Sistory Thai Kitchen serves its own brand of Thai food in Berkeley, a tough thing to pull off in a city rife with other Thai food options. Where Sistory shines is its willingness to push traditional Thai dishes forward, along with the willingness to riff on dishes with unconventional ingredients. The lobster ravioli tom kha is one shining example of this, along with others like the kanoom jeen nam ngew, a Northern Thailand soup dish boasting a pork and shrimp paste base with vermicelli noodles and a smattering of vegetables tucked inside.

Matt Horn has done it again, this time trading slow smoked meats for crispy fried chicken served between fluffy potato buns or atop puffed buckwheat waffles. In the tastefully updated former Pretty Lady Diner corner space in West Oakland, Horn turns up the heat with Nashville-style hot chicken sandwiches and wings (they’re incredibly spicy, consider yourself warned), and dives down South with the Honey Bird sandwich that’s drenched in sticky sweet honey butter sauce. Don’t skip the housemade lemonade and sweet tea, plus a side of the blissfully complex white mac n’ cheese. 

The co-founder of Sequoia Diner is branching out on her own with Tarocco, a plant-forward restaurant serving California-Mediterranean dishes. The menu changes regularly, but expect to find dishes like grilled cabbage with tahini sauce and herbs, turmeric roasted cauliflower, or breakfast-y plates like chia seed pudding with tahini almond granola, Sicilian orange marmalade, and a variety of seasonal fruit. If you enjoy the food and want more of it, the restaurant also has a meal delivery program serving the same style of food each week.

Chef Juan Jaquez is bringing his fine dining experience to Alameda with Ceron Kitchen, executing a New American menu with touches of details from other cuisines. In dishes like the octopus a la plancha, tendrils of octopus get a punch of Spanish chorizo and beans, and other menu options get similarly thoughtful pairings that showcase Jaquez’s previous work at restaurants such as Paradiso and Boulevard.

Imani Greer is another chef who made the leap from pop-up to a permanent space, bringing his style of vegan food to 14th Street in Oakland. Diners can order a chickn’ n’ waffles, a black bean burger, or create their own bowls, choosing a base of rice, quinoa, or greens (or a combo) and a vegan protein, such as the chorizo made from walnuts and spices.

For now, Joodooboo is primarily a takeout deli operation but don’t let that stop you from swinging by to pick up the Bay’s freshest dooboo, the Korean word for tofu, and a box of banchan. It’s all made right there, in the former Kebabery space, and gets its creamy texture from being cooked at a lower temperature and molded gently, with help from gravity alone. The banchan selection rotates weekly but always offers a constellation of pickled, stewed, and fermented vegetables sourced from farms around the region. 

This University Avenue pizzeria and wine spot comes from a husband-and-wife duo of industry vets who returned to the Bay Area after opening a “very, very good” pasta shop in Chicago, Berkeleyside reports. Now Gerad Gobel and Alexis Rorabaugh pull 12-inch thin-crust pizzas from an electric oven and top them with local burrata, smoked mozzarella, and truffle sauce. Wines and beer are also available to enjoy with a pie on the cute (and heated) rose garden patio.

It’s a little bit difficult to put Baba’s House in a box — the business is part restaurant, part snack shop, and part art gallery. Oh yeah, and there’s a mah jong den, a DJ booth, and a live streaming room. But if food is truly what you’re after, stick to the downstairs space, where there’s a small menu of gyoza, salted egg Caesar salads, and a BHK Beef bowl topped with citrus-soy-marinated ribeye. Don’t forget to head upstairs to the one-of-a-kind snack shop, where White Rabbit candy and jars of chile crisp are displayed on multicolored shelves under the glow of neon lights. 

This pocket-sized bakery shares a home with the Kebabery in South Berkeley, where former Camino pastry chef Marykate McGoldrick crafts rustic desserts and pastries inspired by whatever happens to be in season. The bakery’s hand-painted menu might offer a layered ginger cake with poached pears or a craggy almond-chocolate wafer. But if you want to find out exactly what’s up for grabs, just be sure to swing by during the limited hours: Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  

Bay Area folks love a good rooftop bar, and the lucky residents of the East Bay recently welcomed not just one rooftop bar, but two. High 5ive is the second rooftop bar to debut within the last six weeks, and already people are hyped on not just the views, but also the drink menu, which has vibrant and showy cocktails like the Tony Bennett, which is their smoked version of a manhattan.

Hi Felicia went from a pandemic pop-up hosted on the deck of chef Imana’s Oakland apartment to a brick-and-mortar, bringing the restaurant’s unique style of California comfort food-fine dining to a wider audience. Expect small bites influenced primarily by Mexican culture with global touches throughout, like fried chicken smothered in mole verde or a scallop aguachile dish.

Part commissary kitchen and part cocktail bar, Korner Kitchen & Bar is an undeniable destination for exciting cocktails and a wide selection of food from some of the East Bay’s hottest pop-ups. Noodle Belly, pasta pop-up Sfizio, and Bad Walter’s Ice Cream all call it home, plus there’s an outdoor cocktail bar mixing drinks with playful ingredients like horchata, ube-infused vodka, and Red Bay Coffee cold brew. 

Jamaican restaurant Sweet Fingers closed after a fire in 2019, but made it’s grand return in late January. The new 3,300-square-foot space in Oakland is now home to chef Clive Barnes’ fried plantains, jerk chicken, and oxtail stew.