French rustic
Robin Valerie Low grew up on 23 acres in Solano County, eating the fresh vegetables from her family’s sprawling garden. She later trained at Le Cordon Bleu and studied under chefs at Guy Savor and Les Bookinistes in Paris. Her acclaimed Post Meridian restaurant at the former site of the Kensington Bistro, melds these worlds.
“I blend California organic cuisine—particular family recipes—with French regional,” says Low. “All the things Americans typically love about French food is not high-end restaurant food, it’s what they get when they’re traveling around. I like to take their rustic food and blend it with my idea of what is looking seasonal and good.”
As Low explains her food credo, she declares to one of her chefs—“That’s the most beautiful radicchio I’ve ever seen!” Every minute of this restaurateur’s day is a sprint of multi-tasking as Post Meridian, that kept to a five-night dinner menu during its first year, has just added breakfast and lunch and remodeled the interior. The cozy, airy space is now a gallery for local artists and a spot for Sunday night poetry readings.
Low will offer lunches that are a version of the dinner offerings: dishes like French green lentils and sausage and salads with umph. She is passionate about seasonal, organic and local. “I call around and find out what things are looking like and tasting like,” says Low. “I was tasting two different Cara Cara’s [oranges] today and you can’t believe the difference.”
Post Meridian, 1568 Oak View Avenue @ Colusa Circle, Kensington, (510) 525-1350; postmeridian-kensingtonbistro.com.
—Andrea Lampros
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Intimate Italian
Anis Maamari has worked in Italian restaurants since he left Lebanon for San Francisco’s North Beach 35 years ago. He opened Viva Voce Café in the Oakland hills two years ago, an intimate 60-person Northern Italian restaurant tucked into a small commercial area on Thornhill Drive. Maamari chose the name Viva Voce, which means “long live the voice” or “word of mouth,” because he believes word-of-mouth is the best advertisement for any restaurant.
Maamari, who serves as both head chef and owner, serves thin Tuscany-style pizzas with creative toppings like salsa verde, lime tequila, chicken and avocado; prosciutto, pears and gorgonzola; and smoked salmon, onions and green peppercorns. Pastas can be topped with everything from lobster bisque to a spicy marinara cream sauce with garlic and vodka. Traditional fare like margherita pizzas, lasagnas, and pasta with marinara sauce is available as well. Once a month on Monday nights, Viva Voce hosts a winemakers’ dinner, where customers can sample wines from a particular winery paired with a special menu.
Viva Voce Café, 5761 Thornhill Drive, Oakland, (510) 339-0990; www.vivavocecafe.com.
—Sarah Weld
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Kombucha on tap
Café Lyon, a new wine bar across the street from the Rockridge BART station, also serves homemade kombucha, the wildly popular libation with a recorded history that dates back to the Quin Dynasty in China. “The formula is over 2,000 years old and is used throughout Europe and China,” explains Café Lyon owner Lev Kilun. “People think of it as a magic culture but it’s simply a tea that’s supposed to be fermented.” Kilun brews up batches of kombucha from a green-tea base, mixing it with cassis and water to make a tasty, refreshing beverage. Kilun says his original mixture contains beneficial acids that help with digestion and assist the body’s natural elimination of toxins.
Café Lyon has a distinctly European flavor—quiet, refined and intimate. Elegant and comfortably arranged seating invites conversation and offers privacy. The wine list includes a changing selection of hand-picked offerings described as “wine without borders,” as well as Belgian ales. Kilun hosts a wine tasting every Sunday afternoon from 1 to 3 p.m.
If you’re BART-ing to San Francisco for an evening of music or theater, Lyon offers a light menu of salads, grilled gourmet Lyonnaise sandwiches, soups and pastries. The organic light-roast coffee is from San Rafael coffee roaster Equator. Another nice touch: a flat-screen monitor by the register displays up-to-the-minute BART arrival and departure times.
Café Lyon, 5701 College Ave., Oakland, (510) 547-0800; www.cafelyon.com.
—Andrea Pflaumer
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Local Lagos
As a child in Lagos, Nigeria, Kofo Domingo was held spellbound by her mother’s tales of elegant state dinners attended by her grandfather, a member of the Lagosian royal family. Those stories inspired a passion for food that finally found its expression in Lagosia, the new West African restaurant in Berkeley that Domingo owns with her husband. “About the time I turned 40 I figured I had a good 10 years of hustle left,” laughs Domingo, who is also Lagosia’s head chef. “The restaurant business demands long hours, but when you’re passionate about what you do, it makes it easier.”
Lagosia’s cuisine, served in stylishly modern surroundings, attracts a crowd of young hipsters and Bay Area foodies. Domingo, who attended school and raised her children in the Bay Area, describes West African food as “simple and hearty, with familiar ingredients that are blended and cooked in a different way.”
“We have lots of international influences,” says Domingo. “Some of the items are British staples like Scotch eggs and meat pies . . . and we took the best of the British pastries.” The menu features vegetarian- and meat-based stews and curries, burgers flavored with suya—a habañero-based spice mixture—kebabs, tomato and peanut sauces and lots of plantains. “We cook everything mild,” she adds, “and then ask [each customer] ‘how much heat you can stand’ before preparing their dish.”
Lagosia West African Cuisine, 1725 University Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 540-8833; www.lagosia.com.
—Andrea Pflaumer
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Berkeley’s bayou
After moving to California from his native Baton Rouge in 2002, chef Brandon Dubea was disheartened at the lack of good Cajun food here. Dubea, who grew up in a Louisiana family passionate about cooking, missed the original American cuisine mixing French sauces, Spanish rice, German sausage, okra from Africa and corn from American Indians.
Dubea was wearing his chef’s clothes on his way to work at a College Avenue eatery one day, when Robert Volberg, a Tennessee native who was scouting for a good location to open a restaurant, stopped him. The duo chatted and discovered their shared dream of opening a Cajun/Creole restaurant. Their chance meeting led to Volberg opening Angeline’s Louisiana Kitchen in Berkeley in summer 2006 with Dubea as head chef.
Volberg calls Angeline’s menu a collection of “Louisiana’s greatest hits,” featuring gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp Creole, crawfish étouffée (crawfish in a spicy sauce, over grits), Po’ Boy sandwiches, hush puppies, beignets (deep-fried dough fritters sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar)and Bananas Foster bread pudding. Recently, a New Orleans native told Volberg, “I’ll be back next week and I’m bringing my mother.”
Angeline’s Louisiana Kitchen, 2261 Shattuck Ave. (near Bancroft), Berkeley, (510) 548-6900; www.angelineskitchen.com.
—Anna Mindess
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Comfort kitchen
Need a little home cooking? Owner Gary Rizzo sees Somerset as “a neighborhood restaurant that serves up American comfort food.” His College Avenue restaurant in Oakland offers familiar foods with a fresh spin, served by waiters who know the regulars’ names and their favorite dishes.
Rizzo believes in a menu with recognizable ingredients so patrons don’t have to interrogate the staff to figure out what they are eating. Favorites include chicken pot pie with baby turnips, parsnips and mushrooms under a buttermilk biscuit crust, braised short ribs with chanterelles and polenta and thin-crust individual Sicilian pizzas with fontina, pecorino and goat cheese.
Weekend brunch features lemon ricotta pancakes, smoked trout hash, huevos rancheros, mango bread and pumpkin custard. Breads, including sourdough, batard, biscuits and focaccia, are baked in Somerset’s own kitchen.
Desserts feature a Grand Marnier crème brûlée, molten chocolate cake and apple crisp. The one thing you can’t get at Somerset is the recipe for their moist coconut cake. “Customers beg me for it and even write in to Bon Appétit,” says Rizzo, smiling, “but the ingredients and exact steps are our little secret.”
Somerset, 5912 College Ave., Oakland (510) 428-1823; www.somersetrestaurant.com.
—Anna Mindess
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Fusion muse
Chef Arren Caccamo of Oakland’s Levende East discovered his passion for cooking at his aunt’s Italian restaurant when he was just 11. He quickly moved up to line cook and by age 13 was attending the Culinary Institute of America. His Italian and Japanese background makes him a natural innovator in World Fusion cooking, a blending of flavors and techniques from a variety of cultures. Levende’s menu features elements of Asian, Latin American and Mediterranean cuisines. Specialties include guava-glazed BBQ ribs, tamago-sautéed halibut and mini-tuna burgers with wasabi aioli.
“World Fusion cooking has no boundaries,” Caccamo explains in a rare free moment at his restaurant in Old Oakland. Adds Caccamo, who divides his time as chef between Levende East and Levende Lounge in San Francisco, “Balance is the key.”
Levende East’s casually hip customers can also order creative cocktails from fresh ingredients and rare and limited wines. A DJ playing funk, soul and R &B music sets the mood on Friday and Saturday nights.
Levende East, 827 Washington St., Oakland, (510) 835-5585; www.levendeeast.com.
—Anna Mindess
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Nepalese delights
At Berkeley’s Yak and Yeti Kitchen, you won’t have to trek up steep mountains to enjoy Nepalese cooking. But you can still gaze contemplatively at the Himalayan peaks—hung in mounted photographs—during your meal.
Lata Pradhan was a typist in Kathmandu in 1995 when she won the Diversity Visa Lottery and a chance to move to the United States. She recently opened Yak and Yeti to share her native Nepalese cooking.
Soft-spoken Pradhan says that Nepalese food is similar to food found in neighboring India, but uses less oil and fewer spices and has a shorter cooking time. Pradhan says the most popular food in Nepal is Sekuwa—tender pieces of chicken, lamb, fish or shrimp, marinated in yogurt and spices, cooked in a clay oven and served on a sizzling platter with vegetables.
Pradhan is from the Newari tribe and serves one of its specialties called Chattamari, rice flour pancakes topped with chicken or vegetables that are often served as snacks at the tribe’s festivals. Dal Bhaat is the traditional Nepalese meal of lentils, rice and pickles. Pradhan adds that momo, the steamed dumplings stuffed with meat or veggies, “keep the people who live in the mountains warm.”
Yak and Yeti Kitchen, 2958 College Ave., Berkeley (near Ashby), (510) 981-8145.
—Anna Mindess
