Making a reservation for lunch is not my style, especially when the source of that reservation is about 2,000 miles away.
But I made a reservation for the upstairs cafe at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. I wanted to see the Alice Waters institution behind the hype.
I was already going to be in San Francisco. Even though I had been in the Bay Area a few times, I had walked past Chez Panisse and thought "I'll never eat here."
To be fair, the dinner is intimidating. $100 and you don't get to pick anything. The prix-fixe menu is determined on the day you eat. All of that was very outside my comfort zone.
Since my last trip in 2010, I learned that lunch in the cafe was an option. Lunch at the Chez Panisse cafe isn't nearly as intimidating. You have a choice of salads and starters, entrees, and desserts. Sure you might pay more than usual for lunch, but the prices were reasonable.
Now I only had to get over my stigma of making lunch reservations.
You have to call to make the reservation. Amazingly, I called on a Monday and got a table for one on that Friday for the time I wanted (1:15).
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Click here for an expanded look at the menu I had that day.
They are very thorough at Chez Panisse. Even for a lunch reservation, I got a phone reminder 2 days before and an e-mail reminder leading up to lunch on Friday. While I thought the attention was too much, I confess I enjoyed it. All this for lunch.
You can't prepare for the menu of the day until that day. In an era where you can check most every restaurant menu imaginable, you can't at Chez Panisse. Though on Friday, you could find the day's menu but decided to be surprised.
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You can certainly eat whatever breakfast you desire before your Chez Panisse lunch, but you are smart to explore the Cheese Board Collective across the street. Get one of the baked goods to start your day, taste amazing cheeses starting at 10 am, and even grab a slice of the pizza if you are having a late lunch.
The Wolverine is a crusty sourdough roll with dried fruit and nuts in the mix. Almost sure I had this in 2010. If you want a hearty breakfast that isn't too sweet, the Wolverine is a great way to start the day.
The establishments are part of Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto (more on this later). Yes, you could dash in to Berkeley just for lunch, but you'll find that stretching out your time is a lot more relaxing.
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I accidentally went to the side of Chez Panisse. This proved fruitful since someone found me and took me through the downstairs kitchen. That was a nice treat. The downstairs crowd gets to see the kitchen in motion. I got a free, though very quick, observation.
Both floors are very sophisticated, but the cafe portion upstairs was fancy but not intimidating. I was a few minutes early and promptly seated. I was in for an elegant experience.
The light fixtures is not something I notice in a restaurant, but this one was worth a photo. Had a Frank Lloyd Wright spirit not just in the light fixture but in the restaurant.
I had not been inside before the 2013 fire but you wouldn't be able to tell there was a fire. The open kitchen downstairs ended up that way after a more severe 1982 fire in the restaurant.
I didn't pick my seat at Chez Panisse, but I ended up with a great view of Marin County. This definitely added to the experience.
Since I looked blind at the menu, I was definitely in for a bit of reading. Cardoon, persimmon, and chicories were some of the food words I knew little to zero about on the menu.
I couldn't even focus on the desserts since that felt too far into the future. I found a few potential starters in mind, but decided on an entree that included a salad. My selection — seafood (a piece of sole, 2 scallops, and 2 shrimp) in a fritto miso with roasted potatoes with chevril mayonnaise and a cardoon and chicories salad — edged out homemade rigatoni puttanesca, a duck leg, and other fine entree choices.
I mulled getting 2 entrees but smartly ordered one and then waited to see how hungry I would be later.
I had bread and butter, which was fine, but didn't want to fill up too much on bread for such a fine lunch.
The fritto miso was the most expensive entree on Friday's menu ($26), though as noted, the entree came with a small salad, so perhaps I got the best deal. I wasn't too worried about money even if this was the most expensive lunch I would have done in some time.
Fritto miso was explained as soaking in buttermilk and lightly and quickly deep-fried. My server mentioned that the scallops only lasted 30 seconds in the very hot oil.
The meal was light yet filling in a way that I can't explain in words. I ate the salad first though everything was on the same plate. The cardoon and chicories were barely dressed yet revealed a lot; think Elizabeth Taylor in a slip in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." The dressing and greens neutralized each other so there wasn't much taste. That sounds like a bad thing but it wasn't. You wanted to keep eating the salad and that was a good thing.
The chevril mayonnaise was there seemingly for the seafood, but I enjoyed the seafood sans sauce. The mayonnaise was well-suited for the roasted potatoes. The potatoes were quite good by themselves but the mayonnaise complemented the potatoes exceptionally well. This looked more like an aioli, but the menu said "mayonnaise."
I still had the rigatoni in mind as a second entree, but I was too busy savoring the "first" meal. I ate much slower than I usually do for even the best dinners. My view was out the window, where I could see Marin County in the distance. I didn't pick where I sat, but was very happy with the view.
Besides being tempted by a second entree, I also thought about dessert: that chocolate and hazelnut tartine was $12 but quite tempting.
The couple next to me, from Cambidge, MA, were on their initial voyage at Chez Panisse. He got the rigatoni puttanesca. While that looked good, I was glad that a) I didn't order the rigatoni and b) I didn't order 2 entrees.
While I had considered a second entree or dessert, I decided at the end of the meal to stop. I wanted to go out on a good note. I felt full and satisfied: didn't want to mess with that combination.
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Mentioned the Gourmet Ghetto: another fine destination is Andronico's grocery store just south of Chez Panisse on Shattuck. While shopping at Andronico's, I came upon Petitpot chocolate pot de creme. The company was based in Oakland, so this was a local product. I checked with the store to make sure they had spoons available. The store had a microwave oven and plastic utensils.
So the pot de creme was my dessert after Chez Panisse. I hadn't planned on this kind of a treat. The grocery store even had outdoor tables with umbrellas so customers can enjoy their purchases.
Next week, I'll share how you can carry the spirit of a Chez Panisse meal in your home.
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