Tag Archives: new Palo Alto restaurant

Teleferic Barcelona Opens With A Sizzle in Palo Alto

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The Catalon G&T at the new Telefèric Barcelona in Palo Alto.
The Catalon G&T at the new Telefèric Barcelona in Palo Alto.

There’s no doubt that Palo Alto’s Town & Country Village is a happening place. Just try to park there most any time of day or night, and you’ll be hunting for a parking spot because that’s how busy it gets.

Now, it’s bound to get even crazier than the long lines there for Boba Guys. That’s because the new Teleferric Barcelona just opened its doors last week, with plenty of Spanish flair, pulsating music, and flaming cocktails lighting up the dining room.

It’s the second Bay Area locale for the Teleferic Barcelona Restaurant Group of Barcelona, joining the original Teleferic Barcelona that opened in Walnut Creek in 2016.

Brother and sister, Xavi and Maria Padrosa took over the original restaurant in Barcelona, which their mother had started. They were lured to bring their concept stateside by a Walnut Creek developer.

Xavi Padrosa had long wanted to open a restaurant in Palo Alto, a city close to his heart since he lived there for seven years while attending Foothill College in Los Altos Hills and Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Just inside the entry way.
Just inside the entry way.
The bar.
The bar.
Seats right in front of the open kitchen.
Seats right in front of the open kitchen.

The contemporary Palo Alto restaurant is all clean lines with a long bar, sleek open kitchen, colorful Spanish tiles, and basket-like light fixtures. When it’s full, as it was for a friends-and-family and media dinner that I attended the night before it opened to the public, it can be very loud. You will have to lean over the table to converse with your dining companion.

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First Look At the Hotly Anticipated Protege

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Gilded hush puppies on a bed of popped sorgham at the new Protege in Palo Alto.

Gilded hush puppies on a bed of popped sorgham at the new Protege in Palo Alto.

 

After more than a year of permitting and construction delays, Protege, arguably the most highly anticipated restaurant around, finally opened its doors to the public on Tuesday.

Passersby have been peeking in the windows for months, streaking them with hand prints and even nose prints, so eager to experience this restaurant by French Laundry alums, Executive Chef Anthony Secviar and Master Sommelier Dennis Kelly. They are joined by Pastry Chef Eddie Lopez, who also hails from the French Laundry, as well as Grace in Chicago and Vintage Cave in Honolulu.

With that kind of culinary star-wattage, is it any wonder that the night this California Avenue restaurant quietly debuted, there were already half a dozen people anxiously waiting outside half an hour beforehand to be one of the very first inside?

Head Chef Anthony Secviar readying a dish a few weeks before the grand opening.

Head Chef Anthony Secviar readying a dish a few weeks before the grand opening.

The kitchen on opening night.

The kitchen on opening night.

I was one of them, along with two friends, snagging seats at the chic, back-lighted bar, and paying our tab at the end. There are purse hooks underneath, of course, along with some of the most comfy nappa leather bar stools I’ve ever sat in.

Sit on the stools closest to the kitchen and you can peer in at all the activity as Secviar calls out the orders, and the cooks all respond in unison, “Oui, Chef!”

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True Food Kitchen — The New Face of Healthy

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True Food Kitchen emphasizes anti-inflammatory foods. And hey, dark chocolate, in a flourless cake, qualifies.

True Food Kitchen emphasizes anti-inflammatory foods. And hey, dark chocolate, in a flourless cake, qualifies.

 

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that the new True Food Kitchen, which opened this week in the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, is steps from SoulCycle and a Peloton indoor cycling bike showroom. What’s more, there’s even an art piece on the main wall that depicts a cyclist.

After all, this casual restaurant chain, which has 14 locations around the country and will debut a second Bay Area location in Walnut Creek at Broadway Plaza on Oct. 18, is all about a healthful lifestyle.

In fact, founder Sam Fox of Fox Restaurant Concepts, established True Food Kitchen with Dr. Andrew Weil, a physicianm noted guru of holistic health and alternative medicine, and proponent of the anti-inflammatory diet. That diet emphasizes whole grains, extra virgin olive oil, omega-3 fatty acid fish such as salmon and sardines, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. It cautions against too much saturated fat and animal protein, and recommends tea over coffee, and red wine of any other alcohol.

The new restaurant opened this week in the Stanford Shopping Center.

The new restaurant opened this week in the Stanford Shopping Center.

The large dining room at True Food Kitchen.

The large dining room.

To that end, the restaurant offers a wide selection of gluten-free, organic, vegetarian, and vegan options.  

But that’s not to say the food is austere by any means. Or hippy-dippy.

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Cozy Up to Zola in Palo Alto

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Chocolate mousse made extra special with coffee gelee at Zola in Palo Alto.

Chocolate mousse made extra special with coffee gelee at Zola in Palo Alto.

 

If French writer Emile Zola was all about literary realism, then Palo Alto’s new Zola restaurant pays fitting tribute with its seasonal French cooking that keeps it real and all together soulful.

Chef-Proprietor Guillaume Bienaime opened his intimate downtown restaurant in late-September. The former fine-dining chef at Marche in Menlo Park has consulted on restaurants over the past couple of years. But Zola is his own venture and you can tell he’s poured his heart into it.

Recently, I met up with a friend for dinner there, with us paying the tab at the end of the meal. It’s a cozy space done up in denim-colored walls beside exposed brick, bare wood tables and classic cafe chairs.

The dining room is compact, but it is inviting.

The dining room is compact, but it is inviting.

It’s the kind of place where you can come in jeans, and settle in with a glass of French Rhone wine and a plate of short ribs done Bourguignon-style, and emerge feeling restored.

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Lure + Till Takes Root in Downtown Palo Alto

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First of the season Alaskan halibut at Palo Alto's Lure + Till.

First of the season Alaskan halibut at Palo Alto’s Lure + Till.

 

What was once a senior care facility in downtown Palo Alto has morphed into a splashy new boutique hotel and restaurant.

The eight-story Epiphany Hotel, a Joie de Vivre property, opened at the end of March after a  year of demolition that took the structure down to the studs, followed by nearly two years of construction.

The six-story mosaic of El  Palo Alto, the 1,000-year-old coastal redwood for which the city is named, was kept on the outside of the building. Moreover, throughout the structure there are nods to both that tree and to the city’s prominent place in Silicon Valley history. For instance, binary code is used as lighted artwork in the lobby. Historic maps of Palo Alto adorn hallways. Room rugs are woven with tree images. Cocoon-like “hoodie” chairs on the mezzanine not only have built-in outlets but were designed to be noise-cancelling. And perhaps in the ultimate oxymoron, the desks for all those hustle-bustle guests who never met an electronic device they didn’t like were made by the Amish.

Only in Silicon Valley: binary code as art.

Only in Silicon Valley: binary code as art.

The chic lobby.

The chic lobby.

Now, I’m not in the habit of snapping pictures of urinals in the men’s room. But this one was too good not to memorialize after being escorted in by the general manager. Yes, in the men’s room of a hotel just a stone’s throw from Stanford University, you will find this unique urinal, a deprecating symbol of the Big Game rivalry between the two institutions.

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