘general store’
If you’re longing for some aloha, skip the flight and head to San Bruno.
You may remember the city’s wildly popular Hawaiian-Japanese brunch spot, Morning Wood, from chef Chad Kaneshiro and his co-owner and wife, Monica. They closed in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, but with plans to reopen this year in San Mateo.
In its place, they have unveiled Diamond Head General Store by Morning Wood, a casual, pandemic-friendly takeout spot showcasing many favorites and a few new items. The shop and eatery is an ode to the food culture of Kaneshiro’s native Oahu and it is already hopping.
On the shelves at 260 El Camino Real, you might find guava jam or shoyu peanuts; in the freezer, poi or pork steamed in luau leaves; and on the kitchen menu, loco moco with beef patty or kalua pork ($18); fried mochiko chicken with rice and macaroni salad ($17); and a chili frank plate with house-made beef and bean chili, cheese, onions and grilled hot dog ($18).
The poke bowls (market fish price) highlight fresh, top-notch seafood, from shoyu tuna to ginger salmon and octopus. Also look for fried saimin, poutine, daily bento boxes and more. Leave room for shave ice ($6). Diamond Head has its own machine with several traditional Hawaiian syrups (like passion fruit, orange and guava) and house-made seasonal fruit purees, including pineapple, berry and mango. Toppings like adzuki, matcha powder and housemade mochi are also available.
Impossible chicken nuggets land early at Gott’s locations
Gott’s Roadside is among the first restaurants in the Bay Area to offer Impossible’s much-anticipated chicken nuggets before they hit frozen food aisles later this month.
The plant-based nuggets have arrived in Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Marin and other Gott’s locations as a limited-time, eight-week special. The eight crispy nuggets, coated with seasoned breadcrumbs, will continue on the menu if they prove successful. They are served with fries and housemade dips, like ranch, barbecue sauce and honey mustard, for $13.
The new menu item comes on the heels of Beyond Meat’s chicken tenders launch back in July. And their debut at Gott’s comes two weeks before the nuggets go into wider distribution at Safeway and Walmart stores in late September.
What’s in them? The nuggets are made from sunflower oil, soybean oil, wheat flour and texturized soy. They have 12 grams of protein per serving and 40% less saturated fat than animal-based chicken nuggets. They’re also better for the planet than chicken nuggets, the company claims, because production uses less land and water and generates fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Gott’s is not new to the plantbased game. In 2017, it became one of the first fast-casual restaurants in the nation to add Impossible Burger to its menu.